17/01/2018
Hi, I’m Roopam.
I am the proud owner and manager of a children’s nursery.
We are full day care, so the children come and go all day because of the different sessions.
All our rooms have mixed ages of children, so we are very careful to make sure we staff above the minimum legal staff to child Ratios for each age group.
As the owner, I noticed that my team were constantly working out ratios as children came and went, and also as staff came and went, as well as checking ratios at break times and lunchtimes. That is an awful lot of maths!!! 😝
I’m pleased that my team all know how to work out if we are in ratio, but it seems to me to be an extra job on top of doing the real work of being with the children. And you wouldn’t believe how often we end up counting on our fingers, just like the children 😂😂😂
So in my typical style, I wondered if there was a way to make this simpler than doing the same calculations over and over again. 🤔🤓🤔
I tried using a spreadsheet but that could only use the points system.
The same with all the nursery management software I tried (and I have tried a lot!). This points system left us understaffed about 20% of the time (see, I really am a Maths Geek!) because it doesn’t do what we do as Early Years Practitioners, that is move children into lower age groups to fill up a group in a higher ratio... 📱🖥💻
And the thought of being understaffed terrifies me 😱😱😱
So I started trying to find an easier way to calculate the ratios and save my team’s brain power.
I used whiteboards, chalkboards, pen and paper, counting on my fingers, and ended up getting obsessed with Staff:Child Ratios... and I became a Ratios Geek 🤓
And so I made it my mission to make an App to work out Ratios. Properly. 🤓🤓🤓
It’s taken me over four years (and a lot of investment) to do it! But I have, and I’m very proud of it. 🤩😍😎
***Of course it’s true that nobody *needs* an App to work out staff ratios...But in a lot of cases, it can come in handy.
***And it’s nice to to know that my team don’t have to keep doing the “Ratios Maths” over and over again.
***And I know that we are always meeting the legal staffing ratios, without overstaffing.
✔️Hundreds of nurseries in the UK are now using my Ratios App, and finding that it makes life a lot easier for them. ✔️
😁😁😁So if I can help make life a little bit easier for you then that makes me happy 😁😁😁
The wonderful Doodlyroo Ratios app is available for iphones and ipads on the App Store,
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/doodlyroo-ratios/id1224620507?mt=8
And also available for Android devices (Samsung, Nexus, Hudl, Sony, Huawei) on the Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doodlyrooratios&hl=en_GB
💡💡💡So you can calculate staffing ratios for mixed age groups of children easily, and save your brain power for working with the children 😂😁💖
