More paperwork than necessary?
Nursery World have recently reported that Early Years Practitioners are doing more paperwork than necessary.
The article reports:
“Findings from a new survey reveal that 84 per cent of early years staff think they produce more paperwork than they need to in the EYFS.
The Workload Survey, which received 1,261 responses from a range of different types of early years settings, also found:
- Almost three-quarters of respondents (70 per cent) said they completed some additional paperwork in case an Ofsted inspector asked for it.
- Over half of respondents (59 per cent) said that their internal processes required more paperwork than was necessary to meet best practice standards within their own setting, and 25 per cent to meet the requirements of the setting’s owners or senior management.
- A third (35 per cent) reported paperwork burdens linked to meeting local authority requirements.
- Almost a third (29 per cent) completed extra paperwork to protect themselves against parental complaints.
Most people enter the childcare industry with a passion for child development. They dream of helping our little ones to reach their full potential by gently encouraging and enabling them to explore the world around them. But they soon realise that along with child development comes a LOT of mandatory paperwork.
The burden of paperwork can be overwhelming and can cause high levels of stress among childcare workers.
So what can we do to ease this burden?
We can’t remove the burden of admin work completely, but we can take advantage of modern technology to make it quicker and easier.
We’ve looked at three admin heavy, time consuming processes and how a good software system can help to reduce unnecessary admin time.
Daily Diaries
If each daily diary takes 5 minutes to compete and there are 40 children in the nursery. Your Practitioners are spending:
3 hours and 20 minutes a day
16.5 hours a week
3 days per month
That’s 36.5 days every single year – spent just on daily diaries alone.
With iConnect you can cut this time to just 15 minutes a day, equating to 66 hours a year or 2.75 days. Which is a huge saving of 33.75 days a year!
Observations
If you record just one observation each week, each observation takes 15 minutes to compete and there are 40 children in the nursery. Your Practitioners are spending:
2 hours a day
10 hours a week
45 hours a month
That’s 22.5 days every single year – spent on observations alone.
With iConnect you can cut this time to just 5 mins per observation. Equating to a huge saving of 15 days a year.
Billing
If every monthly bill run takes you 6 hours to complete. Your Administrators are spending:
6 hours a month or 3 full days a year.
Connect Childcare cuts this time dramatically. Bulk grant allocation and the ability to invoice entire sites in just minutes means that you can complete your monthly bill run in just 30 minutes.
That’s a saving of 66 hours or 2.75 days a year!
Take a look at this free eBook on how using Technology can make life easier for Parents.
Alleviate the paperwork burden with Connect Childcare Nursery Management Software
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About the Author
Connect Childcare have been developing purpose built nursery management software for the past 15 years. Their missions is: To develop management software that improves the lives of children, globally.
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