The Why?
Backfilling childcare occupancy prior to the new year is important for a number of reasons.
Firstly, ensuring financial stability for Employees. By maintaining high occupancy levels, Campuses can ensure consistent hours for Employees. Creating stability in the occupancy levels enables the Campus to offer consistent working hours to its employees, reducing the likelihood of hours being cut due to low demand.
The second important point in ensuring backfilling of occupancy is that it allows for a quality transition for children. Backfilling occupancy before the new year allows for smaller groups of children during the transition period. Smaller groups can facilitate a more personalised and attentive approach to each child's needs, especially for younger children who may require more time to adjust. Younger children often need more time to adapt to new environments, routines, and caregivers. By starting the transition process before the official term begins, we can offer a more gradual and supportive transition for these children. This can contribute to a smoother transition into their new environments.
Overall, backfilling occupancy ensures that the Campus can maintain its operational continuity. It helps in avoiding disruptions in services and provides a seamless experience for both children and their families. Focusing on backfilling occupancy before the new year is a holistic approach that addresses financial stability, employee well-being, and the quality of care provided to children. It aligns the interests of the business, its employees, and the families it serves.
What will happen is, availability will open up in the younger age groups which allows for more external families to confirm enrolments prior to the new year. It will also allow you to forward project into the new year and offer confirmation to families as to when they can get their journey started with us!
The following steps should allow for a smooth process of keeping those occupancy levels up:
- Enter in all cancellation of enrolments. These will mainly be from 3 & 4 year old kinder rooms. This will give an indication of forward projection for open positions to commence internal transitions.
Eg. Kindergarten has the following availability after cancellation of enrolment:
Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri
6 4 2 3 4
The above availability allows for 2 full time children, 1 child of four days and then fill out the other 3 days will children attending on these days.
These children will most likely transition from a toddler room. Generally you would transition the "early starters" first to ensure a longer time to settle into the environment before the start of the New Year. The availability of that toddler room then changes as of the date that children will commence permanently in that room.
- Complete room lists for the following year. The information needed:
- Which rooms children will transition to based on age grouping
- What days the children are booked in for
- Any additional days the family has requested - check Additional Booking Waitlist
Eg. Most Campuses like to keep track of this in an excel spreadsheet. You can complete a separate sheet for each room for a clearer picture of availability. This will also allow you to confirm additional days for families who may have been on the additional booking waitlist for quite some time.
- Based on end of year calculations, forward project availability across the Campus, with a date from which the availability will be.
Eg. From 5th December, this availability applies. Therefore we can commence a transition period two weeks prior to this date and have these spaces filled the week after the cancellations come into effect.
- Starting at the kindergarten room, work your way down the roll, fitting children into the availability to ensure the rooms are not overbooked. You now have your first group for internal transition. Ensure that you are moving up at least 2 children at a time. Focus on younger children, those requiring more time to settle.
- Once you have your first transition group, readjust the number of availabilities for the room the children are transitioning from. Communicate the list of children with the educator team and have them follow the Classroom Transitions Guide. Once transition forms have been completed, families will be notified of the upcoming transition.
Eg. Toddler room has the following availability after the first transition group:
Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri
5 4 2 3 4
This availability can then be filled with another group of children transitioning from one of the nursery rooms to the toddler room. This transition can be completed during the same duration as the kindergarten transition.
- Repeat steps again for each room that gains new availability.
- Based on new availability after the internal transition process you can begin to contact external families to confirm positions. As you have forward projected your availability, you will be able to confirm exact dates with families as to when they can commence orientation and enrolment.
Start filling up spaces!