Tapestry - How to manage time spent on the tablet

[puddldeduck22]

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering how everyone manages their staffs time on the tablets. We expect each child to have at least one observation in each area of learning, every term. So that is 17 observations per child. In preschool we have about 25 children in total between 3 members of staff, so that's about 8 children each. 8 x 17 = 137 observations per term, which can be quite demanding on their time. 

I really don't want our staff to have their heads in the tablets trying to get them all done but am unsure how they can do it all and spend time engaged in the activities they are observing too.

Would love to hear your thoughts! 

[Mouseketeer]

Wow and my staff think I want blood, I expect one individual ob a week to go out per child but that is more about keeping the parents engaged via Tapestry, we then focus on 1 or 2 aspects (depending on the length of the half term) that the KP feels a child needs more support with/is in danger of falling behind without intervention, we send out an ob at the start of the half term to let parents know what that is, how we will support and a couple of ideas for them to support at home. We then add an ob for each child forward dated to the end of the half term, often the KP but any staff can add evidence to that observation, staff will then assess that ob with band/refinements for every aspect (regardless of progress or not as that's the data I use for cohort tracking from the 'latest' snapshot) before adding to the journal at the end of the half term. We do add other obs but these are more general and often group activities. It must be quite difficult to keep up with which aspects you've covered or not for each child and you could see something wonderful in an aspect in wk 8 but you've already covered that aspect in wk 2. I think it's very much about finding how Tapestry works for your setting.

[FSFRebecca]

My suggestion would be to only observe key things - for me, this might be a new skill, a next step being practised, a next step being achieved, a favourite activity. I would then ask staff to assess these across the EYFS. I bet from one observation there would be several 'areas' that can be assessed. I would then look, a couple of weeks before the end of term, and see if there are any areas that have been missed and then I would ask staff to review their provision for those areas - if they are not observing them, are the children not enthused by them at the moment? I think it's important to understand the difference between asking staff to observe in every area and asking them to assess in every area. I reckon I could do one long observation every term and assess all 17 areas!

Maybe you need to step back from the number of observations that are assessed and perhaps do only one or two longer observations each term? Then you could ask staff to make sure these are really high quality informative observations. Then, they could concentrate on being with the children and just take photos to share with parents, which are not assessed.

[puddldeduck22]

Thank you for your replies! 

I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been with my first post, which is m fault. We do just like each child to be assessed in each area, now that can be one observation with multiple assessments, that's fine. I agree practitioners can be smart and conduct a large observation and tick off a lot of the EYFS in pre school. However, I do think it is harder to tag multiple assessments from the EYFS when it comes to children under three years, especially children under 2. 

Does anyone give their staff time out the room to write observations?

[FSFRebecca]

23 minutes ago, puddldeduck22 said:

Does anyone give their staff time out the room to write observations?

Yes, we have teams of 4 or 5 staff (3 age group teams) and they get about a day a week between them for their records. We ask that they just make quick notes in the room and complete them later so that they can maintain their focus on the children.