Why Childbase chose Bud to simplify their training delivery

Childbase is a leading provider of early years care and education across 43 nurseries.

An employee-owned company, Childbase is committed to redefining excellence in every area of operation, including its award-winning training programmes for Early Years professionals.

The challenge

Childbase joined the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers (RoATP) in 2020, so is a relatively new provider. It was important for them to find a platform that simplified the administrative aspects, but was still flexible enough to complement their chosen delivery model for apprenticeships and skills training.

At Childbase, training is planned across cohorts, with learners and apprentices having a training day in the academy every month. This gives them time to bond and build relationships with their peers.

Overall, their training uses a blended split of around 85% face to face and 15% remote, where learners could be messaging online or learning functional skills.

Read more: Blended learning: Balancing face-to-face and remote training

The solution

Childbase saw demos of all the leading apprenticeship management systems and decided that Bud was the best choice. When Kara Tuckey joined as Head of Apprenticeships Academy in 2022, she was delighted with the decision.

“I’ve seen and used most of the platforms. I was so pleased when I got here and we were using Bud, because it’s end to end and easy to use for everyone involved,” she said.

Childbase have been able to set their processes around Bud, which has made administrative tasks more straightforward. Kara highlights that the transition was made much easier due to Bud automatically generating Individualised Learner Records (ILRs) with built-in compliance checking.

Increased visibility with Bud’s reporting

One of the biggest highlights of using Bud is the reporting dashboards, which enable Operations Managers to drill down into the data and gain visibility of learner activity and trainer performance. Kara hopes these dashboards can help support further improvements to drive learner engagement.

“We want to be able to catch learners that are at risk earlier. In order to make those early interventions, we can look at reports and see whether learners are on track and what percentage they are through the programme, plus any missed reviews. We want learners to be within 20% tolerance of where they should be for their ‘distance travelled’,” Kara said.

“I think it’s important to make it about supporting, rather than policing learners. We want to be able to say to learners, ‘we can see you’re not progressing – what’s the barrier and how can we help?’. If you’ve got a report to hand, it opens up these conversations.”

Watch now: An overview of Bud - Operations dashboard

Employer reports are particularly useful

Kara also mentions Bud’s employer reporting as being one of the most useful features. The employer reports are designed to give all parties access to real-time learner engagement, so employers can instantly see the value from the training programmes.

Watch now: Bud's employer reports - Learner monitoring

Managing compliance effectively

Childbase’s Apprenticeship Manager is responsible for overseeing the compliance requirements for their 200+ learners. Since Bud's platform is built to streamline compliance, Childbase hasn’t felt the need for a specific compliance role.

“With Bud, we can all look after compliance, whether it’s somebody in finance or an administrator. It means that if someone is off work, anybody can step in. There are advantages from a return on investment perspective too, because we haven’t had to put as many people on the ground. Bud exceeds what we need,” Kara said.

Read more: How Skills4Pharmacy have seen immediate ROI since adopting Bud

Future-proofing delivery

Kara’s next focus will be on future-proofing their provision. This includes making sure everyone is in the right roles in their academy and utilising all the skills on offer.

One assessor is about to go through training to become the academy’s Special Educational Needs Coordinator. Kara also wants to ensure Childbase is claiming Additional Learning Support (ALS) funding, which hasn’t been claimed before because “no one has ever had the confidence to tick the box”. With Bud, she’s sure they’ll have all the evidence they need.

“There’s a bit of a fear factor around claiming ALS, but we’re providing it to our learners so we should be claiming funding. It’s so easy with Bud too, because the platform is automatically collecting the evidence,” Kara said.

Find out more about Bud

Bud is the number one training management platform for apprenticeship delivery. Our single joined-up system is designed to streamline the processes involved in delivering training and give you peace of mind that you’re fully compliant.

Bud reduces the time your teams spend on repetitive administrative tasks, freeing them to spend more time using their valuable expertise to deliver high-quality training. Book a demo now.