How Sparrow Early Learning grew bookings and revenue with ChildcareNow

FDC-Friendly

Fiona Alston

Sep 16, 2025

Save

Sparrow Early Learning’s growth strategy has focused on enrolments of new families, delivering a quality service to minimise churn and effectively re-enrolling families. It knew that there was also an opportunity to grow through increasing bookings with enrolled families, but execution of this has always been challenging.

Sparrow Early Learning has over 4,000 of families attending fewer than five permanent days. Whilst there was a clear opportunity to increase the casual and permanent days attended by these families, doing so required a lot of manual effort. This effort was more than the capacity of its already busy Service Managers and Head Office Team.

Sparrow turned to ChildcareNow for a solution. ChildcareNow’s proprietary technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically send personalised casual and permanent day offers to families. By connecting with Sparrow’s childcare management system (CCMS) ChildcareNow’s AI was able to identify upcoming vacancies, match these to families and then send a booking offer to the families on SMS or email.

As Co-CEO Marnie Testa shares:

“ChildcareNow’s AI makes it easy for families to book care they need, exactly when they need it. By matching our availability with each family's preferences in real time, it streamlines bookings and allows our team to stay focused on nurturing every child's growth and learning. It's like having extra support behind the scenes, delivering all of this at a fraction of the cost."

ChildcareNow helps providers like Sparrow achieve growth without adding pressure to their team. To learn more about ChildcareNow you can visit their website at childcarenow.com.au.

Don’t miss a thing

NSW Early Learning Commission conducts 220 unannounced visits

More than 100 regulatory officers conducted unannounced inspections at over 220 early learning services in a single-day compliance operation, as the NSW Early Learning Commission intensifies oversight across the sector.

Failing the Most Vulnerable: Two WA Childcare Providers Penalised Over Supervision Breaches

In February the Western Australian State Administrative Tribunal handled two separate disciplinary proceedings brought by the CEO of the Department of Communities against out-of-school-hours care (OSHC) providers. Both cases highlight critical failures in active supervision, particularly concerning highly vulnerable children diagnosed with autism who managed to wander away from their respective services unnoticed.

Keeping children safe with one simple lesson

Water safety remains at the forefront of national concern, as drowning continues to be the leading cause of accidental death for children aged 0-4.

Prime childcare and medical investment opportunity hits the market in Thornhill Park

A permit-approved early learning and medical asset in Melbourne’s west is set to test investor appetite for secure income, long-term leases and value-add potential in a high-growth corridor.

Childcare centres may have clear rules for staff numbers, but there are loopholes to get around them