This blog post is written by Michelle Tuffley from LEAD Childcare.
We have 15 services throughout Queensland and have been using paper-based documentation to record children’s learning for many years. In July 2016 we made the decision as an organisation to go online. This decision came about after all our services went through the assessment and rating process and we identified that there were areas within all LEAD services that we wanted to improve upon:
- extending and recording children’s learning
- parent input
- parent communication/participation; and
- building a learning culture for our educators
We began our search for an organisation that had the same values and goals as we have.
This was a massive step for us, because the wrong decision would affect over 250 educators and hundreds of children and their families. We met with Storypark and were blown away by their presentation. After they left, we looked at each other and said “This is how we are going to get LEAD to the next level”.
As you can imagine we had lots of questions and we also needed time to ensure the roll out was as smooth and seamless as possible for our teams of educators in our various locations. Peter (Storypark’s CEO) and the team were very supportive during this time, which we really appreciated. Once we made our decision, Sharon (Storypark’s dedicated Professional Learning and Development Manager) developed a personalised webinar just for LEAD, which I was able to deliver at each services staff meeting.
As with any change we had some educators who were apprehensive however within two days of using Storypark, I received phone calls and emails telling me much they loved it! During the training session at one of our services an Early Childhood Teacher was a little worried about the change to online documentation. But the following day I received an email from this teacher and she was so excited to share an email form a parent. The teacher was having a play in Storypark with a video she had taken of a child. She accidentally uploaded the video and within minutes had received a comment from the child’s mother saying “You have just made my day! I was sitting at my boring desk and a video came through of Audrey. Thank you so much!”. The teacher was over the moon and has not looked back. The feedback from children has been wonderful too.
The Storypark support team contacted each service within a couple of days of their roll out to answer any questions. We have felt supported throughout the whole process and we would recommend Storypark to any service who is dedicated to improving quality outcomes for children and families.
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Author:
Michelle Tuffley is the Education and Training Manager at Lead Childcare in Queensland, Australia.
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