5 reasons to change to online documentation

More and more long day care, family day care and outside of school hour’s care centres are moving to online documentation to help increase productivity, save time and reduce costs.

Here are 5 reasons why your centre needs to consider online documentation.

NOTE: Not all online documentation systems are the same, so this article is based on the oneChild system.

1. All your documentation is in one place.

All the relevant forms for planning, observation and reflection are easily accessible and ready for immediate use.

Completed documentation is available for reference and review at any time, providing relevant information to help diversify learning opportunities for children and their attainment of NQF outcomes.

2. Safer than houses!

Your online documentation is saved to ‘the cloud’.  The advantage of this is your information is safe from hardware failure, wilful or accidental damage, local theft, fire, flood or any other disaster that could occur at your centre.

3. Ease of access.

Online systems allow quick access to documentation at any time from anywhere and on any kind of device, including iPad, Android tablets and computer (N.B. Not all programs offer this, but oneChild does).

Information can be shared with relevant stakeholders including educators, parents / children and even assessors remotely, reducing time in locating, handling and sorting files for different people to view.

NQS 1.1.4 The documentation about each child’s program and progress is available to families.

4. Statistics with meaning.

Access relevant quantifiable statistical information, from your documentation, in a way which is easy to interpret, such as:

• How a child is progressing through the NQF outcomes and where they need further support.
• Which children are being documented for and which are not.
• How the centre is delivering on NQF outcomes and where programming can be improved.
• Show how NQS QA1 or others areas are being addressed and which are not.

NQS 1.1.5 Every child is supported to participate in the program.

5. Eco Friendly

Save paper and printing resources with online documentation.  Not only is this a sustainable practice it will also save money by having less paper usage and wastage.

NQS 3.3.1  Sustainable practices are embedded in service operations.

An online documentation system, such as oneChild, makes the task of documenting the NQF easier for educators and provides meaningful insights into a centres programming and practice. If you are time poor and want more from your documentation without the extra effort, online documentation is the solution.