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What features are in the Blossom Learning package?

1 min of reading
15 July 2023

The Blossom Learning Package is great for managers in need of more in-depth information, with all the features you need to run an efficient setting and see what you need to grow.

Here you’ll find all of those features listed and expanded, along with links to their full feature pages.

Everything in Blossom's Learning Package:

    Observations

    EYFS & CoEL Frameworks

    Early Years Foundation stage and Characteristics of Early Learning are just two of the frameworks you can link children’s observations to on Blossom. Choose your framework(s) when onboarding with Blossom, and they’ll always be available when you need to demonstrate a child’s developing, starting or mastered skill.

    Montessori Frameworks

    Blossom’s five nurseries follow the Montessori framework, so it would be remiss of us not to include it as an available developmental framework. As above, simply attach observations to Montessori framework areas to help with our automated formative reports.

    Formative reports

    Monitor child learning over a specific time period and create a report for ongoing child and parent feedback. This can also be used for school starters, giving parents insight into where there child is when leaving nursery or ending a year.

    Document storage

    Save contracts, scanned paper forms, and any documents your setting might be creating or have created outside the Blossom software. There’s a limit to the file size, but your likelihood of hitting it is slim!

    Once you’ve uploaded files you can rename and delete them as you wish.

    Custom auto-logout times

    From the Blossom Learning package and above, you can set an auto-logout to a time of your choosing. This prevents anyone accidentally giving access to those they shouldn’t by leaving an authorised device logged in while unattended.

    By default, Blossom has no auto-logging-out unless the feature is switched on.

    Priority phone & Email support

    While Blossom will always respond to your messages and phone calls, if there’s a queue then those with Learning packages and above are prioritised.

    We take great pride in our Customer Service team here at Blossom – every one of them has spent time in a childcare setting and has extensive knowledge of your common day-to-day operational needs and the Blossom platform.

    Tracking and reporting

    Observation Tracker

    With Blossom’s Observation Tracker, you can see all observations made by staff and quickly spot children falling behind. From this area, you can also share observations with parents if they’re not on the parent app already.

    Progress Tracker

    A key part of the childcare world is development – hitting milestones, emerging skills and more, with a view to keeping an eye on the children ahead, behind and right on track.

    With Blossom, you can easily log and report on those developing and developed skills linked to your selected framework, whether child by child or across the whole cohort.

    Comparison Reports

    Keep an eye on child progress and practitioner observations, generating Ofsted-compliant comparison reports whenever the need arises.

    Using these Blossom tools it becomes child’s play to compare children and identify those who are flying or falling behind.

    Group Filters

    Most if not all Blossom reports can be filtered by Rooms, Age groups and other groupings to help you really drill down into your operational data.

    Operational Reports

    Detailed Dietary Reports

    Whenever you need to, download and export to a Manager’s or Administrator’s inbox information on children’s dietary requirements and allergy information. 

    Use it to plan your menus and food stocks.

    Emergency Contacts List

    Build a snow pyramid, create backups or simply spread emergency information there and then. Export an emergency contact list and you’ll know who to reach for every child all at once, and identify gaps if any exist.

    Starters & Leavers Reports

    All part of occupancy forecasting and planning, you can automatically populate reports for your chosen timeframes of children leaving and expected to arrive.

    Should you need to, you can export this information too.

    Key Person Lists

    It’s important to keep an eye on children’s Key Persons, to make sure no one practitioner is overloaded and there are none with no children.

    To that end, Blossom has an easily accessible list for Managers and Administrators to use, analyse and export if desired.

    Children's profiles

    Customisable BlossomBoard ®

    Your BlossomBoard is your Blossom homepage, the first thing you’re greeted with every time you log in. Make it your way and customise it with the reports and views you want to see.

    From the first click, Blossom is all yours.

    Child Profiles

    It’s important that nursery children’s key carers know their child, especially if that key carer changes over time. Using Blossom’s child profiles, all relevant information (like allergies, main contacts, likes and dislikes) are all stored and available only to those who need it.

    Data is stored safely and securely – only your nursery staff who are given access to profiles can access them.

    Daily Allergy Updates

    Each day, staff get a report on their dashboard to show the children due in that day, and any allergies they may have. That way, everyone knows at any given moment what allergies to be mindful of.

    Emergency Contacts

    If anything comes up with a child during the nursery day, you need to be able to reach those who need to know about it. Store emergency contacts in your Blossom platform and staff who need to can access contact details with speed and ease.

    Passwords for Collection

    In some circumstances, you might want to add extra security to pickups, perhaps in places where your parents keep holding the door open for others when they shouldn’t.

    Add an extra layer by requesting parents to provide a password on pickup, which you can store on your Blossom platform.

    Digital register

    One-tap registers

    Couldn’t be more straightforward – child arrives, tap them in on Blossom. Child leaves, tap them out on Blossom. Simple!

    Using this feature effectively means at any point in the day, managers and owners can log in and see every child on-site without a walkaround headcount.

    Absence and Holiday reporting

    At any time you can run a report on the children present against the children expected, noting absences and logged child holidays for staff planning purposes and invoicing too.

    Newsfeed and Diaries

    Newsletters to Parents

    Sometimes you want to speak to all parents at once. Perhaps it’s a reminder to supply sun hats when the weather’s good, a reminder of an upcoming family picnic or positive news following an inspection.

    With Blossom, it couldn’t be easier. Send out newsletters by email or the Parent App (or both!) and get your message out to everyone in an instant.

    Customisable Menus

    The nursery menu is a changeable thing, with every setting doing things their own way. And Blossom is here to celebrate that. Set up your meal and menu items your way, and then easily pick them from a list when recording children’s meal times

    Activities, Nappies, Sleeps & Meals

    Many parents have been tracking nappies, sleeps and feeds since day dot. When letting their child go to nursery, many will expect that level of child activity to know their hard-fought routines are still being used.

    Each one is easy to log in Blossom with a handful of taps. It even extends to potty training!

    Accidents and Incidents

    Log Accidents and Incidents

    Part of every settings’ compliance, you need to log accidents (when one child is hurt) and incidents (multiple children injured) so parents are informed and you can keep a check on the number of accidents and incidents happening on site.

    We’ve recently revamped Blossom’s Accidents and Incidents to make it easier than ever, with much-requested body maps and common injuries now included.

    Digital signatures

    Another part of safeguarding compliance, you can collect parent signatures (and those of reporters/managers) within Blossom, so when asked you can prove to inspectors that every accident and incident is logged, accounted for and has been reported to everyone necessary

    Administration and Security

    Multiple Roles & Permissions

    Blossom comes with a series of staff roles and permissions built in. These can be at a group level as well as individual settings, giving access to multiple settings or just one as required.

    Parental Permissions

    Parent permissions can be given and removed at any time, limiting who has access to children’s data to only those you and the guardian permit.

    Access Logs

    In line with your safeguarding responsibilities, it’s important to know who’s logged into your Blossom platform. Within Blossom’s settings, you can easily see login and log-out times for every person with access to your platform.

    Authorised Devices

    Only authorised devices can access your Blossom platform, which you can set up during initial onboarding as well as add afterwards if you’re a Manager or Admin.

    Prevent anyone from taking access or data home by only authorising devices you have control of and remain on site.

    Custom Data Migration

    All part of your onboarding process – if you have an existing system in place before moving over to Blossom, we’ll help and make sure everything you had stored gets safely placed on your new Blossom platform.

    Two-way messenger

    Instant parent notifications via parent app

    Every time you log a meal, nappy, bottle or ‘Golden Moment’ observation, you can send it straight to the guardians logged against that child in Blossom.

    If they’ve got notifications turned on, they’ll know about it in an instant!

    Let parents communicate quickly to the nursery

    With the Blossom Parent App, parents have access to an instant messenger tied to their child’s key person and the nursery admins. Through it they can send messages straight to the relevant people at the nursery, whether that’s feedback on observations, updates on holiday bookings or pickup time, or whatever might come up!

    Permission & role based

    Not everyone at the nursery needs to see every message, and that’s why access is limited to those assigned to certain rooms, children or permission levels.

    Safe & secure

    Messages are locked within the Blossom platform and Parent App. Manage control with your authorised devices mentioned above.

    End-to-end encryption

    Just like the best messenger apps out there, at Blossom we encrypt data when it’s sent from either party (nursery or parent), and it can only be decrypted by Blossom software. Outside of the platform and app, no-one can see messages but you!

    The Blossom Parent App

    The pride of Blossom and loved by parents, every Blossom package comes parcelled with the Parent App and linked directly to your setting.

    Through the App, parents can:

    • View their child’s schedule
    • See diary updates logged by the nursery
    • View formative reports created by the setting,
    • Share golden moments (fabulous observations) in either direction
    • Home observations
    • Share billing information
    • Check child information
    • Try home activities,
    • Receive push notifications
    • Receive newsletters published by the nursery
    • Download and share photos
    • Request extra sessions
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