01
From enquiry to enrolled, in one flow
Every family moves along a simple board: new enquiry, offered a place, enrolled, paid up. A place is held while a family decides, and each day is capped, so the hub fills evenly and never overfills.
Case study · Home education
Montessori on the Farm: a homeschool hub that runs itself.
A Wairarapa Montessori homeschool hub was being run on a spreadsheet, an inbox and a good memory. We built the platform that now runs the whole thing: families enquire, are offered a place, enrol, pay, and follow their child's learning, all in one place.
The problem
Running a hub is a business, not just a class.
Enquiries arrive by email. Places have to be offered and held while a family decides. Fees depend on the season, the number of days and how many children are in the family. Parents want to know how their child is getting on. Done by hand, across a spreadsheet and an inbox, that eats the week and things slip through.
So we built one system that carries the whole journey, from a family's first enquiry to their child's learning journal, with the fiddly parts (capacity, fees and reminders) worked out automatically.
Under the hood
The engineering that makes it work.
02
Fees that work themselves out
The system knows each season, counts the days, applies the sibling discount, and splits a deposit from the balance. One offer email carries the amount, the bank details and the reference, so paying is accepting. The numbers cannot drift, because one place in the code decides them.
03
A whanau portal with learning journeys
Parents sign in with a secure link sent to their email, with no password to forget. They see their child's learning journey (the teacher's observations and photos), their balance, and can message the teacher back and forth.
04
Touch ID sign-in, built from scratch
Staff sign in with a fingerprint or face, a passkey, with a password only as backup. We wrote the whole passkey system in plain PHP rather than renting a login service, so the hub owns its own front door.
05
A parent course that prices itself
Alongside the hub runs a 32-workshop parent course. Families fill a basket and the price finds the cheapest bundle automatically, whether they pick one workshop, a season or the whole year, with enrolled whanau getting their discount through the portal.
06
A planner that knows the calendar
A season planner lays out the year, flags the NZ public holidays (Matariki included) and the hub's own closures, and tracks open weeks against charged weeks, so time off is built in rather than bolted on.
See it working
The actual product.
HomepageThe public face at openspace.co.nz
Enrolment enquiryThe plain form that starts the pipeline
Parent courseA basket that finds the cheapest bundle
The enrolment boardEvery family and its next step
Seasons and feesEach season, its dates and its fee
Season plannerHolidays, closures and charged weeks
What's inside
One system, the whole journey.
- Enquiry to enrolment pipeline with daily capacity caps
- Automatic season fees, deposit and sibling discount
- Whanau portal with learning journeys and photos
- Passwordless magic-link sign-in for parents
- Touch ID passkey sign-in for staff, built in-house
- Parent workshop course with a smart basket
- Season planner with NZ public holidays and closures
- Attendance register and two-way messaging
Built with
PHP 8SQLiteWebAuthn passkeysBrevo emailSelf-hosted spam gate
Running something that has outgrown its spreadsheet?
This hub went from an inbox and a spreadsheet to one system that runs the enquiries, enrolments, fees and parent updates. If your business has outgrown its tools, let's talk.
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