Worked examples / A nursery’s September intake
Twenty-eight families, and one person doing it.
Rowan Tree Day Nursery takes twenty-eight new children each September. Kate runs the office two and a half days a week and covers the toddler room the rest of the time. This is what the six weeks before term look like.
Invented exampleRowan Tree Day Nursery, Kate and the twenty-eight families do not exist. The shape of an intake is real; the names are not.
What every family owes
Ten things, none of them hard, all of them needed before the child can start. The list has not changed in years, which is exactly why it is a template rather than a Word document re-saved every August.
- Birth certificate
- Proof of address
- Funded hours code
- Immunisations to date
- Allergies and medication
- Who may collect, and the password
- Emergency contacts in order
- Photograph and outing consents
- Doctor and health visitor
- Dietary requirements and home languages
Before
Six weeks, the way it usually goes
Twenty-eight families times ten things is two hundred and eighty pieces of paper, and the office is open two and a half days a week.
An illustration. The names are made up.
By post and email, over six weeks: twenty-eight packs are printed, or emailed as a PDF a parent has to print, fill in, scan and send back; nine come back, four of them photographs of a form and one a photograph of a screen; Kate builds a spreadsheet because there is no other way to know who has sent what; a chasing email goes to everybody, including the nine who already sent theirs, and two reply saying they already did; the last week is phone calls; and on the first morning three children arrive without a completed collection section. In Docsroom, one board shows which families still owe something and exactly what, and it is never out of date.
In Docsroom
The same six weeks, on one board
Twenty-eight packs from one template, played through.
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Twenty-eight packs at once
Kate opens the Nursery enrolment template, ticks the twenty-eight families and presses start. Twenty-eight drafts appear, each addressed to the right parent. She reads one through, then sends them.
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Finished in pieces, on a phone
Each parent gets a link with no password and finishes it in pieces, on a phone, at ten at night. Each member of staff sees only the families you give them.
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Tuesdays chase themselves
Reminders go out on Tuesdays, only to the families still owing something, without Kate writing anything.
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The last week, on one screen
She sees which families are outstanding and exactly what each is missing. The few phone calls are about the two sections that always stick, and she knows that before she picks up the phone.
What does not change
Somebody still has to read the health answers and decide what they mean. Somebody still has to ring the family who has not replied to three reminders. Docsroom does not make a parent send you a birth certificate; it makes it obvious that they have not, and it stops asking the twenty-five who have.
Try it with your own enrolment form.
Send it over and we will turn it into a template for you before you decide anything.