Our Year in Review: 50+ Nurseries, AI Innovation, and a Nationwide Expansion
Reflecting on a fantastic 2025 and preparing for an exciting 2026!
As we close the chapter on 2025, we're reflecting on what has been an extraordinary year for Kalendit. From welcoming brilliant new team members to deploying AI across our platform, this has been a year of transformation—not just for us, but for the early years sector we're privileged to serve.
Growing Our Team, Expanding Our Impact
Every great mission needs great people, and 2025 brought exceptional talent to the Kalendit family. Our team has grown thoughtfully this year, bringing in expertise that's helping us serve nurseries across the UK even better. Each new team member shares our commitment to raising standards in early years staffing, and their contributions have been felt immediately across our platform and in our client relationships.
Welcoming New Partners to the Kalendit Community
2025 has been our strongest growth year yet—we've enrolled over 50 new nurseries across the UK. This includes prestigious London chains like Abacus Ark, Eveline Day Nurseries, Tenderlinks, and Alba, each bringing their unique approach to early years excellence. We've also expanded our relationships with existing clients, welcoming new settings from N Family Club and Kido into the Kalendit community.
The diversity of our new partners reflects the breadth of the early years sector: from franchise groups like Banana Moon to independent pre-schools and specialist Montessori nurseries. Each brings different philosophies and approaches, but all share a commitment to quality care and smart staffing solutions.
Beyond London, our nationwide expansion plan has taken root beautifully. We've successfully established strong presences in Leamington Spa, Coventry, and Leeds—key markets where local nurseries were crying out for an alternative to overpriced agencies and unreliable cover. These regional hubs are already showing the same rapid adoption we've seen in London, proving that the appetite for transparent, technology-driven staffing solutions exists right across the country.
What's particularly rewarding is how quickly these partnerships have flourished. Within weeks of onboarding, we're seeing nurseries take back control of their staffing, reduce agency premiums from 40-60% down to our transparent 23% booking fee, and—most importantly—maintain continuity of care for the children they serve.
Reconnecting and Building Relationships
Catching-up with Catherine Stoneman, CEO of our long-standing partner Kido, on the sidelines of Nursery Management Show London in November 2025
Some of the year's highlights came from being out in the sector, meeting the people behind the settings. Catching up with the Kido team at various events, connecting with nursery owners at the Nursery Owners Club in Hampshire, and meeting managers from across the country at the Nursery Management Show in London reminded us why these relationships matter. The conversations about staffing challenges, rising costs, and the future of early years reinforced our mission and led to valuable new partnerships.
Innovation at Speed: Our AI Revolution
Behind the scenes, 2025 has been our most technically ambitious year yet. We've integrated artificial intelligence across virtually every aspect of Kalendit's operations—not for the sake of technology, but to solve real problems for real nurseries.
Our crown jewel? The AI-powered rota system we've been developing throughout the year. This isn't just a scheduling tool; it's an intelligent system that learns from your setting's patterns, anticipates staffing needs, ensures qualification mix compliance, and suggests optimal coverage—all whilst respecting staff preferences and availability. Early testing with partner nurseries has shown dramatic reductions in the time managers spend on rota planning, freeing them up for what matters most: the children.
But AI hasn't just transformed our rota. We've embedded it into:
Compliance checking: Instantly verifying qualifications, DBS status, and EYFS ratios
Matching algorithms: Pairing the right educators with the right settings based on experience, specialisms, and fit
Predictive availability: Anticipating staffing gaps before they become crises
Quality assurance: Monitoring feedback patterns to maintain our high standards
The result? Faster bookings, better matches, and nurseries that can plan with confidence rather than scrambling to fill gaps at the last minute.
What 2025 Taught Us
This year reinforced something we've always known but felt more acutely than ever: the early years sector is the backbone of working family life in the UK. When nurseries struggle with staffing, it's not just an operational problem—it ripples out to affect working parents, children's development, and the wider economy.
The expansion of the government's 30 funded hours scheme intensified demand dramatically this year. While the policy aimed to support working families, it created a perfect storm: more parents needing places, but nurseries without the staff to accommodate them. As we explored in our previous blog on the staffing crisis, the promise of expanded childcare access means little when settings can't maintain the qualified staff ratios required to deliver it.
We've seen nurseries forced to turn away families—not because of lack of space or willingness, but simply because they don't have the staff to maintain statutory ratios. We've watched brilliant educators leave the sector because agencies were offering them unpredictable hours and little support. And we've heard from countless managers who spend entire evenings calling around trying to find cover for the next morning.
These aren't problems that should exist in 2025. And increasingly, with partners like ours, they don't have to.
Looking Ahead: 2026 and Beyond
As we turn toward 2026, we're energised by the possibilities ahead. Our mission remains crystal clear: raise safeguarding standards whilst helping nurseries accommodate more working families.
These two goals aren't in tension—they're intrinsically linked. When nurseries have access to properly vetted, qualified, supported educators through a transparent platform, they can confidently expand their capacity. When they're not paying 40-60% agency premiums, they can invest in quality improvements. When they're not spending hours chasing cover, managers can focus on pedagogy and child development.
Next year, we're planning to:
Launch our AI-powered rota publicly, bringing intelligent scheduling to nurseries across the UK
Expand our educator community, ensuring every nursery can find the right qualified professional when they need them
Deepen our compliance tools, making safeguarding verification even more robust and seamless
Grow our partnerships, working with more outstanding nursery groups who share our vision for the sector
Enhance our platform, building on this year's AI foundation with even smarter features
A Thank You
To every nursery manager who gave us feedback this year, every educator who joined our community, every parent who benefited from a setting having the staff they needed, and every team member who poured their energy into making Kalendit better—thank you.
The early years sector deserves better than the status quo of overpriced agencies, last-minute scrambles, and compromised quality. Together, we're building that better future.
Here's to 2025—a year of growth, innovation, and impact. And here's to 2026—when we'll achieve even more.
Ready to transform your nursery staffing in 2026? Let's talk about how Kalendit can help you raise standards, reduce costs, and accommodate more families. Get in touch to start the conversation.