Setting a baseline with Cherry Garden

[Lauren]

 

 

To make a baseline you need to be logged into the browser version of Tapestry, then click on 'Tracking' at the top of the page (1), select 'Cherry Garden' (2), then click on 'Individual View' in the Baseline section (3). 

 

 

That will take you to a page that allows you to select the child you want to baseline (1), and the area you want to baseline (2).

 

 

Once you have chosen those things the rest of the page will load. That will start with a status box allowing you to lock the baseline and to select a start and end date. These things will apply to all of the areas, so if you're baselining a child all in one go, then don't lock it until you're finished. I'll come back to locking later on in this tutorial though. 

For now you just need to select the dates this baseline applies to. By this we mean the period of time in which you are evaluating the child for their on entry assessment. Again, this is for all the areas - not just the one you've selected. By default the start date will be the day the first Cherry Garden assessment was made on Tapestry for the child, or the current day if none have been made. The end date will be 6 weeks after the start date, although you can change that to anything that suits you.

Any assessments made as part of observations between the two selected dates will contribute to the calculated average score that shows up here. Anything you enter yourself from this page will take priority though and will stick, regardless of any observations made. 

Remember to save your changes when you've selected the most appropriate dates and that any changes you make to the dates here will apply to the baseline of all the areas for this child, but it will not affect any other child. 

 

You can now see the statements relating to the area you've selected. You should be able to see a key at the top of the page telling you which colour relates to which aspect (1), and as you scroll down the page you'll see the boxes the statements sit in match that key (2 and 3). You will be able to drag the page across to scroll through the different branches (4). 

 

 

As you make observations you will start to see orange bars appear with the refinement level selected.

 

 

You can click on the orange bar to see the observations that were used when calculating that refinement level (it will be the average of the refinements selected in the obs). 

 

 

If you aren't going to/haven't made an official observation but you know a child is capable of something, you can also select a refinement and tick off any relevant criteria from this page. Just click on the blue tick to select a refinement (1) and then the tick boxes to select a criteria (2). Once you have done that a pencil icon will appear next to the refinement. This means it is registered as a manual override and no observations made in the rest of the baseline period will affect the score. 

Please remember to save any changes once you have made them. 

 

 

We recommend that you mark off all the statements a child is capable of in the baseline. If you're working with a child at a higher branch and want to mark off a whole lower branch at once, you can bulk assess a branch for the whole area (all the aspects) by clicking on the white box saying 'Branch x' and selecting the refinement (1). It will apply to every statement and will tick off every criteria.

You can see the screenshot below that Branch 1 has been assessed in this way (2). 

As with the one-at-a-time approach, statements marked off in this way will have a little pencil mark next to them to indicate a manual override (3). 

Again though please remember to save any changes when you're done (4).

 

 

Once you're happy with all the scores, you can lock the baseline, if you'd like. This will mean that no scores that have been calculated based on observations will change on this form, regardless of what is added in the future, and you won't be able to change the manually overridden scores without unlocking it. 

To do that you just need to scroll back to the status box at the top of the page, click on the tick box called 'Locked' (1) and then 'Save Changes' (2).

 

 

If you want to unlock it at any point you can do so by deselecting that same 'Locked' tick box (1). That will then give you the option to 'Keep assessments as overrides' or 'Use Tapestry's latest estimates' (2). Keeping the assessments as overrides will mean that the scores throughout the child's baseline stay the same as they were when locked, but that the pencil mark will appear and they won't update with any future observations made (you will be able to change them manually again though).

If you choose to use the latest estimate instead then the scores which were manual overrides to begin with will stick, but those which were calculated based on observations will be recalculated. If you haven't made any other observations then they will stay the same, but they might change if you have made new observations. 

Once you have decided, click 'Save Changes' to unlock it.
 

 

The only other thing to note is that you can export each area of the baseline to PDF as many times as you like and at any point. You can then store that as an offline copy and/or print it off.

To do that just click on the PDF button under the status box but near the top of the page. 

 

 

 

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