Present, absent, collected
Every child is signed in and signed out, and the register is the record of exactly who was in your care and when.
Safeguarding
Not a policy
Not a policy
in a drawer.
Safeguarding is what happens at 8:45 on a wet Tuesday when a child arrives with an inhaler and a grandparent nobody recognises turns up at pick-up. ActivityLane is built for that moment — and there are three things it simply will not let you skip.
Enforced, not suggested
Three safeguards built into the system.
Most software warns you. The medication gate is refused by the server with no override; the trip and rota gates are on by default, and you can change them in Setup.
🔒 Enforced
No consent, no dose
A dose cannot be recorded against a medication that has no parental consent on file. Not a warning — the record is rejected. Every dose that is given goes on the MAR with the name of the person who gave it.
🔒 On by default
No trip without every consent
On by default, a trip cannot be signed off or completed while a single child on it is missing consent (you can change this in Setup). The ratio target flags before you leave, not after.
🔒 On by default
No lapsed certificate on a rota
On by default, a staff member with no DBS on file, an expired or rejected DBS, or an expired certificate cannot be rostered onto a session (you can change this in Setup). Expiring certificates are flagged before they lapse.
On the day
Who’s here, who’s left, and with whom.
Taken on a phone at the door, not on a clipboard that gets left in the hall.
A collection password
Set a collection password for a child and staff ask for it at the door. If it isn’t given, the child doesn’t leave — a rule your team follows, not a judgement call.
Collected by — recorded
The name of the adult who collected is recorded against the child at sign-out. Walk-home permission is a separate, explicit flag.
Allergies on the row
Allergies, medication, SEND support and care notes sit on the child’s row on the register — visible to the staff running that session, not to everyone with a login.
Ratios, calculated live
Adult-to-child ratios update as children are signed in and flag the moment you drop below what you set — on site and on trips.
Roll call, any time
Run a headcount mid-session or at every stage of a trip, and it’s recorded — so “we counted” is evidenced rather than remembered.
When something isn’t right
One button, and the right person knows.
Staff don’t decide whether a concern is serious enough to pass on. They log it; your safeguarding lead decides.
Your lead is alerted
Your named safeguarding lead is alerted when a concern, confidential record or staff allegation is logged, or edited into one — and the account holder is alerted if no lead is named. Nothing sits in a drawer waiting for someone to notice it.
Your categories, your protocol
The concern categories and the “what to do now” steps shown on the form are yours to write — your wording, your deadline, not generic advice.
The right numbers, ready
Your LADO, MASH and out-of-hours numbers for every council you work in, on the form and on the exported record, live for click-to-call. Nobody looks up a number calmly.
What you did about it
The decision and the action taken are recorded on the same record as the concern, so the two never come apart — and the whole thing exports as a PDF.
Accidents, in writing
Log an accident and the parent is emailed and notified in the app — and, if you turn on the optional reminder in Setup, reminded daily for up to 7 days until they acknowledge it. A word at the door is not a record.
Timestamped and attributed
Every concern, accident, dose and register entry carries who recorded it and when. That’s as much for your staff’s protection as anyone’s.
The people you put in front of children
Cleared to start — or not started.
Safer recruitment records kept as one list per person, not four spreadsheets and a folder.
One record per person
DBS, references, right to work, qualifications and induction on a single record, with expiry dates flagged before they lapse.
A gate, not a checklist
A record short of what you require reads Start on hold. The rota blocks anyone with no DBS on file, an expired or rejected DBS, or an expired certificate.
Policies, read and confirmed
Publish your safeguarding policy with version history, assign it to roles, and see who has actually read and confirmed the current version.
No shared logins
Everyone who sees a child’s record has their own account, and incident edits record who changed what and when.
Only what their role needs
A None / View / Edit matrix per area. Medical detail reaches the staff running that session. Money doesn’t reach staff at all.
Training on the same record
Assign safeguarding, first aid and food hygiene from a built-in course library and keep completions and certificates against the person.
Images and information
Consent-first, and yours to control.
Photo consent, respected
A child whose photo consent is off is excluded from shared moments — and staff see the flag before the picture is taken, not after.
You are the data controller
Your families’ data is yours. It is not pooled with other providers, sold, or shared. Held in line with UK GDPR, encrypted in transit and at rest.
Records kept for the period you set
Registers, concerns, accidents and medication logs are kept for the retention period you set and are exportable. Deletions are audited and statutory records stay masked, so an inspection or a subject access request isn’t an archaeology project.
Where software stops
Safeguarding is yours. We just refuse to let it be sloppy.
ActivityLane records, prompts and, in the three places above, refuses. It does not decide whether someone is suitable to work with children, notice that a quiet child has gone quieter, or supervise a session. Those are judgements made by trained people, and no software should claim otherwise.
What it does do is remove the excuses. The consent was recorded or it wasn’t. The register says who collected her. The concern reached your lead the same afternoon, with the time on it. The certificate was in date, or the rota wouldn’t take them.
You still need a named safeguarding lead, trained staff, a policy your team has actually read, and the local numbers to hand. Set those up on day one — the system will hold you to them afterwards.
Built for UK childcare
See it on a real register.
A short call, your own setting’s scenario, no slides.