Busy Bees

As the organisation continued to grow, Busy Bees identified an opportunity to better capture and share its deep childcare expertise across the business. They wanted a digital platform that could support learning for parents and practitioners, without replacing the face-to-face interactions that are fundamental to early years care.

Off-the-shelf solutions failed to meet their expectations, offering little more than generic functionality with surface-level branding. Busy Bees needed a bespoke platform that reflected their values, upheld strict safeguarding standards and could be confidently rolled out across a large, complex organisation.

The work began with deep immersion into both the business and its users. Through stakeholder interviews, focus groups and sessions with nursery managers, practitioners and parents, we built a detailed understanding of user needs, behaviours and concerns. Using the Jobs to Be Done framework, we identified key frictions and anxieties, helping shape a clear value proposition and a phased product roadmap.

Throughout ideation and prototyping, several principles guided decision-making. The platform needed to enhance human interaction rather than distract from it. Security had to be robust but unobtrusive. And content visibility needed to be centrally controlled at a granular level to ensure consistency, quality and safety.

Features were grouped into horizons and delivered through iterative design and product sprints. This agile approach allowed the platform to evolve in line with real user feedback while maintaining strategic direction. The resulting solution, named UP, comprised a web app, native iOS and Android applications, and a supporting API.

Parents and practitioners gained access to a rich library of audio, video and interactive content, while Busy Bees benefited from a bespoke, secure CMS that enabled central content management and future expansion. The platform was designed to be scalable, supporting long-term international growth.

UP was launched at Busy Bees’ annual manager celebration, where teams were able to start using the platform immediately on tablets around the room, with no setup or training required. This ease of adoption proved critical. Practitioners quickly engaged with the content, using the platform to share knowledge, support professional development and reinforce best practice across the organisation.

Since launching, UP has generated 1.2 million content views, achieved 10,000 parent downloads in its first two weeks and secured a five-star app store rating. For a brief period, it even ranked higher than Peppa Pig in the educational app charts. More importantly, the platform has delivered meaningful, real-world impact for families.

Parents have shared stories of everyday challenges becoming easier through activities available on UP, reinforcing the role thoughtful digital products can play in supporting learning and wellbeing.