The Foundation Stage Forum Community

Reflection and Theoretical Perspectives in Professional Development: Reflection is an essential component of professional development, particularly in early years education, where practitioners are expected to continually evaluate and improve their practice. Reflective practice enables educators to assess their strengths and weaknesses, identify areas for growth, and take intentional steps to enhance their skills and the quality of care and learning they provide. Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice (1983): Schön emphasises that professionals grow by revisiting their experiences, analysing what worked and what didn't, and using this insight to guide future actions. This model is highly relevant in early years work, where day-to-day experiences often require quick thinking and post-reflection for ongoing improvement. Schön distinguishes between. · reflection-in-action (reflecting as the situation occurs, it helps make real-time judgment and adjust decisions immediately). · reflection-on-action (thinking after the event had happened to review the action and learn from it). Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (1984), which outlines four stages of the learning cycle, when an individual progresses through the four stages, new knowledge will be created through new experiences, which will lead to better outcomes when faced with the same situations. This cycle supports the idea that learning is an ongoing loop of doing, that requires reflecting, learning from the experience, and applying new understanding. Practitioners often apply this in their evaluations of planned activities or when considering children’s responses and needs. · Concrete Experience (directly involved in a task), · Reflective Observation (reviewing and reflecting on the experience gained), · Abstract Conceptualisation (concluding and learning from the experience gained), · Active Experimentation (planning and trying out the new ideas). Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988), a widely used model in education and training. This structure helps practitioners think more deeply about how their actions impact others and what they can improve. Several peers highlighted Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle as being particularly practical for early years settings due to its structured nature. Others mentioned the Brookfield’s Four Lenses approach, which encourages reflection through the eyes of the self, colleagues, learners (children), and theoretical literature. This perspective aligns with working in partnership and incorporating feedback from all stakeholders. Gibbs encourages reflection through six stages: · Description (of the event), · Feelings (during the event), · Evaluation (of what worked and what did not), · Analysis (of the current situation and its cause), · Conclusion (of what else could have been done differently next time), · Action Plan (if faced by the same situation, what will you do differently?).

Childminding UK - Early Years Conference 2025 Inspiring Minds Saturday 18th October 2025 • Hilton Hotel, Northampton Sponsored by Tapestry A vibrant day of learning, connection and inspiration designed especially for childminders! Whether you're looking for fresh ideas, professional development, or just a chance to recharge with like-minded professionals, this is a day not to be missed! For a full list of speakers and how to book click here aa vibrant day of learning, connection and inspiration designed especially for childminders! Whether you're looking for fresh ideas, professional development, or just a chance to recharge with like-minded professionals, this is a day not to be missed! vibrant day of learning, connection and inspiration designed especially for childminders! Whether you're looking for fresh ideas, professional development, or just a chance to recharge with like-minded professionals, this is a day not to be missed!

Hi, we're looking at using the accident form feature on Tapestry but would like to understand whether comments added by staff are visible to parents? I can see from the help that you can stop comments being visible to other carers, but it's not clear whether staff comments are visible to all.

This walkthrough will cover how we recommend taking the orders from parents if ordering printed journals in bulk. It is for staff at schools and settings who: Are located outside the UK Are intending to make an order of 20 or more children’s journals, and Will be letting the parents/carers decide whether they would like a copy/several copies of the journal and passing on the costs to them. The steps we'll go through are as follows: Decide on how much you’d like to charge for the journals. Export the finished journals into PDFs Distribute the order form and price list so parents can decide if they’d like to buy Collect the orders and payments from families Order the journals Distribute them. 1. Decide on how much you’d like to charge for the journals. The discount we’re offering on large orders of journals mean they’ll be paying significantly less than if they ordered individually. Because of this, and because it is a little bit of work for you to order them we recommend you add a small fee on top to go towards the school. We have recommended a fee of £7.05 per journal. This still gives parents the bulk of the saving (£8+) and the 5p means if a parent wants to order multiple copies, the maths is a bit easier! If you’d like to increase or decrease that though that is completely up to you. When the journals are purchased you will only be charged the cost of the journal + £5 per book for delivery, so anything on top can be kept by you. You can see the prices you’ll be charged, and the prices we recommend you charge, below. 2. Export the finished journals into PDFs It is really important to only do this step when you know the journal is complete. This is because any observations added to the journal after it's been exported won't be included. We have written a short advice article, which you can find here, which covers everything we recommend checking before exporting children's journals to become printed books. Once you're happy the child's journal is complete, you can then export their journals in bulk by following the instructions in this tutorial. If you delete children after exporting their journals and realise there is a mistake with their journal, don't worry, you can export another copy of their journal within 90 days of selecting to delete them on your account. To find them just use the the 'inactive' filter at the top of Manage Children page. 3. Distribute the order form and price list so parents can decide if they’d like to buy You can use our order form template linked below, or create your own, to distribute to parents. Printed Journal Order Form.pdf There are a few different ways you can share the form with parents: Add a memo to Tapestry Print off the order form and price list to physically hand out Share by any other means To help you with this we've created two different kinds of memo and letter templates, depending on whether you want to add an additional fee to the price to charge parents for the books or not. Memo and Letter template - information only.docx Memo and letter template - with additional charge.docx 4. Collect the orders and payments from families Now you'll just need to wait to receive the completed order forms and payments from parents. You can add orders to your cart within Tapestry as they come in if you like as they will stay saved. 5. Order the journals Once parents have returned their completed order forms and you've received payment from them, you can add children's journals to your cart within Tapestry. Make sure to check you are happy with the child's journal when you add it to your cart as you won't be able to make any changes once the order has been placed. You can always re-export a child's journal if you need. This tutorial talks you through the whole process of adding the journals to your cart within Tapestry, and then placing and paying for your order with Group Hugs. Once you've completed your order you'll just need to wait to receive it! Group Hugs will communicate to you how long this should take and also when your order has been dispatched. 6. Distribute them Once the printed books have arrived you just need to let parents know and ask them to come and collect their child's book. You may want to use Memos on Tapestry to do this. And that's it! We hope the parents enjoy their new keepsakes.

Hello everyone, I’m Kamal Hinduja from Geneva, Switzerland. I'm new to this community and excited to contribute positively to discussions while learning from everyone's insights. Can anyone explain in detail what classroom management strategies are? Thanks in Advance! Kamal Hinduja from Geneva, Switzerland

As a school or setting, if you are based outside of the UK, it's possible for you to order printed book versions of children's journals for parents in bulk. This will allow you to benefit from heavily discounted shipping, an average of £25 per book, when placing orders of 20+ books. You can also earn an optional recommended £7 commission on each journal you order. Once you've collected order forms and payment from parents, see this article for information on how you can do this, a manager on your account can then place the order by using your Tapestry account. Please note, to select children's journals to order in bulk, you will firstly need to export them from your account. Take a look at this tutorial for information on how to do this. You can then do this by logging in via the browser version of Tapestry, clicking on your name in the top right-hand corner of the screen and selecting 'Control Panel' from the drop-down. Then, from the 'Control Panel', select 'Printed Journals' from the left-hand menu (1). You will then be presented with 3 further options: 2. Select Journals 3. Printed Journals Cart 4. Previous Orders Click 'Select Journals' to proceed with choosing which journals you want to place orders for. Here you will be presented with a list of children's journals that have been exported on your account (1). To add a child's journal to your cart, you just need to click on the shopping trolley icon at the end of the row of their journal (2). To confirm this has been done, the icon will then temporarily change to a tick (3). As you add children's journals to your cart, you will see the number increase in the 'Cart' button at the top of the list (4). If you add a child's journal is added to the cart by accident, you can remove it just by clicking on the shopping trolley icon again. Once you've added all of the children's journals to your cart that you want to order printed books for, click on the 'Cart' icon at the top of the page (1) or select 'Printed Journals Cart' from the left-hand menu (2). At the top of the cart page, you'll see three consent and condition options (1). You won't be able to proceed with the order (2) until you tick each box. Underneath this, you can review your order (3). If you want to check any of the journals you can download them using the down arrow button (4). You can also remove any of the journals by using the bin icon (5), these will then not be included in your order. If you're happy with everything in your cart and have ticked all three consent and condition options (1), to proceed click on the 'Complete Order with Group Hugs' button (2). Once you've to complete the order you'll be then taken through to the Group Hugs site. Here you'll need to enter the email you want the confirmation of the order to go through (1) and your school or setting's phone number (2). You'll need to complete the hCaptcha box to proceed and once you have, click on 'Next step' (4). After this you'll need to choose for each child the quantity of books you want to order (1) and whether you want the book with a hardcover or in paperback (2). You'll also need to check the child's name is appearing correctly as this can't be changed afterwards (3). In case a journal has been added by accident, you can always remove it from the order if needs be as well (4). If a child's journal isn't long enough, under X pages, you will be notified that blank pages will need to be added in order to meet the minimum requirements (1) and you will only be able to purchase the journal as a paperback (2). When you reach the bottom of the page you'll need to firstly choose the cover design you would like to be applied to all the books. Then it will ask you to input your shipping (1) and billing details (2). You can check the order total on the right-hand side (3) and your contact details below the billing details (4). To continue, you'll need to agree to the T&C's of sale (5) and click 'Review order' (6). Finally you just need to check all the order details on the 'Confirm your order' page (1), enter your payment details (2) and click to place your order (3). And that's it! If you have any questions about ordering printed journals in bulk, do get in touch with us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.

Hi Please follow this link Dorking Nursery School - Early Years Courses and Events to access details of courses being offered this summer by the Dorking Nursery school Sue Admin Team