Guest Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 (edited) Apologies this has probably been discussed loads of times before! But just wondering what everyone else does. I run a busy playgroup with 25 children attending morning/afternoons/full days. And have 9 staff who work a variety of shift patterns. Now we are quite fortunate that our committee are very supportive and understanding that they have allowed the staff to have a paid 3 hour session do complete admin, (obs, planning etc) we have just moved to the tapestry system and our committee have asked that the tablets/obs a etc remain in the building and no work is taken home or done at home. Some of my staff are in uproar and say they won't have sufficient time to do file's properly. My opinion is that 3 hours should be plenty of time no key person as more than 10 children and they are asked to do 1 observation per week. Am I been unrealistic? Just wondering what happens in other settings? Edited June 13, 2015 by silver genius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lashes2508 Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 No the wonder of tapestry is that it makes life so much easier , our tablets remain at setting, each member of staff gets obs time and tapestry time , as they are getting more confident with it they take photos upload with title straight away and do obs either directly onto tablet or write and enter later , I let them do it how they find easier , each member . We have a duty rota and it's added on there - designated days twice a week . Planning us done as a team thing and it's very loose so does not take up so much time now it's just the implementing of it sometimes. It may be worth having a staff meeting as a training , observation session so everyone is aware of what how and when to observe, 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mouseketeer Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Please don't tell my staff yours get 3 hrs a week they have 1.5 hrs a week up to 12 KC, they are able to take them home though, when they moan I tell them they should be more selective about which obs they do as this would cut their work load, because they find it easy they do loads more which then need editing and a lot repeat what they already know. Planning for us us also a very quick affair with most already added across previous week. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rafa Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 Glad you brought up this silver genius, as I have just had this discussion with my manager. I looked at number of obs staff had uploaded so far this term and it varied sooo much! Some had more than I a week and one had only 1 this term!!! Then I noticed lots of 'not in journal' entries - some going back to Spring Term!!! Tapestry was put in place to make LJs easier for them but it seems not! So although its early days using Tapestry some serious organising needs to be done! This term we have been very busy - summer always is - and we have not had time to give staff 'Tap Time' as well as writing up summaries for leavers. As for the amount of obs - we discussed next term aiming for one in each area and two for each prime area plus any Wow moments they may want to add. We shall aim to give each staff members, (we have 4- I do mine at home) one hour to anecdote etc They will only have 5/6 key children so I think this should be plenty of time - but may be completely wrong! Tapestry is supposed to be the FAST and easy way - Personally I think your staff are extremely fortunate to have 3 hours pw for admin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mouseketeer Posted June 13, 2015 Share Posted June 13, 2015 So do I Rafa ! I do check/submit all of ours...spelling and grammar is awful, just basic things like not using a capital at beginning of children's names or not leaving a gap after punctuation marks so everything flags up in red really annoys me, it is often a case of not bothering to re-read what they've written and predictive text is a killer, I actually think I spend more time on it than they do, but they do turn out hundreds of observations a week it seems like and there is only 6 of them ! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foreveryoung Posted June 14, 2015 Share Posted June 14, 2015 Mine now get no time! They don't need it with tapestry (well with how we have it set up anyway) myself and deputy authorise all observations, print off reports so they know which children have been observed and so on. I have just this week though been a little strict as I'm seeing so many 'pointless' observations done they are not worth wild they are often no relation to where the child is at and not a wow moment so my question to them is why have you done that obs? You could have instead been with that child extending their learning or watching more indepth at what they did next and learn more about the child. I do not want obs to take away adults from the children and that's what I'm trying to get embedded at present. In addition to this the obs are not written purposeful instead it's a full write up where 50% or more is contextual so again time away from the child. Staff have to plan 2 targets which are set on rolling basis and they plan 2/3 activities or experiences per target which then the planning staff member links to the weekly plan, other than that they scribble next steps onto planning. With the print offs I provide and getting them to do quality over quantity obs I haven't yet seen why they need tap time at our setting (yet) this has been reduced from 1.5 hrs per fortnight when we was paper based. Staff have between 7-14 key children. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 6, 2015 Share Posted July 6, 2015 thanks for the replies, I currently have 1 member of staff with 6 key children and is 1 month behind with her observations on tapestry says she cant get used to the new system it's driving me crazy! she had 9 hours last week and is still behind she will insist on doing mindless observations and does multiple obs a week even though both me and my deputy have said we only want all staff to do just 1 obs per week per child using next steps and planned activities as a base... sorry bit of a moan there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmony1985 Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 3 hours a week?! Blimey, I'm lucky if we get an hour a month! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 4, 2016 Share Posted March 4, 2016 Can I ask how often staff are expected to set new next steps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lashes2508 Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 Dependent on the child Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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