Here at Harmony, we believe that each child is unique and deserves every opportunity to reach their fullest potential.
We also believe that parents should have every opportunity to be involved in their child’s development and that this is absolutely essential to providing the best possible early childhood care and education.
Storypark creates a space in which teachers and parents can communicate and collaborate on a daily basis to ensure that both parents and children receive the highest quality child care services that Harmony can offer.
What is Storypark?
Storypark is a cloud-based application designed specifically for teachers and parents to enable consistent and effective communication throughout a child’s education. It is used in over 80 countries all across the world, and both educators and parents agree that it is easy to use and really makes a difference in early childhood education.
This amazing application allows parents and educators to share documents, videos, and pictures in real time to strengthen the connection between parents and their children’s education. Parents can respond as soon as content is uploaded, and teachers can create a personalised catalogue of all of the ways that children grow and learn, no matter how small.
So why do we use Storypark? And how does it contribute to the Harmony Difference?
Here are 6 reasons that we love and use Storypark for parent communication:
1. Storypark enables daily collaboration between parents and teachers
The premise of Storypark is simple. Using a cloud-based platform, teachers can upload content to a personalised “community” that you can access at any time, either immediately or at your convenience.
What kind of content can you expect to find in your child’s Storypark account?
- Photos of your child’s latest artistic creation
- Written documentation of your child’s progress in areas that are important to you
- Videos of your child to provide glimpses of their activities throughout the day
- Personalised observations of your child’s behaviour and development.
Sharing content like this on a regular basis allows parents to provide instant feedback, improve their understanding of Harmony’s curriculum, and witness first-hand the various aspects of their learning that our educators focus on.
2. Parents are able to remain involved in their children’s daily activities
Leaving your child in someone else’s care while you are away at work during the day is never easy, no matter how qualified the child care centre and its educators are.
Storypark allows you to remain engaged with your children throughout the day by providing access to and interaction with their daily activities – ensuring that you don’t miss the “little things” that happen throughout your child’s day.
You will receive a notification every time that your child’s educator uploads content to Storypark, and can instantly respond with a comment or a photo or video of your own!
The overwhelming majority of parents who utilise Storypark say that they have a greater understanding of their child’s abilities and interests. They also feel more empowered to be involved in the learning process at the child care centre.
3. Storypark is safe and secure
Though our educators can access your child’s Storypark account to upload information and insights, you as the parents are always completely in control of the information shared.
You get to decide who may access your child’s Storypark account to witness their learning and development journey. You may decide to keep that information private between yourself, your spouse, and your child’s teachers. However you could also decide to allow other people in your child’s life to access that information for any number of reasons:
Grandparents, so that they can watch their grandchild learn and grow at every step of the way
A regular babysitter, so that they can see the progress that your child is making and tailor their activities accordingly.
A speech therapist or other outside specialist, so that they have more supplemental information about your child’s activities.
Whoever you decide to share your child’s Storypark community with is entirely up to you.
4. Storypark can be used to help transition your child between schools or year levels
Every teacher keeps some sort of record of each child’s progress throughout the school year, and these records are usually shared between educators when your child progresses to a new year level. However, an impersonal file folder does not provide anywhere near as much insight as your child’s Storypark community will.
As the parent, you own and control the content in your child’s Storypark account. This means that when your child transitions from Harmony’s pre-kindy or kindergarten program and prepares to enrol in a new school, you can share their Storypark account with their new teacher. This produces a number of benefits to your child:
- Your child’s new teacher can see firsthand how much your child has progressed and learn about their strengths and interests, ensuring that that knowledge is carried throughout their education
- Sharing this information provides additional continuity and support throughout the process of your child’s transition
- Your child’s progress can be charted across multiple grades and schools, which improves outcomes in their overall development.
Sharing and collaboration can only improve your child’s progress, and as a parent it can be comforting to know that your child’s next teacher can be familiar with their strengths and interests even before the first day of school.
5. Collaboration goes both ways
Our teachers are not the only ones who can upload content to your child’s Storypark community. Anyone with access to your child’s account can add photos, videos, and commentary on your child’s development.
For example, your child’s grandparents can upload a video of them reading together if they are watching your child for the weekend.
Likewise, your child’s speech therapist could share observations following a session in order to provide your child’s teachers with as much information as possible about their progress and areas for continued improvement.
Storypark is an incredible tool to share insights from all across your child’s life, allowing everyone in it to help your child to learn and grow to the best of their ability.
6. Storypark is completely free for parents to use
That’s right – parents can use Storypark to engage with their child’s learning journey completely free of charge!
At Harmony, we believe that Storypark contributes directly to our commitment to collaborate with parents throughout their child’s development, and as such we want your family to enjoy all of the benefits that this software has to offer without incurring any cost whatsoever.
Here at Harmony, we are committed to providing the best possible care and education for your children and believe that Storypark is an important part of bringing that philosophy to life. This application is another of the many ways that we ensure that our facilities are state-of-the-art and specifically equipped to meet your child’s individual needs.
References
harmonylearning.com.au/the-harmony-difference/
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