The new tool responds to the need for quick and agile communications between homes and early childhood education.
“Early childhood education has needed communications development for a long time already. Daycare staff have asked for a service that could be used to communicate with guardians and other daycare centres quickly and effortlessly in different situations. There has also been a need to improve communications with guardians to replace emails and paper notes slipped into the children’s backpacks,” says Director of Early Childhood Education Miia Kemppi.
The Snadi communications service is an app used on smartphones and/or computers. It allows for guardians to receive information from the daycare centre faster than before. Guardians can also use the app to communicate matters related to their child, report absences and receive information about important events using a calendar. In addition to this, Snadi also enables daycare centres to communicate more effectively both internally and externally.
A lighter, Finnish-language version of Snadi will now be piloted. Versions of the service are also planned in Swedish and English.
Three daycare centre units included
Snadi will be piloted as of early October in three daycare centre units: Torpparintupa-Vallesmanni, Pacius-Muksulaakso and Merirasti-Siima. In addition to daycare centre staff, guardians of the children in the daycare centres will also take part in the pilot.
“We will use the pilot to test how the communications service works in a genuine environment. If the experiment is successful, we will start planning to extend the use of Snadi to all daycare centre units in the City of Helsinki in 2023. The decision on the extension will be made after we review the pilot,” says Miia Kemppi.
The Snadi communications service is part of the Education Division’s Asti online service, which is developed in accordance with the City of Helsinki digitalisation programme.