Kids Allowed nursery founder to launch new parenting app

My First Five Years gives parents ‘bespoke, personalised daily information to empower parents with the knowledge they need to give their children the best foundation in life.'

The app has been tested by more than 1,200 parents and early years educators over the past few months and feedback from parents has been ‘extremely positive’ the founders said.

This week the app was named a regional winner in Tech Nation’s Rising Stars competition.

Johnson is the former chief executive of Manchester-based Kids Allowed, which grew to be one of the largest groups in the UK, before it was sold to local group Kids Planet in January 2020, now the third largest nursery group.

Kids Allowed was the winner of Nursery World’s Nursery Group of the Year in 2017 and Johnson was awarded an MBE for services to apprenticeships in 2016.

Johnson said she has been working on developing the app during the past year.

‘The child development space is full of apps that regard all children and their ages and stages of development to be one-size- fits-all,’ she said. ‘That’s not the reality. Each child is unique and develops at their own pace.

‘We’re on a mission to give parents timely, impactful nuggets of knowledge that will help them notice and celebrate the little things that build up to the key achievements that become the building blocks for a child’s lifelong learning journey.’

The My First Five Years app has more than 1,800 skills and associated activities that children can master in their first five years of life. Each child will take their ‘own unique journey through the app, mastering skills in six streams of development underpinned by play.’

The app also includes a scrapbook to record special memories and skills that children have mastered and a private community of parents and experts.

Tech Nation is a growth platform for UK tech, which helps companies scale up their businesses.

Esme Caulfield, competitions lead at Tech Nation, said, ‘It is amazing to see so many inspiring companies innovating to change our world for the better. This year’s regional winners represent the brightest and the best of UK tech and talent, and I’m excited to see what they do next.’

Johnson added, ‘We are delighted to be named as one of only five winners in the North West for technical innovation. It’s testimony to our drive and passion to support parents through the personalised development journey of their child’s first five years – and the app is the ideal medium to do this through.’

Early years expert and author Bryce-Clegg (right), known for the hit Channel 4 show, Old Parents Home for Four Year Olds, said, ‘We are basically giving parents bite-sized chunks of easily-digestible information that we, as childcare experts, use with children every day.

‘We are committed to help them see the significant things that their children are doing on a daily basis and how they link to the significant milestones of child development.’