NurseryStars started with a with a simple mission; to empower Early Years Professionals (EYPs). Having an extensive experiential understanding of the day-to-day issues that trainee/qualified practitioners, management and setting owners face, the team set about creating a platform that targets numerous key challenges faced by professionals working in the sector. Phase one of the free to use platform, including iOS and Android apps on respective app stores, is being rolled out next week.

The initial launch of this innovative platform will allow EYPs to build a professional profile that displays work history, education and skills whilst connecting colleagues, industry peers and employment opportunities; all within an elegant UX optimised interface for the Early Years sector. A range of specialist features, including the breakthrough digital reference system, then enables users to extract maximum value from their profile, making it an essential free resource for everyone working in the sector.

NurseryStars also aims to engage and inform EYPs with its collaborative newsfeed feature; enabling users to create, share and discuss industry news and insights such as learning techniques and planning ideas whilst seeing critical policy updates including from Ofsted.

The intuitively designed seamless recruitment feature for nursery managers and EYPs is cost-effective, time-efficient and most importantly, safe. It’s a productivity enhancement tool that serves to not only create time and space for nursery managers (which is always at a premium), but also to ensure there are multiple alignments between the nursery and recruit (full-time, part time, agency).

A primary function is to allow nursery mangers to directly access practitioners to provide temporary cover – replacing the archaic, cumbersome and expensive agency model currently deployed across the industry by recruiters/agencies that create a dependency (at a premium). The feature allows EYPs, who have full profiles complete with nursery ratings/reviews and qualification certificates stored, to set their live availability and have direct access to live temporary work opportunities. Nursery managers simply select the shift they need covering (including on the day), add any requirements they have, and are ‘matched’ with suitable practitioners that are available – no more calling endless agencies at 7am!

The manager then selects who they wish to contact, and an alert is received by each practitioner on the app – the practitioner then has the control to accept a shift and open a direct dialogue with the nursery manager. The shift itself is then tracked through the app via a robust check-in and check-out system, which automates timesheets and payments; the latter made directly through the platform once the shift is approved by the nursery manager – as simple and swift as an Uber trip!

The backbone of the digital platform comes from a deep understanding of the user and the challenges in the industry – prior to creating NurseryStars, the founders have built a leading independent nursery group from the ground up so have seen these issues first-hand. Each aspect of the platform has been stress tested to ensure it is focused on solving these challenges, whilst maximising value for nursery managers and creating opportunities for Early Years Practitioners.

There are also incredible new features which are being rolled out in Phase 2 of the platform, but these are of course being kept under lock and key whilst development continues! We can however say though that EYPs and nurseries will finally have a one-stop solution for all staff training & development, Ofsted compliance, recruitment and HR!