Kōwhai Valley Crèche opened its doors at the end of January 2025 after years of wanting to get an early childhood education (ECE) centre up and running for local children in their rurally isolated township. After a 9-month push, filled with hard work and a few headaches, the volunteer staff at this non-profit crèche now proudly offer care for up to 12 children at a time during school hours, three days a week.
Snapshot
1
Services
4
Staff
12
Children
Jan 2025
Joined Discover
We were really attracted by the fact that Discover counts the pay parity hours, so we thought it’d be so gutting to leave those capabilities behind if we went with another provider.
Chloe Geoghegan, Trustee
Kōwhai Valley Crèche
Providing early childhood education proves challenging in small community
Glenorchy, a quiet town of less than 400 people located at the northern tip of Lake Wakatipu about 45 minutes from Queenstown isn’t lacking in the stunning views department. But it has been lacking something for a long time—an early childhood education care service for local families. Plans have been in the works for years, but no formal attempt to establish an ECE service had been made. That is until recently when a group of determined parents decided to turn the dream into a reality.
Of the many hurdles they faced, one of the most challenging was getting licensed by the Ministry of Education (MOE). That was partially what motivated the team to start looking for a student management system (SMS). They believed a licensed provider would show MOE they were serious about establishing a licensed early learning service. But which SMS should they choose? Could they afford a proper platform?
Getting the ball rolling with Discover by Xplor
One of the SMS platforms the team was aware of was Discover by Xplor. While initially impressed with what Discover had to offer, particularly automated Pay Parity tracking, Kōwhai Valley Crèche worried Discover was “too big” for them. However, they learned that Discover is keen to support early learning services of all shapes and sizes, and an arrangement to support the non-profit ECE service was reached. “We felt because we had Discover on board, we actually got somewhere with our licence application,” said Chloe Geoghegan, Trustee of Kōwhai Valley Crèche.
But once they agreed to partner with Discover, they had to figure out how to use the platform. “We didn’t know how we were going to work all this stuff out because I’m not from the ECE sector, and we’re all parent volunteers,” Chloe continued. “And then Discover onboarding specialist Kristy turned up and was like a coach getting us to opening day, which was awesome.”
Feeling fully supported through the onboarding and setup process, the team were ready to hit the ground running when they finally opened their doors in late January 2025.
Kristy would be able to jump on Teams and chat…sometimes, I wonder if she’s going to reply to this because it’s such a basic question, but she always replies. She is always so respectful and enthusiastic about our silly questions that we never felt silly for asking.
Chloe Geoghegan, Trustee
Kōwhai Valley Crèche
Every day, we just feel so grateful that Discover by Xplor have supported us and that it really helps with the professionalisation of our community-run centre.
Chloe Geoghegan, Trustee
Kōwhai Valley Crèche
Children in rural area getting the care they need
Now, Glenorchy’s first crèche is finally providing early childhood education to a community that’s long needed it. While the team wondered if they could’ve managed RS7s manually, they appreciate the Pay Parity tracking. However, they’ve realised the sign-in/out, attendance verification, immunisation register and emergency contacts features in Discover are essential to running their crèche. In addition, with a lack of storage space available for printed paper, digitally storing everything has been a huge advantage.
The Kōwhai Valley Crèche team are grateful for access to a platform like Discover that has helped them realise their dream of establishing an ECE service. That dedicated support helped ensure the crèche was set up professionally and correctly from the start. Now the team can focus on what they’ve dreamt of for too long—providing quality care to the children of Glenorchy. Discover by Xplor is proud to have been part of that journey and looks forward to the ongoing partnership with Kōwhai Valley Crèche.
Giving us access to Discover, which we didn’t think we would be able to have just because of the way we have set our service up as a small community offering, means that there are children here who will get access to a quality early childhood centre.
Chloe Geoghegan, Trustee
Kōwhai Valley Crèche
