Next steps

[Sharon_Brown]

Hi we are new to Tapestry, this question may have been answered already, however can anyone tell me how they manage EYP's accessing the children's next steps etc, if this is not on the app but on the browser version, Ideally this should be made easy for the practitioner to access

 

Thanks

Sharon

[Guest]

^{I have recently Emailed Tapestry with this exact question and this is the response i got,}

 

<sup>The next steps feature in Tapestry is not based on any statements you might have 'ticked', but looks at the age-band and refinements you have made and makes suggestions from which staff can choose, to take learning to the next level. This does however rely on staff knowledge of the children's interests and levels of development and isn't meant to be a 'teach by numbers' approach where staff simply follow a list of what to teach next.

The Development Matters statements are not designed as a 'tick-list' where each child is expected to achieve them all. They are just examples of the kinds of behaviour and knowledge that children exhibit within those age bands. It states this on every page of the Development Matters document, so it's best to avoid focusing on ticking every statement and looking to the next one as your identified next step. Far better to use the statements as a guide to decide where your child 'best fits' in the age-bands.
< br />We firmly believe that a total reliance on the statements for planning and assessment is poor practice. Children deserve a wider curriculum than the Development Matters statements provide, and they need staff who can use their professional skills to create exciting learning experiences and assess children on a wide variety of skills and knowledge, not just the Dev Matters statements. The Dev Matters statements are not, and have never been designed as, 'development targets'. They are not statutory; the only statutory requirement is the EYFS statutory document, which outlines the seven areas of learning and the characteristics of effective learning.

Having said all this, we are fully aware of the use of the statements in such a way, however disheartened we feel about it! This is the reason we added the statement screen to Tapestry, so that users could see which statements had been attached to observations for each child. For the moment, this is about as far as we want to go- we really don't want to promote poor practice in the early years- a 'teaching by numbers' approach.

We do review this subject repeatedly- more than any other, in fact, and we are torn between promoting best practice and offering a system requested by Tapestry users, which we believe is not. Nancy Stewart, the author of Development Matters put this much better than me, in her brilliant article here. Well worth a read!</sup>

Edited December 14, 2016 by Tracey_Smith_1470313781

[Sharon_Brown]

Thank you Tracy