Kangarootime is making waves in ECEC – 4 leaders share their experiences why

Kangarootime, the fast growing child care management system (CCMS), has had a strong start to 2023 with continued network growth and the launch of a sector leading suite of new business resources and data analytics packages.

 

“We have been very clear about our ambitions to redraw the lines as to what ‘good’ looks like in the CCMS space,” Sharyn Fewster, Managing Director of Kangarootime Australia said.

 

“Our focus on our three pillars of technology, support and culture and delivering excellence in each of them is central to everything we do and why we have been so successful at scaling our network since launching.”

 

To commemorate the Group’s three year anniversary four early childhood education and care (ECEC) senior leaders who are using the platform in their organisations provided testimonials about their experience with the Kangarootime platform and team. 

 

Working in partnership

 

Each of the four leaders commented on the strong sense of community, partnership and trust they have enjoyed since partnering with Kangarootime. 

 

“They treat us like a partner and help explore solutions that will assist us in growth and effectiveness,” John Bairstow, Sparrow Early Learning CEO said. 

 

For Storyhouse Early Learning COO Craig Alchin the experience was similar. 

 

“First and foremost, we choose all of our business partners based on mutually shared cultures,” he explained. 

 

“We ask ourselves what the motivation of the partner is to be in the early learning sector, what their end goal is, and how they view outcomes for children.”

 

“Secondly, we review the product being pitched and the desire of any partner to build a working relationship around the product based on a philosophy of continuous improvement. Kangarootime, its people and product met all those goals.” 

 

Thirdly, we road-tested three major CCMS products with a range of service managers and the user experience of Kangarootime was superior to the others.”

 

Seamless transitions 

 

Fiona Scott is the OSHC Manager for Sunnybank Hills OSHC, and is responsible for keeping the records of over 380 families in order. 

 

“With our service bringing over such large numbers,” she said, “It would have meant a lot of behind the scenes work, and I know that they worked morning, noon and night to bring us over in a very short time frame.”

 

“We had no dramas whatsoever.”

 

Mr Bairstow’s experience was similar. Sparrow Early Learning worked with Kangarootime to educate the team, plan out the migration and implementation process with him noting that “to say the experience was seamless would be pretty close to the mark.” 

 

A relationship based on trust

 

Trust was a common theme for each of the leaders which were interviewed. 

 

For Bianca Merchant, the Director of Eco Kids Early Learning Bribie Island, being able to connect with a trusted support team was essential. 

 

“I think it was the support from the get-go starting with sales, then implementation and support.  I noticed straightaway that there was constant support, and it has remained consistent,” she said. 

 

Mr Bairstow from Sparrow echoed that sentiment saying that “We’ve trusted each other from the start,” and “Kangarootime understands the nature of our business operations and has worked closely in ensuring our vision is met.”

 

Agile, flexible, responsive

 

From an agility, flexibility and responsiveness point of view the feedback was equally strong. 

 

“We’ve only been on Kangarootime for just over a year,” Ms Scott said, “but anything that we’ve suggested they either took straight to the developers and said, “yeah, this needs to be fixed right now,” or, if there’s something that they know that it’s a wishlist list, they put it in the pipeline.”

 

“We are always kept up to date and pleasingly a lot of recent feature rollouts were from things that we might have suggested, which is great.”

 

Ms Merchant agreed with these sentiments highlighting that “Whether it’s a phone call or an email from Kangarootime support team members saying, “hey, is there anything else we can do for you?,” we felt supported. 

 

“If something comes up, we are always listened to. We also love the PD’s – the Kangarootime Conversations webinars – being a remote centre, it’s really nice to have access to that,” she added.  

 

Final words

 

Each leader was asked to sum up their experience with Kangarootime in one word. 

 

Mr Bairstow described the organisation as trustworthy, Mr Alchin said dynamic, Ms Scott said her experience was streamlined and Ms Merchant’s comment was “we call it marvellous!”  

 

To learn more about Kangarootime please click here.