brightwheel: Childcare App

brightwheel

About this app

Brightwheel is the #1 software solution for preschools, child care, daycare, camps, and after school programs.

Brightwheel is the only app that integrates everything you need: sign in/out, messaging, learning assessments, daily sheet reports, photos, videos, calendars, online bill pay for parents, and much more.

Brightwheel lets you manage your center, streamline workflows, and engage with parents, so you can save time and money, make life easier for your staff, and improve satisfaction for your parents.

Join the thousands of preschools, child care, and daycare programs across the globe that have fallen in love with brightwheel!

PRESCHOOLS / CHILD CARE / DAYCARE / CAMPS: Manage your students and classrooms, track attendance and room ratios, share photos and videos, assess learning milestones, communicate with parents, send paperless invoices and payments, review daily sheets, and manage staff. Brightwheel is your all-in-one child care and daycare management app!

PARENTS: Engage in your child’s day with a real-time feed of photos, videos, reminders, and updates. Use brightwheel’s digital check-in to securely sign in and out, pay tuition online, and even invite grandparents, nannies, and friends to join in the fun!

Features include:
• Central Database: Store everything related to kids and families in one secure place.
• Student Check-In: Multiple digital check-in options available including digital signatures, 4 digit check-in codes, and a kiosk mode - all aligned with child care licensing requirements.
• Staff Check-In & Ratios: Make administrative tasks easier by managing staff check-in to see your ratios across all your rooms in real time.
• Attendance: Easily log attendance and absences for your school-age students, infants, and toddlers. Use our attendance tracking system to keep track of your toddlers.
• Photo and video sharing: Snap photos, record videos and tag students with one click. Automatically saved to your account and shared with parents (with no extra work!).
• Daily Sheet Reports: Log naps, meals, bathroom, and other activities. Parents get a feed and daily summary. Daily sheet reports are a breeze with brightwheel.
• Assessment & Observations: Make note of progress, achievements, and activities with pre-loaded state standards and a DRDP tool. Share with parents or privately amongst teachers.
• Student Feed: Parents get a personalized feed throughout the day. Save time – no more paper tracking sheets or sending individual photos.
• Parent Communication: Manage parent communication from one central hub (notices, calls, texts, etc.).
• Calendar: Share events, holidays, and important dates with both families and staff.
• Paperless Billing: Seamless electronic billing and payments for tuition and fees. Use brightwheel for all your child care accounting needs.
• Reporting: Detailed reports of every brightwheel feature for billing and licensing requirements.
• Seamless Sync: Brightwheel stays up to date across all phones and tablets – so teachers can use their own device or a school device.
• Web Portal: Easy management and great functionality available on the web, too.
• Affordable. Both free and premium plans available to fit your needs.

And... much more coming! Brightwheel is the #1 early education platform for preschools, child care, and daycares, and we’re always committed to innovation with frequent improvements and new features.

Ratings and reviews

Great to check in, communicate with my kid's care provider, and we love the pictures they can post. The update to include ACH/credit card payments is nice, but please turn of the constant notification dot to do that. We aren't going to do that because we don't want to pay fees. Seeing a dot like there's something wrong in general, then seeing it's a payment, but there's nothing wrong with that either is disconcerting, then annoying.

EDIT: The support staff team have been great to work with as we had to troubleshoot the issue. The issue was quickly resolved! Thank you again! Since the app update, I have been unable to access my account. The app stalls at the first screen. I've tried reinstalling the app numerous times, as well as updating and restarting my phone. The app continues to be faulty. I've tried emailing support services, but I have received no response or assistance.

The app is decent at covering the main functionality. But it has a few annoying limitations. 1. The photos added by the teachers are not automatically downloaded, so we have to click download many times often. 2. The conversation functionality is limited, e.g. today we wanted to send a photo of a missing toy, no way to do that. 3. Hard to find out remotely if q kid has been checked in - have to scroll through the notifications. Why can't i just see it on the home page? So. Good, but not great.

What's new

* Now available in Spanish for staff.
* Performance and stability improvements.