Little Vista 3
Testimonials
You Spoke. We Listened.
Charlie's Childcare
“We have used Little Vista in our services for several years. With 5 locations in North Dublin, it has helped massively reduce paperwork and effectively manage occupancy planning and improve parent communications. The user-friendly system enables us to record all relevant daily information for each child, and the app provides parents with a snapshot of their child’s day. We have found it to be an excellent tool and can’t recommend it enough. “
Catkins Early Years Service
“We have been using Little Vista for 12 months now and as a service manager, I can 100% recommend it without hesitation. We have a large service and the manager platform allows me to keep track of all children and their families and the interactions that occur between parents and the early year professionals in the service.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Little Vista was so important to us, it allowed us to build positive relationships between the key workers from the service and the home. The instant messaging service is so convenient for EYPs to request simple things like more nappies or a change of clothes. It also provides an opportunity for us to send group messages to all parents/families, and amongst the team ourselves.
At first, the EYPs were a little apprehensive about using it and adjusting to the changeover but they really enjoy how quick, easy and simple the app is to use and it saves a lot of time writing and documenting which means they get to spend more meaningful time with the children. Little Vista is great for keeping a running record of children’s daily, weekly and overall progress. It is an easier and more efficient way of recording weekly observations and provides a great opportunity for parents to comment and reply on their child’s progress.
Little Vista has also been very beneficial around the settling in periods of children where videos can be sent in real-time to the worried parents to show how their child is adapting to the new environments after the parent leaves the room.
Overall Little Vista will continue to be an important part of our practice as it benefits the early year’s professionals in making their roles easier and has created really positive relationships with parents and the family home.
Kind Regards,
Ali McKeon
Childcare Manager
Play Together Childcare Services
“We started using Little Vista in Play Together when we reopened our creche after the first lockdown. It was a fantastic way for Educators to communicate with parents as we had to reduce all face to face contact. We quickly realised the benefits of Little Vista in communication, record keeping and attendance tracking. We have since started using it in 2 other centres and love how it can be tailored to the type of service you provide. Using it as a tool for tracking NCS is invaluable. We wouldn’t be without Little Vista now, it has streamlined our business operations so well.”
Eleanor
Sunflowers, Kilkenny
‘ We have been using Little Vista since July 2019 and it has been a huge success in our service. Parents and staff both love it, it has saved on paper usage in the place and has speeded up doing paperwork, Parents and staff can communicate between themselves much easier as opposed to having to go ring a parent to update them, sharing information with parents is much easier. We wouldn’t go back to the old systems we had in place. Parents can keep an eye during the day to see how their child is eating, sleeping etc. Little Vista continues to improve the service and app at all times.’
Lorraine O’Neil
LANESBOROUGH/BALLYLEAGUE COMMUNITY CHILDCARE SERVICE CLG
We are a community-based childcare service offering sessional preschool in the mornings and school-aged childcare during the afternoons.
We introduced Little Vista into the preschool, just before the first Covid lockdown. Consequently, we didn’t make full use of it at first. However, as lockdown eased and preparations began to reopen, Little Vista proved a useful means of communicating with parents.
Since then the Little Vista App has been fully utilised throughout our 4 classrooms, with tablets in each room and 2 PC’s in the office.
Staff use the App to note arrival and departure times, send messages to parents, record observations and update learning journals. During covid, the staff made use of the facility to record the child’s temperatures. Staff have really appreciated the facility to share photos and learning journals instantly with parents, and this has maintained and nurtured our good partnership with parents.
The Manager and Admin assistant are able to see room attendance at a glance, and send messages to groups; parents within a specific room or all parents, depending on necessity. Attendance records can be printed for official compliance. Little Vista is particularly useful for new registrations and children can be archived if taking a long absence (eg. for health reasons)
Parents install the Little Vista App on their mobiles and can send messages to staff as well as receive regular updates. Many parents have expressed their gratitude to us for using the Little Vista App to keep them informed and allay their fears of their child settling in well. Both parents can be registered, provided they have separate mobile numbers and email addresses.
There is an extensive help and support feature, offering training videos and clear explanations. The support team is available for an online chat; they are very experienced and also patient if you are struggling with any aspect of the App.
Castlekidz Childcare
We have been using the Little Vista App for almost 2 years now and it has made such a difference to the service. We went from a small service to a medium-sized business in a short space of time and Little Vista has made it much easier for us with attendance records, recording meals, sleep, and toilet activities. The reporting is just at the touch of a button, and you can see everything immediately.
We have found that parents really liked the app as it gives them an insight to their child’s day. Before they didn’t always get a chance to chat to the staff at the door and found their children would forget everything once they left the service. This allows them to know what their smallies have eaten, the activities they have participated in through observations, and it allows them to message directly with the staff caring for their child.
The staff were quick to get used to it, the app is very user friendly and easy to navigate. Definitely cuts down on paper usage, no longer need lists for who can’t have photos taken, personal information all stored in the one place, easy to grab in an emergency, all the different schemes recorded for each individual and it makes it so easy for payroll and doing up fees as everything is there to hand in the reports. Automatically records who input child attendance in and out as each staff member has their own login.
If you are deliberating about this service, give it a trial and I think you’ll see all the benefits that come with it. The support team are amazing, always there to help you out and very prompt in sorting things out or talking you through issues.
We would definitely recommend this product if you are in a busy childcare service.
Home From Home Childcare
We started using Little Vista in 2020 and find it brilliant. The Little Vista system has significantly reduced the time we were spending on our administration. You can have a report of a child’s attendance in a matter of a few clicks. This is very helpful for operating the NCS. You can pick up immediately if a child is under attending. It is also great for staff attendance for payroll, no more manual adding up of hours.
We have received great feedback from our parents, and they are delighted with the app. They love receiving real-time updates (sleep, meals, nappies/toileting, activities & observations) of their children throughout the day and receiving photos. It also saves our staff so much time as instead of having endless forms to fill in, it’s all on the tablet.
The instant messaging service is brilliant. Parents can message their child’s room directly. We can also easily message parents with reminders (for example we need more nappies). It saves a lot of time for us as we can send any documents out to specific groups very easily (for example your policies and procedures).
The level of customer service is great, and they also have an amazing Help Desk with lots of helpful videos. They are always open to any suggestions you have for the system. We would highly recommend Little Vista for a childcare facility.
Ladybird Daycare Tramore
” We have been using little vista here at Ladybirds and we find it so helpful. The attendance, The nappy changes, the feeding all at a click on the tablet. Very easy to use and saves a lot of time within our day to day tasks. Parents can message you and vice versa, photos can be sent out to parents individually. We also use the direct debit mandates to charge all our customers which again saves a lot of time and can be adjusted easily. The support team are very good, always someone there at the click of a button and they are great for getting things sorted as soon as possible, very professional.
I would highly recommend Vista to any Childcare facility.”
Helen Power
Club Ardagh
I would just like to acknowledge the benefits we have experienced as a service since introducing Little Vista. Little vista has become invaluable to us for keeping connected with our children and parents, especially during COVID and the closures we have all gone through. It was so important to keep in touch with our children and parents and Little vista allowed our staff to do that from home, we could send pictures/videos and activities to the children and it is all documented in one place. The children especially enjoyed sending back their artwork and messages to their teachers and educators. As parents are not allowed to enter the building due to new health and safety restrictions, having the messaging tool on the app has been such a great way for parents to communicate with educators directly.
Kind Regards
Melissa Eager
We have been using the automated NCS report to track all our subventions, hours and calculations. To have everything I need at the push of a button has given me back so much of my time. To say it’s useful would be a big understatement. Genuinely cannot recommend this highly enough.
The Little Vista app is fantastic! Parents adore looking at pictures and videos of their children throughout the day. It is very reassuring for them especially in these times when they can’t come into the building. I have new parents who have barely entered the creche, they are totally relaxed and happy because they can actually see their child smiling and playing. It also helps minimise contact at collection time because all the information parents need is on the app. Ladybug loves Little Vista!!
Kind regards,
Radean
Tots to Teens
Just dropping a message to say how delighted we are with the app. As you can imagine change is something that most people struggle with and it was my biggest concern when making the move to paperless but my staff team have embraced it and now our staff children and families are benefiting. We have a large team of 30 staff, everyone picked up how to use it very quickly and the transition from paper to paperless was very smooth.
The feedback from the parents is great, they love the instant message to be able to message saying their child won’t be in or ask have they settled after coming in upset. Staff can message back or send a photo which shows that they have settled into play which has proven very popular. When Santa came to visit before Christmas all parents received an instant photo of their child with Santa- this went down a treat. As a manager, the messaging service is beneficial too. With the induction to the NCS scheme, I can message parents to let them know I have their child registered on the scheme and ask them to approve the hours rather than interrupt parents in their working day with a phone call giving them that minor heart attack when “creche” flashes up on their phone. If there is an outbreak of any illnesses or reminders to be given I have messages for different groups of children, e.g. just the baby room parents or the parents of the whole service. I can also message staff individually or as a group with reminders or meeting dates. The time this saves me as a manager typing up and printing memos is great, I am much more organised now too.
As we are the largest childcare service in the county with 179 children using our service each week, 85% of these children are on a government scheme- the attendance checker has literally changed my life. The hours of each child are calculated daily and weekly and I check these each week to ensure compliance- it takes me roughly 30 minutes now instead of maybe four hours counting up hours using my fingers. When children are under attending I can pick this up immediately and message the parents to remind them of their contracted hours.
Thank you for all your support throughout the process and we look forward to many years working together and many updates,
Kind Regards,
Nicola Wilson
Manager
Tots to Teens
Mountshannon Childcare Centre:
We started using Little Vista in our service in September 2019 and haven’t looked back since. Firstly, we found the Little Vista team, especially Oisin so helpful in training and supporting us by answering any questions we had.
Using the app has dramatically decreased the amount of paperwork we need to do as it’s all done on the tablet now. Observations, Learner stories, daily records of attendance, sleep, toileting break etc.
The staff find the observation section fantastic; it is so much easier to do observations and learning activities and it can be linked to developmental milestones and Aistear and Siolta. We find it a great ay to communicate with our busy parents it saves long conversations at drop off and collection time.
We look forward to continuing to use this service for many more years.
Annmarie Walsh
Manager
Eivers Lane Childcare
Our staff find Little Vista very easy to use. It is great to be able to add each child’s daily routine at the click of a button. Parents receive the information/photos directly to their phone app and this is particularly useful if a child is unsettled. Staff can send out a quick message or picture to reassure parents. Little Vista has got rid of our notebooks for the daily records which were often hard to keep track of. They would go home and not come back in or would not be sent home and parents would not be aware of how the child’s day went.
Once children and staff are set up on the system it is so easy to navigate and it is easy to add new children or staff starting in the service. As we are all more capable of using apps the fact parents can see the information directly on their phones is a real bonus. They can communicate directly with key staff working with their child.
It is also fantastic for sending out information to parents. We would always have used notes/letters to give information about special events, holidays etc to families but now we can add the note/letter to the app and even if a child is absent on the day all families get the information at the same time.
We would always have printed out lots of photos of the children participating in activities for parents. Using Little Vista now we can send the photos directly to parents.
Caroline – Eivers Lane Childcare
Little Vista Family
