What a day!

It's been so great to receive so many positive reports after last week's Open Day - while we were confident that we would garner more interest and applications over time we were delighted to receive a steady stream of emails throughout the day reporting on-the-spot successes.

Here are some of them:

Vickery St: "I think we ended up with 3/4 enrolments.  Everyone we had walk through asked for an enrolment form." 

Templeton: "Our children made a sign for the door and planted some new flowers to welcome our visitors.  One of our waiting list children committed to a timetable. We also had a visit from a new family who have recently moved to Templeton. They seemed very interested and took away an enrolment pack." 

Shirley: "We had a great Open Day yesterday! I put our wheelie Kidsfirst sign down at The Palms with the Open Day sign on it all this week and balloons on our gate to advertise, as well as ask our whānau to ‘spread the word’.  We have 3 new enrolments – yay!  I plan on continuing to drop our wheelie sign to The Palms daily before I start work and pick it up at the end of the day to keep up the promotion of our kindy with photos of our back yard promoting how big it is etc.  Thank you for the great ideas, we are so keen to keep promoting our wonderful place."

Bush Street: "We had one enrolment from the Open Day yesterday, but better than that, we have enrolled 6 this term!!  All with start dates and all entered in Infocare - whoop whoop!! 

Karoro: "We have had 4 enrolments through our Open Day so far!  All younger, heard about us through Antenatal classes, and heard about the Open Day which prompted them to visit!"

Sumner: "A great day! We had biscuits and cold juice ready for our visitors and have one waiting list addition and 3 appointments for enrolments booked! Woo!"

Cromwell: "We were proud to showcase our kindergarten. Yesterday, we had a working bee and had tidied up the gardens with help from the teachers only.  Today, we had a couple of visitors. One of our parents invited her relations to visit and showed them around.  We also had a new child who came in to enrol after a previous enquiry." 

Lady May: "Two new families enrolled from the Open Day, we made a big sign for the building and balloons."

Wigram: "Four parents today and one yesterday when our sign went up and one yesterday from the waiting list. We have five children starting next week with one being a transfer and a child (sibling) starting on the 10th February and another two parents who rang to say they couldn’t make it (one from waiting list and one a referral from another parent) so very successful. We didn’t do any special activities we wanted the kindergarten kaupapa to be normal. Well, as normal as can be!"

Riccarton: "Five families in and two confirmed timetable start dates.   Two families that were already on our radar, one family we had been working with this week and two new enquiries."

Wales Street: "Eight families came to visit. Our tamariki were super excited, and sat at the gate ready to welcome the visitors. They handed out stickers and had a welcome song playing.  Six from our waiting list who were delighted to have a play and meet others and two new families – one has enrolled and the other took a form." 

Some kindergartens reported a quieter day – but remember, events like this are only one component of a bigger picture. It usually takes multiple ‘touch points’ for people to make the commitment to waitlist or enrol, and it doesn’t always happen immediately, as Stephanie and the Linwood team discovered.

Great work, all! We know now that the You're Always Welcome Here message is out in the community, and we'll be pushing this more throughout the year.

Now it's time to get a plan in place to keep the connections going - both with waitlist families, those who have yet to commit, and the wider community. 

We're still really keen to hear how it went for you - what worked, what didn't. Email jenny.pitama@kidsfirst.org.nz, or let us know through the contact page.