IT Support for Pre-Schools
Having the right IT Support for nurseries and other childcare organisations is doubly important. Not only must the business keep running, but they have a duty of care to protect sensitive personal data.
IT Support for Pre-Schools Jackie Curtis, owner of Activeplay Nursery in Sittingbourne, shares her experience of avoiding potentially devastating IT failures. How now, with the right support, managing their systems is child’s play.
” A RICH AND VARIED EXPERIENCE”
You’ve been in business some 14 years now, what were your goals when you set up Activeplay?
The aim of Activeplay Nursery is to provide a safe, happy, caring and homely setting for the children in our care. We believe in offering rich, varied, high quality developmental and educational experiences. As well as encouraging positive relationships with parents and carers. Which is why having IT Support for Pre-Schools is important.
“A POSITION OF ABSOLUTE TRUST”
Managing IT is important in any business, but are there any particular pressures for a nursery or childcare company?
We have around 100 children in our care, and 17 staff to look after them. In addition to maintaining records of the children and tracking their learning. I have to manage the accounts, salaries and other administrative tasks.
When a parent leaves a child with us, they place us in a position of absolute trust. Yes, we have to provide the physical and emotional care day-to-day and ensure their developmental needs are properly managed. Moreover, we hold a lot of personal and sensitive information about the children, which we have a duty to protect.
We use a laptop for most of these essential tasks, and as the nursery owner, the responsibility of protecting this data rests with me!
“IT COULD HAVE BEEN TWICE!”
How would a major problem with your IT impact the nursery?
Losing the ability to pay my staff or suppliers and receive money from clients would quickly place us in serious trouble. If any of the sensitive information we hold were to become compromised. It would be a serious breach of our data protection responsibilities.
Without the help of J&J Systems, we would have been in a difficult situation on a couple of occasions. Fortunately, they were there to help us get back up and running promptly.
One day the laptop just wouldn’t start up properly. J&J got on the case and quickly diagnosed that the hard drive had failed, but we didn’t have a proper back-up. But J&J spent the time to retrieve the data, fit a new drive and we were able to carry on working.
AND THEN AGAIN….
They say lightning never strikes twice, but the nursery did encounter a second major problem.
Our building is the tallest in this part of town, and we experienced a lightning strike that blew all our electrics. The computer holding vital information for the nursery was destroyed. But this time we were better prepared.
Having learned from our previous experience and with the help of J&J, we had begun to back up our data automatically to their server. That meant they were able to provide a new laptop and quickly restore all our data.
“A SMALL PRICE TO PAY”
In the light of your experiences and the support you’ve received from J&J Systems, what advice would you give to other nursery owners?
We have been using J&J Systems for over 14 years, since not long after the nursery was set up. They have always been extremely helpful with advice and guidance. I feel we have a strong relationship at a professional and personal level with all their staff.
Our business is taking care of children, and that places a lot of responsibility and pressure on us to get things right. It can be all too easy for a small nursery to treat their IT as if it runs on a home PC. I think it is imperative that you get the support of a professional IT company such as J&J. This is because you never know when that lightning will strike your business down!
We rely on them for support, the same way our parents rely on us to care for their children. Yes, there is a cost, but it is a small price to pay to protect ourselves from what would have been a catastrophe.
