31st March 2022 All Posts

Case study: Wizard Nursery Group Ltd

Overview

Whiz Kids Day Nursery was established in 2014 and in 2020, Wizard Nursery Group was formed to manage the Group, which today has four childcare settings – across Peterborough, Northampton, and Ibstock – employing 46 early years educators.

The Group is not only committed to providing high-quality childcare in line with the EYFS, but it also has a commitment to sustainability. At its largest site in Lynchwood, Peterborough, it generates much of its own energy needs through solar panels, as well as segregating and recycling much of its waste to help reduce the company’s carbon footprint and minimise pollution. 

Challenge

Back in 2014 when the first Whiz Kids Nursery was established, it was then that the CEO, Liz Debenham, decided she wanted to centralise the setting’s paper-based, time-consuming processes.

The team spent hours each week completing learning journals by hand and as a result of everything living in a different file or spreadsheet, it was difficult for the nursery to track children’s progress effectively.

But it wasn’t solely the learning journals that created unnecessary admin for the Wizard team, they were also using legacy software for billing, which Liz described as “hopeless”. The manual reconciliation of statements took up more valuable time, and so a reliable, automated solution was sought after.

This manual approach to nursery operations wasn’t sustainable operationally or financially, so Wizard decided to overhaul its approach and make the switch to digital.

Solution

After contacting us and having a demo of our software, Wizard invested in our cloud-based nursery management software solution and now uses Connect Childcare, iConnect, and ParentZone.

With four sites to manage, the team now finds running the nurseries much more streamlined, as everything is in one place, and all settings are aligned in how they operate.

Most recently, the Group invested in our contactless payments feature, which means that all parent payments made through the ParentZone app go directly into Wizard’s bank account – and they’re automatically reconciled against each parent account. This new technology has also eliminated the need for the in-nursery card reader, which was an additional cost to the business.

“Connect’s software gives us a greater, more accurate, understanding of the business. It enables us to better track child progress, monitor overall business performance, converts enquiries, and build better relationships with parents. My favourite feature is the reporting and ‘today’ screen. You can put your selected widgets on there and see all the important information at a glance – occupancy levels, staff required, fees, and bad debt, to name a few. It offers a complete window into the organisation. We’ve worked with Connect for almost a decade and we’ve never looked back. During our first ever demo, we were so impressed with the innovative ideas and passion the team had – their ethos matched with ours and it was a natural fit – and we still feel the same way today.”
Liz Debenham
Wizards Nursery Group
Share this article
About the Author

Marketing Lead at Connect Childcare

Latest Posts