We’d like you to humour us for a moment. Close your eyes and imagine an octopus (let your imagination run wild with the colour, details and size). Got it?
This friendly octopus is now your hardest working employee. Each tentacle represents a different aspect of running your nursery: invoicing, enrolment, tracking and monitoring, staffing and rotas… you get the idea.
The introduction of technology and AI in education is not to replace the warmth of a practitioner or the drive of nursery management, it quietly takes care of the tedious, time-consuming parts of running a nursery. Giving you time back to focus on what matters to you most: giving children the best possible start in life.
Let’s dig into how you can put technology and AI to work in your nursery
In this article:
AI in early education
Many people fear AI introduction in their workplace. Skilled workers worry that their roles will soon be redundant due to advancing technology. But early years and childcare providers are in a position many businesses envy.
The increasing use of technology and AI will never replace the nurturing environment you and your team craft for your children. Childcare is one of the few sectors where effective AI use is likely to invite more practitioners to join the ranks.
If you use nursery management software, you’ll already be ahead of the curve with technology in education. Your software will streamline many processes that used to take you hours to complete- like the old days of handwritten ‘daily diaries’.
Examples of technology use in a nursery
Technology and AI is already in your nursery (even if you didn’t notice).
You might not realise it, but you’re probably already using seemingly AI-powered tools every day:
- Automating tasks like billing and invoicing
- Spotting financial forecasting trends
- Ensuring statutory ratio requirements are always met
- Track and monitor children’s EYFS development
- Streamlining the enquiry and onboarding process with new parents
- Providing parents regular updates about their child’s day (on the same day)
Invoicing and payments
Let’s face it: invoicing can be a pain. But AI-powered finance systems can automatically generate invoices, chase late payments with polite reminders, and give you instant overviews of your cash flow.
No more dreading month-end.
Financial forecasting
Imagine being able to see not just how full your rooms are today – but forecast your enrolment six months ahead based on trends, sibling bookings, local birth rates, or even seasonal patterns.
Some nursery software is now using AI to do just that. This helps you plan staffing, resources, and market your nursery more strategically.
Meeting statutory staffing requirements
AI scheduling tools can analyse patterns in staff availability, child bookings, and room ratios to help create rotas that actually work.
Instead of juggling spreadsheets and guessing who’s in Room 2 on Tuesday afternoon, the system can automatically generate a fair, compliant rota – flagging any gaps before they become problems.
Tracking EYFS development
Many digital learning journals or management systems now use AI to help track a child’s progress. Instead of manually going through pages of observations, technology can highlight where a child is thriving or may need extra support – based on developmental milestones and patterns across their age group.
These systems don’t make decisions for you, but they give you insights and save hours of admin time. Add spotting trends using data to your octopus’s growing list of skills.
Parent enquiries
We know that there is a short research window when parents are looking to find a nursery for their child. They will likely research several settings in one go, reaching out to a few that take their fancy online and book in a walkaround. If the setting they attend ticks all their boxes, the likelihood of them enrolling is high.
Having a sleek parent enquiry process increases the likelihood of parents choosing your setting. Showing off your excellent communication from the get-go.
Enquiries coming in out-of-hours? Many nursery websites are taking advantage of chatbots (either AI-powered or cleverly scripted) to reply to out-of-hours queries from parents. It’s one of the creative ways to encourage parents to pick your setting as their first choice.
Child observations
Parents want to know what their child is up to when they are on their nursery days, and appreciate when the updates are timely and detailed. But, for practitioners to send parent updates out regularly, this takes time – time spent away from children.
AI in early education smooths the EYFS observation and parent update process. Allowing for less time to be spent on filling in development observations while producing higher quality comments for parents. It’s a no-brainer.
Keep your eyes out on the Blossom socials soon for an exciting announcement in the world of AI-enhanced observations!
A day in the life of an AI nursery
Let’s paint a picture of how your tech could one day be your hardest working nursery employee.
You walk into your nursery at 7:00am. Your staff rota’s already been updated based on two last-minute child absences, so you’re still covered. You also have requests for an extra last-minute session for tomorrow from a parent, and can see you have capacity so that’s extra coins in the bank you weren’t expecting.
The daily registers have been prepared automatically, and has booked a tour for a new family tomorrow.
By 10am, your manager dashboard shows you that a few children in Room 3 might be ready for new language development activities, based on their recent observations.
You share the suggestions with the team and they incorporate them into play (a big tick for settings who work hard to be adaptive to meet learners’ needs).
At lunch, your finance system quietly chases up a couple of unpaid invoices – no awkward phone calls needed. You can also access the latest business reports within a few clicks, helping you to evaluate your business plan progress for the year: you have an empire to build after all!
Later that afternoon you’re reminded about this month’s payroll payments, with a note that one member of the team has had a few more sick days than normal, so you’re given a task to see how they’re faring while making sure everyone gets paid on time.
At the end of the day, a parent who sent a message post-handover saying “communication could be better” triggers a little nudge to check in with that room leader tomorrow.
All while you’ve spent your time doing what you do best: being present with your team, supporting children, and building relationships.
The smarter way to use AI in early years
AI isn’t a silver bullet, and it won’t fix everything overnight. But used wisely, it can make your setting more efficient, responsive, and less stressful to run.
The nurseries that thrive in the next few years will be the ones that embrace change – not by turning into tech companies, but by using smart tools to support their people and their purpose.
If you’re curious, start small. Pick one area – maybe parent communication, staffing and rotas, or EYFS child tracking – and explore what AI-powered options are available.
If you’re curious, start small. Pick one area – maybe parent communication, staffing and rotas, or EYFS child tracking – and explore what AI-powered options are available.
Talk to other nursery leaders. What areas do you spend 5-10 hours per week on? Invoicing, monitoring, staffing changes, or parent communication? Where can you save time by introducing tech to your processes?
Ready to learn more?
If you’re looking to explore which AI tools could work best for your nursery, or you’d just like to chat about how technology can make your day-to-day smoother, get in touch.
You can send us a message to book a free demo or chat immediately to our automated messaging service at the bottom of this page – we practice what we preach when it comes to increasing customer satisfaction and streamlining our online processes.
We’re here to help you make sense of it all – no jargon, no pressure, just honest advice.
Because running a nursery is hard enough. We work hard to make the systems the easy bit.
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