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With over 3,400 nurseries in our portfolio, we’ve decided to shine the spotlight on a different one each month, to get to know them a little better!

So, as part of our new, regular Q&A series, it’s over to Kirsty Chaudhry, director of Early Learners Day Nurseries, to tell us more about their workplace, job role and their experience using nursery management software.

1. How long have you worked in the nursery sector?
   I’ve worked in the sector for over 25 years.
   
   
2. Sum up your typical working day in three words:
   Busy, rewarding, and interesting.
   
   
3. Why did you choose Connect Childcare?
   We already had the firm’s iConnect software and found this to be great for logging observations, communicating with parents, and planning. As a result, we wanted to expand our use of the technology to be able to link it to our management programme.
   
   
4. Describe our nursery management software platform in one word?
   Brilliant!
   
   
5. And your favourite feature?
   Finance – it has saved me so much time when completing administrative tasks such as invoicing and reconciling payments.
   
   
6. What’s your biggest challenge as a nursery director?
   Recruiting good staff. We’re lucky to have a great team here at Early Learners and everyone is really committed to their role, but finding new colleagues can be challenging. We love investing in our workforce though and are now looking to take on some apprentices, so we can train the Early Years staff of the future.
   
   
7. But what do you love most about your job?
   Seeing children progress through the nursery – watching them learn new things and have a fun and interesting day is the best.
   
   
8. Complete the sentence: ‘Connect’s technology has enabled us to’…
   … implement a better system for invoicing parents, collecting and recording fees, and managing occupancy. These tasks were previously done manually and very time-consuming.
   
   Connect has transformed this process making it much easier and more streamlined.
   
   
9. When you’re not at work, how do you relax?
   I enjoy spending time with my family, going to the gym, and baking. 
   
   
10. Finally, what advice would you give to nurseries considering investing in management software?
    Choose Connect – the whole process with them has been really good.
    
    At the start of the onboarding process, we were allocated a fantastic implementation manager who made the whole process less daunting – each stage was broken down into sections, making it all manageable and able to be put in place very quickly.