Best practice guidelines for staff using Tapestry?

[Mother_Goose]

I'm an administrator at a setting, which my child attends. He also attends another setting which is local to where we live. Both settings use Tapestry, but there is a huge difference in the quantity and quality of observations in my son's journal between the two.

 

It has got me wondering whether there are any 'best practice' guidelines that would be good to share with the staff at our setting and thought there might be some settings on here that would be willing to give me some insight as to how you use it at yours, and importantly, how you manage the staff's usage...

 

• Do you have a set number of obs that you like your staff to record per child?
• Does that vary according to the number of days a week the child attends? i.e. you like 1 obs per session, with a minimum of 3 per week for full time children etc.
• Perhaps you like staff to record many more?
• How detailed do you go into the comments & description that the parent sees.
• Do you ever just upload a picture/video with nothing else?
• How do you use Tapestry throughout the setting; do you allow staff to take pictures during the session, and ask them to complete the rest away from the children? Or do they take a picture and make notes 'on the fly'.
• How often do you review how many observations a staff member is making, per child? Do you do this weekly, monthly, termly?
• Do you have any kind of KPI's for staff which relate to Tapestry?
• Do you encourage parents to upload their own obs into Tapestry?

 

These are just the first ones that come into mind, but I'm sure there are many more I've not thought about. Any help and insight would be gratefully appreciated. and if you think there's a better sub-forum for this question, please let me know!

 

In case it's relevant: I should specify up front that we are a pack away, term-time only setting, only open until 13.15, so children attend a max of 20 hours per week with a max of 4 hours per session.

 

Thanks so much!

Edited September 4, 2017 by Mother_Goose