Oakline vs Forest School App

Connected provider operation: commercial bookings, families, registers, staff, payments, reporting and parent Learning Journeys.

Offline-first Forest School field record: planning, risk-benefit, session delivery, observations and complete records.

Blocks, selected dates, one-offs, holiday clubs and party bookings, with deposits, extras, balances, credits, discounts and eligible instalment plans.

Shareable parent booking link, capacity, waitlists, payments and bookings that populate the register.

Multi-child family accounts with parent-maintained medical, dietary, SEND, emergency contact and consent information.

Passwordless parent portal for bookings, consents, allergies and selected observations and photos.

A tenant-branded, account-based parent portal that families can install on supported devices and revisit for bookings, balances, records, messages and Learning Journeys.

Official booking documentation emphasises convenient passwordless access through booking links and the parent portal.

A transactional booking confirmation plus a separate provider-written welcome email when configured for the session. Mixed-session checkouts currently use the first enabled session's welcome email.

The official pages reviewed describe booking confirmation and parent-portal workflows; this comparison does not infer the absence of other communication features.

Prepared offline register snapshots carry the children booked in, medical conditions, allergies, dietary requirements, SEND information, emergency contacts, photo consent and payment status, plus offline attendance and supported accident capture. Risk-benefit assessments and Learning Journey writing are not part of the offline snapshot and need connectivity.

Official documentation describes offline registers, risk notes, observations, incidents and photos with automatic synchronisation.

Oakline supports structured, session-specific risk-benefit assessments with intended benefits, identified risks, control measures and residual risk, plus up to five reusable RBA templates, read-only staff access from the register and a parent-safe view during booking. Oakline's RBA currently requires connectivity, and Oakline does not currently claim equivalent tools, fire, weather-decision or dynamic-risk functionality.

Forest School App publicly documents a broader field-risk workflow, including reusable assessments, dynamic risk changes, weather decisions, tools, fire and offline access.

Session reflection plus optional individual headline, observation and next step; recent history; consent-aware photos; parent Moments, Development, Gallery and Attendance views; parent PDF.

Offline voice or text observations, development or EYFS tagging, consent-gated photos and a per-child learning journey shared with families.

Learning Journey uploads check recorded photo permission and child tagging before family sharing. Oakline separates provider, staff and family account roles but does not claim a dedicated DSL-only safeguarding wall.

Official documentation describes camera blocking when consent is absent, a second server-side consent check and safeguarding concerns restricted to a Designated Safeguarding Lead.

Staff assignments, clock-in and clock-out, worked time, breaks, staff-specific rates, estimated pay, holiday accrual, monthly payroll reports and CSV exports.

Practitioner profiles and compliance; Team plan documents individual staff logins, roles, permissions and DSL safeguarding controls.

DBS details and configurable First Aid, qualification and CPD records with issue and expiry dates, evidence files and visual expiry status. No automatic expiry email reminders.

Official pricing documents practitioner DBS, First Aid, qualifications and compliance profiles, plus staff compliance tracking on Team.

Financial transactions, session performance, family activity, attendance and payroll preparation with browser PDF, PDF or CSV outputs as appropriate.

Automatic complete session-record PDF covering register, ratios, weather, dynamic risk, incidents, medication, tools, fire and reflection.

Tenant branding, public booking pages and an API-key-protected read-only sessions API that can render into native website HTML without an iframe.

Official booking documentation centres on a shareable booking link and parent portal.

Installable Progressive Web App launched from supported phones, tablets and computers; not distributed as a separate App Store or Google Play app.

Official documentation describes an App Store and Google Play field app, a browser back-office and a Windows field app.

No monthly Oakline software subscription. A 3% Oakline platform fee applies to booking revenue; Stripe processing fees are separate.

Official pricing reviewed on the date above: £8/month Solo or £29/month Team, VAT included, plus a published 1% fee when the app collects parent payments.