How does Storypark help my child?
Storypark helps your child by:
- Supporting you to be more involved in your child’s learning.
- Providing deeper insights into your child’s unique interests, needs and abilities, ensuring
better support and improved outcomes. - Improving communication between educators and families.
- Helping your child define ‘what’s next’ in their learning.
- Sharing movement, song, and creative expression through audio and video.
- Actively involving grandparents, family and close friends.
How does it work?
Storypark is 'child-centric' which means any account must be connected to a child's profile. Your centre will create a Storypark child profile and invite you to it. Parents can download the Storypark for Families iOS app or Android app for free.
They can then invite family members to be part of that profile. Please contact your centre manager if you have any issues. The Storypark for Families app currently supports English, Canadian French, German, Japanese and te reo Māori. Families can also add text in any language. For families who speak other languages, we recommend accessing Storypark from the website instead if the app.
From your web browser, you can turn on a translator extension like Google translate which can translate any webpage into most languages.
What can you expect from the centre?
Transition into the centre
Storypark is the online platform that we use to both communicate with you and show the progression of your child’s learning across time. As part of your child’s transition into the centre you will be shown how to use the Storypark website and Families iOS app or Android app.
We will set up an individual profile in Storypark, and this is where you can access everything related to your
child’s learning. Note that for children in a shared care arrangement, they will have two separate profile tiles, each one only accessible to one party. The content in each profile will be the same.
Your child’s individual portfolio
Your child will have an individual learning profile in Storypark and in some cases a hard copy portfolio found in your child’s room. Both the online profile in Storypark and the hard copy portfolio belong to your child, so they are available at any time for you to contribute to, take home to show other whānau and revisit your child’s learning. We work in collaboration with you to assess, plan and evaluate your child’s learning.
In Storypark you will see individual learning stories, videos, annotated photos and short excerpts (magic moments, snippets, child notes) coming through for your child. These entries form a picture and summary of your child’s learning across time. The frequency will vary depending on each child’s learning journey. However, you can expect that between each learning story you will see regular annotated photos, short snippets of learning and videos to highlight your child's learning. Each time your child’s profile is updated with a story, comment, annotated photo or video you will receive notifications from Storypark. You can comment on or ask questions about anything added to your child’s profile. You are the expert on your child, so we welcome and respect your input into your child’s learning portfolio.
Inviting a family member to be an admin for a child's profile
You may like to invite other family members to be admins of your child’s account. This allows them to view all child notes on your child’s profile as well as stories. Teachers use child notes to send out frequent updates of your child’s learning including photos and video. It’s a good idea if you have family living in other locations that would like to view all entries for your child.
- Log into the Storypark website and click the Invite button at the top right-hand side of the page
- Fill out the recipient's email address and click the checkbox next to the word 'Admin'.
Once the person you have invited has accepted your invitation, they will be connected to the child as an admin.
Updating admin rights on a child's profile page
- Go to your child's profile page. You can find this by going to the Menu in the top-left corner of the screen and selecting the child profile that you wish to update access for and then click the Family tab.
- Find the person to whom you wish to grant admin rights and click the arrow in the top right corner of that family member's tile, and from the drop-down menu select 'Make admin'. This person will now have all the additional rights outlined above.
- To remove admin rights from a person, click the arrow in the top right corner of that person’s tile and from the drop-down menu select 'Remove as admin'.
You can also make someone an Admin through the Storypark for Families mobile apps.
Comment and create
As well as commenting on what your teachers have uploaded, you can also add your own photos, videos, comments and write your own stories about your child!
See the link below for more detail on ‘how to.’
Group learning stories, notes and planning
Your child will also be part of the group planning for the centre. You will see some group stories, videos, photos and snippets of learning showing your child as part of the group, learning together. These may include group events such as cultural events, special excursions out of the centre or visitors to the centre e.g., fire engine, doctor, beekeeper etc.
Room Transitions
When your child transitions from room to room you will see that their individual learning profile travels with them to their new room. Your child’s current teacher will evaluate their individual learning and complete a handover to your child’s new room teacher/s.
Community Space
From the website, you can find your Centre’s community space by tapping on the Community tab. Community spaces are marked with a yellow house icon.
Unlike stories and notes which are associated with each child, the community space is a place that everyone in your Storypark community can view and contribute to. This is a great place for your centre to share what's happening with parents. These posts may come as a Community post, or an Announcement.
A community post is a message to the whole centre community. Any posts made in this space will be visible to everyone listed on the community page and will appear for each person as a notification and a post in their latest activity stream and respective community page. You may get community posts from your centre or from the wider organisation, for example, monthly whānau blogs.
Occasionally we will send you an Announcement. As they override parents’ settings, we only use announcements for very urgent or time sensitive matters. This sends an email to each person in the community in addition to the notification you receive within Storypark, even if you have chosen to have community posts turned off iny our email notification settings.
Change your notification settings
If you're an admin family member you'll receive email notifications when:
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A new story is added
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A new note is added
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A new conversation is added
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A new community post is started
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A new comment is added
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A new plan is added
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Your family posts a moment from the Storypark for Families app
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Updates, tips and resources are sent from Storypark
If you're a non-admin family member you'll receive email notifications when:
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A new story is added
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A new conversation is added
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A new comment is added
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Your family posts a moment from the Storypark for Families app
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Updates, tips and resources are sent from Storypark
The default setting for each of these is to be sent an email. You can change these settings on your Notification settings page:
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Click the settings icon that looks like a little cog at the top of the page.
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From the dropdown menu select Notification settings.
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You’ll be taken to a form where you can edit your email notification settings. You'll see a series of checkboxes. By checking or unchecking each box you can choose the types of notification emails you receive.
Storypark Help Centre
The help centre contains guidance and instruction about everything you need to be able to use Storypark successfully. Storypark Help Center.
To access the help centre, simply open Storypark in your app and click on the ‘Need help?’ icon at the bottom right of your screen. This will take you to a screen with the options of the Help centre or ask a question. If you click on the Help centre, you will be taken to a full screen view with plenty of options for you to explore. Simply click a tile to take you through to each topic offered.
Use of Artificial Intelligence
Storypark integrates artificial intelligence (AI) to support educators in documenting, communicating and reflecting on children's learning and development. By leveraging AI, Storypark provides features that enhance quality and consistency while respecting educators’ unique voice and style.
Storypark say ‘When it comes to working with young children and their families, we know technology can’t substitute the nurturing approach and connections our educators create. Instead, we’re striving to use technology to empower educators and to support the critical work they do’.
AI is used as an ‘assistant’ only. Anything generated by AI is checked over to ensure that it makes sense and that it describes the learning that kaiako have noticed and recognised for your child.
Data & Privacy
What data does Storypark AI use?
Storypark collects metadata internally to understand feature usage and improve functionality (e.g. how frequently an AI feature is accessed). This metadata is not shared with our AI partners.
When educators use AI-powered features (like grammar checks), their input (only the text and title) is securely sent to our AI partners to generate responses. We do not send images, videos, PDF documents, comments, and which children are included. Our AI partners delete the data after processing and do not use it to train or improve their models