Uniting parents and schools at pick-up time

Fetching is a system of two parts - an app for parents to connect with people they trust to collect their children from school, and a platform for schools to see who is picking up each child on any given day.

It was founded by Rachel Beech, in response to the high cost of childcare and a post-covid world where parents, who were no longer required in the office full time, were choosing to juggle the school run amongst their friends and family.

This juggle was not only a hassle for parents to manage, but created a challenge for schools, who were being asked to hand children to people they didn't know.

Primary schools have lots of different ways of managing pick-up time. Some have passwords, others have lists of approved people, but often things change at the last minute and it is a struggle for parents to get a message to the school.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and many parents today struggle because they lack just that.

"When we spoke to primary school parents, 84% of them had helped a friend or family member by collecting their child from school as well as their own."

Fetching founder Rachel commented. "It occurred to me that people are often happy to help - they are just not always able to commit to a fixed day every week. What we needed was a way to connect parents with everyone they trust to pick up their child. Then they could use it when they needed help. Whatever we built also needed to connect with the school, so that the office team and class teacher were kept informed."

In building Fetching, we met with primary school Heads and Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs), who wanted a more robust system than the phone calls and emails fielded by the schools office.

They gave lots of real-life examples to support their needs:

• Separated parents where one parent is not allowed to see a child
• A caring friend, on a child's approved list, who collected a child because they were passing, but neglected to tell the parent. The parent arrived a few moments later and blamed the school
• Changes to collection arrangements sent via messaging app late in the day and not getting through to the class teacher (because they were teaching).

In response to all of this, we built Fetching.

Our parent app includes ID verification, which means that getting help with the school run doesn't not have to be limited to other parents at the school - it can be the whole 'village'.

It also means that no-one can create a false profile and pretend to be someone that they are not.

Fetching tech

Our technology is built and maintained by Coremaker, which is owned and run by Ciprian Briscaru, who also works as our CTO. Rachel met Ciprian and his team when they worked together launched Mettle - the a small business bank owned by NatWest. Rachel always says that, if you want a team to buildtechnology that supports the safety of children, a team that builds banks is a good place to start.

We use a third-party provided for our ID verification. Persona is a global company that you might have used if you verified your account on LinkedIn. They are ISO27001 certified - the international standard for information security management systems.

So, that's our story so far. For those of you that couldn't face the read, here is the TL;DR version of what Fetching does.

TL;DR - How it works: 3 simple steps

• Parents connect with their network of trusted friends and family through the Fetching app. (Everyone must confirm their ID).
• They use the app to ask for help with the school run and the school is instantly informed if someone else is picking up.
• When someone new is collecting a child, our school platform shows teachers a photo of each "fetcher" to help them pass each child to the correct grown-up. (The school platform is fully mobile responsive so can be used on a phone or tablet at the school gate).

Why primary schools use Fetching

By using Fetching, primary schools not only ensure that every child is passed to the correct grown up, they significantly reduce the administration around changes to collection arrangements and help parents to manage the juggle.

We can integrate with CPOMs to flag any safeguarding concerns around frequently late collection, and our drop-off feature can help support attendance by giving parents an easy way to request help in the morning, if they are unable to get their child to school in time.

Is Fetching right for you?

To find out how Fetching can help your school reduce admin, support parents, and enjoy a safer pick-up time, get in touch or book a call.