Connect Childcare chats to Cara Faulkner, owner of Little Sunshines Day Care

Connect Childcare chats to Cara Faulkner

With over 3,500 nurseries in our portfolio, we’ve decided to shine the spotlight on a different one each month, to get to know them a little better!

So, as part of our regular Q&A series, it’s over to Cara Faulkner, owner of Little Sunshines Day Care, to tell us more about her workplace, job role, and experience using nursery management software.

1. How long have you worked in the nursery sector?
   I’ve worked in the industry for over 12 years now, and I love it!
   In my current role of business partner at Little Sunshines Day Care, I’m responsible for looking after the accounts, HR, credit and budget control, payroll, and client retention.
2. Sum up your typical working day in three words:
   Noisy, fun, and online.
3. Why did you choose Connect Childcare?
   We received several childcare management packages and found that Connect Childcare had everything we needed — it’s very user-friendly and cost effective.
4. Describe our nursery management software platform in one word?
   Uncomplicated.
5. And your favourite feature?
   The ability to create customised reports — it makes my job much easier and it saves so much time in a working day. As a result, this enables me to focus my attention on the more strategic side of the business.
6. What’s your biggest challenge as a nursery owner?
   Keeping up to date with the regular changes to the Early Years (EY) Register — Ofsted’s changing requirements — and, at the moment, keeping our setting, and everyone in it, Covid safe.
7. But what do you love most about your job?
   The children — they are such a breath of fresh air, always happy, always learning, and a joy to be around.
8. Complete the sentence: ‘Connect’s technology has enabled us to’…
   … Communicate and connect more effectively as a business.
   In the past, our data has been located over several different spreadsheets, and we were having to input the same information multiple times in different documents — which is not only time consuming but can easily lead to errors. However, Connect’s centralised system allows us to enter the data in one place, therefore reducing the risk of input mistakes and keeping our systems up to date.
9. When you’re not at work, how do you relax?
   I love to cook and to relax with my family — in more normal times, this would ideally be at the beach.
10. Finally, what advice would you give to nurseries considering investing in management software?
    Go for it! It has made us operate much more efficiently, without a doubt.

Our management team has access to all the information we need at the click of a few buttons — instead of sifting through paper-based documents or across multiple digital files. Also, knowing that if there’s anything we don’t understand, or if we require any help with the system, there are always people at Connect ready to help straight away — it’s a real comfort.

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If you’re a Connect Childcare client and you’d like to take part in our Q&A, complete the form by clicking the button or drop a quick note to our PR manager — via amy@scribapr.com — and she and the team will take it from there.

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