Journal time

[Christine Woolven]

Hello everyone could you share your thoughts on how much journal time is needed per weekfor online journals, with approximately 9-11 key children.

[Stargrower]

My staff with that number of key children have two hours a week away from the children to write up observations and upload photos.

[finleysmaid]

we do them as we go on tapestry

[Mouseketeer]

1 hour ago, finleysmaid said:

we do them as we go on tapestry

How do you (and your staff) do that FM? We use Tapestry but they still have roughly 2hrs each a week out of ratio, I also try and give them extra time if ratio’s allow a bit extra yet I always feel like I should give them more time :-( 

[OurLadys]

In my previous setting, staff were paid 1 hour keyworker time per week to edit observations on tapestry out of work. In my new setting we do not use tapestry. Staff file away sticky note observations daily into their key worker file. Then staff are paid overtime as and when they collate the observations and photos together. 

[finleysmaid]

1 hour ago, Mouseketeer said:

How do you (and your staff) do that FM? We use Tapestry but they still have roughly 2hrs each a week out of ratio, I also try and give them extra time if ratio’s allow a bit extra yet I always feel like I should give them more time :-( 

I guess it depends how many obs you want them to do in a week. we know now that if we have 20 decent obs in a term we can write a good report on the children...any less than that and we don't have enough info. There will always be gaps and so we manually override any that we've missed at the end of term before we do reports. We sometimes do a 'catch up' ob where we add in Health and care and some pse ones that get missed.

We just do them as we go catching moments as they happen and a quick write up then fill in extra info if needed later maybe while someone's doing story or at the beginning of after school club. I check them and post them at the end of the day if they haven't been posted already (only me and deputy post!)

[Mouseketeer]

My expectation is only 1 a week as they also have a couple of focus NS per half term, they then cross ref on to a paper tracker (their choice not mine), they say the problem with doing them at the time other than taking quick photos is logging in to the tablet, then logging into Tapestry takes too long, how do you manage that? It’s like finding a spare person for half the week to cover all their out of ratio time which isn’t great for the budget.

[finleysmaid]

11 hours ago, Mouseketeer said:

My expectation is only 1 a week as they also have a couple of focus NS per half term, they then cross ref on to a paper tracker (their choice not mine), they say the problem with doing them at the time other than taking quick photos is logging in to the tablet, then logging into Tapestry takes too long, how do you manage that? It’s like finding a spare person for half the week to cover all their out of ratio time which isn’t great for the budget.

We have amazon tablets ..all are password protected with a simple formula for the whole group so that we can share if we need to (we do all have our own) Then its just a quick 4 digit code to get into the app . I have set my tablet to shut off after a longer time than my staff as i always seem to get distracted! Not all obs will have a photo (in fact this has been a discussion this term about not needing to photograph all the time) Instead of doing a paper tracker i print a pdf of the group assessments so that they can see if they are missing anything. We do next steps every fortnight and these are on the system to so that parents can get involved.

[Mouseketeer]

My staff have a tablet each and I sometimes wonder if that’s the problem, if they had to share they might not be so quick to snap away, I also print them out a summative assessment for their key group and an individual one for each child so they can see where they might be showing less/no progress ...it seems the more they have the more they expect, your’s obviously manage the same level of work without hours of ‘out of ratio’ time.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Mouseketeer

[finleysmaid]

20 minutes ago, Mouseketeer said:

My staff have a tablet each and I sometimes wonder if that’s the problem, if they had to share they might not be so quick to snap away, I also print them out a summative assessment for their key group and an individual one for each child so they can see where they might be showing less/no progress ...it seems the more they have the more they expect, your’s obviously manage the same level of work without hours of ‘out of ratio’ time.

might be because im a stingy g*t????

[finleysmaid]

they get paid for doing reports!!!

[Mouseketeer]

10 hours ago, finleysmaid said:

they get paid for doing reports!!!

I find them extra time to do reports e.g 2yr checks, shared provider sheets 🤔

[MarshaD]

Late to the party as always. My guys get an hour per week overtime to do observations or pro rata equivalent. I ask for five  five minute obs per focus week or term and new children first day, second week and fourth week. They also take quiet moments as appropriate. We have two tablets and they have slots on the rota so there shouldn’t more than two people observing at a time one in one out. I proof all observations and publish but keeping on top of it is a real problem for me. I also teach and have key children myself and plumb and clean and administrate etc etc...