Sending each of the children at your daycare home every day with a detailed report requires a large time commitment from you and your child care center staff. Make sure you’re using this time as efficiently as possible by creating a daily report form that your parents read and find helpful!
Consider these elements when creating your daycare’s daily report sheets:
Ask Parents What They Want
Send a brief survey via email to your center’s parents. Ask about what elements of your current daily sheets they enjoy and find helpful, and what changes they would make if they could.
Make It Simple
Use only as much space as you need to communicate the important parts of the day with parents. Have options (all, some, none) already on the daily report so all you and your staff have to do is circle one. Don’t include sections you know you’re never going to have time to fill out and parents won’t have time to read.
Include Contact Information
Including your logo, center name and contact information where they’re easy to see makes it easier for parents to know what they’re looking at and contact the right person if they have a question or concern.
Have a Cutoff Age
Daycare daily sheets are great for your youngest attendees. Once kids reach your preschool programs, a daily report is likely unnecessary. Instead, consider weekly updates with the topics you learned about and specific activities kids did. This helps keeps parents in the loop without requiring as much time for personalization.
Include Space for Comments
No matter how old kids are, sometimes you need to make note of unusual behavior or changes in their routine. Make sure there’s enough room for comments in a space where parents will be sure to see them.
Consider Going Paperless
An email, app or text update program may be easier for both your child care staff and parents. These programs can be integrated into your CRM tools, email interface and website to make communicating with parents seamless.
Take Kids’ Living Situations into Account
Kids are often picked up and dropped off by different family members who won’t see each other. Completing daily reports for every interested parent or guardian is important if you want to keep things running smoothly at your center. This is one instance where paperless forms could make things easier!
