How to control communication with parents in kindergarten – interview
Mrs. Director Mgr. Regína Ouhledová from the private kindergarten Monty School of Prague was looking for a way to modernize the kindergarten and provide even better services to parents. Although Monty School is a kindergarten in Prague, its location does not have an urban feel. Standing in a beautiful forest in Prague 4, it would seem to be one of the alternative kindergartens that often tend to avoid digitalization. However, the director, Mrs. Ouhledová, has no problem in combining nature with modern technologies.
Why did you decide to choose Twigsee?
“We are a modern kindergarten and we want to present ourselves and communicate with parents. I try to adapt to the younger generation. A lot of parents use modern technologies in their daily lives and covid has only helped the whole digitalization. After this experience, you don’t know what can happen. It was covid, next time it may be something else and we, as a nursery that cares for the little ones, must have a communication channel so that important information reaches parents as quickly as possible and we make sure they receive it in time. From this point of view, Twigsee has met my expectations”, says the director.
“I was looking for a nice modern app and with Twigsee I found both,” she adds.
How did your employees react to the app?
“It took them a while to get used to it at first, but now I have to stop them from posting so much. For example, we have a colleague on maternity leave who had Twigsee installed so that she can keep track of what’s going on in the nursery and keep in touch,” shares Regina with a smile.
“Before we started using Twigsee, we used to have parents overlook the information in a lot of work emails and then operate on the fact that the information didn’t get through, which created a bad atmosphere. This doesn’t happen with Twigsee, because it protects the teachers as well, we have clear proof that the information was sent.For example, when we had the seventh illness in kindergarten, it was obvious how quickly everyone got the information. It’s been my experience that within an hour everyone sees it.”
“For me, as a director, it is also important to see and have control over the attendance of teachers and children.. It used to happen that teachers forgot to write down the children’s attendance on the programmes. The child stayed late, the teacher forgot to write it down and the kindergarten lost money as a result,” the director further describes.
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We know from experience that some kindergartens have trouble convincing parents.
How did you resolve that in your case?
“Again, it’s about communication. We first met with the parents in person, introduced the app, explained our reasons, but mainly focused on the benefits. We then put in the school rules that installing the app is mandatory and you need to have notifications turned on. Most of our parents want the app and have no problem with it”.
For us it is important to see that the parents have read the message which the app provides. We had a case of divorced parents that almost went to court because one of the parents felt we weren’t informing him. It turned out that he didn’t have the app installed despite our urgings and requests. After he installed Twigsee, the problem was largely solved,” he recalls of the unpleasant situation.
“I admit that I like the fact that parents can’t respond to posts. In the past, when we used other channels, after posting photos, we had to respond to questions like – Why doesn’t my child have the right socks, or when we went skiing, they didn’t wear the right hood, jacket, etc. I send the parents photos to reassure them that everything is fineand their child is doing well, or to make their day with nice photos of their little ones. However, they have the preschool phone number and teachers’ work emails and can always contact us outside of the app.
Today’s information-filled times have brought a negative impact on the status of the teaching profession. Often parents tend to tell us how to educate our children in kindergarten, how to approach them and discuss various educational methods, so directors are cautious and communicate as little as possible. But I take a different path, fortunately I have Twigsee, the kindergarten in my pocket,” adds Mrs. Ouhledová with a sparkle in her eye.
19. 1. 2023 | admin
