With the Government’s National Wraparound Childcare Programme now underway, and £289 million of funding allocated to help schools and providers extend provision from 8 am to 6 pm, more settings are reviewing how these services are managed — and how to scale efficiently without adding pressure to already stretched admin teams.

The Department for Education’s ambition is that by September 2026, every parent who needs wrap-around care for their primary-aged child will be able to access it locally. For schools, this brings both opportunity and challenge: expanding capacity without expanding workload.

In many schools, wrap around care still follows a manual model where parents complete paper or basic online forms at the start of the year, committing to a fixed pattern of care. Office teams then build registers by hand, raise invoices session by session, and chase payments made in arrears.

With such a manual process even the smallest change in care whether to book more or remove a session due to illness for example can create layers of communication, checking, and correction that neither party has time for. 

To cope, some schools introduce strict booking rules such as:

Unfortunately, these restrictions often penalise families who need flexibility most, while adding even more admin to the school office. The result of these restrictions is that parent’s can only book the care they are certain they will need and then rely on grandparents or family friends for the occasions where things come up. 

Hivelink replaces the manual process entirely. Parents can log in to their account, view available sessions in real time, and make or amend bookings instantly.
All safeguarding, medical, and contact information is securely stored, so every booking comes complete with the data your team needs. Registers are generated automatically and update the moment a booking is placed — no spreadsheets, no duplication, no chasing of payments.

Card payments are taken at the point of booking, eliminating arrears and removing the need for termly invoicing. For settings accepting childcare vouchers, Hivelink’s Account Credit functionality provides a simple, compliant way for parents to prepay and spend flexibly without tying funds to specific sessions.

By automating the process, schools can afford to relax the rigid patterns that once kept things manageable. Parents can plan regular care, make last-minute changes, or add sessions right up to the booking cut-off — all without contacting the school office.

Many providers still retain short cut-off periods to help plan food or staffing, but these are now strategic choices rather than system constraints.

The same flexibility works in reverse too. If care is no longer required, parents can cancel within your chosen time window, automatically freeing the space for another family and updating registers in real time.

Automation doesn’t mean loss of control. Hivelink lets you define clear session capacities based on staffing ratios or room limits, ensuring you never go over your ratio’s

When sessions do fill, our Waiting List feature automatically notifies parents as soon as a space becomes available — keeping engagement high and occupancy consistent.

Some schools even use this strategically: maintaining lower limits early in the term, then increasing capacity once demand justifies additional staffing.

With all attendance, medical, and parent contact details accessible at the click of a button, delivery and admin teams can focus on children, not paperwork. Attendance can be marked — to the second — with a single tap, and communication tools make it easy to send reminders or updates to families instantly.

Schools adopting Hivelink for wrap around care report significant time savings, fewer payment queries, and happier parents who appreciate the flexibility and transparency.