reception New user to Tapestry

[JoB]

Hi, 

I am new to the forum and am researching Tapestry for my setting. We currently still use workbooks, pictures etc. and am looking to move to an online for of observation.  

It would be really helpful to hear from you of your experiences of using Tapestry and any advantages/disadvantages of use that you have encountered. 

I would be really grateful for your responses and thank you for your time. 

JoB

[Dennie]

We went over to Tapestry when operating with reduced numbers of children early in the pandemic.  We still have folders for children's work and anything 'physical' parents send in but everything else is on Tapestry now.  It has been so useful now that parents are no longer entering the setting and helped our new families see how their children were settling in.  We had been looking at moving over to Tapestry for some time and our staff really like it.  I also think that it is a worthwhile investment and will save us a lot of money that would previously have been spent on printing.  We no longer have to limit colour photos as they are online for parents to see in addition to videos.

We are still learning about Tapestry, but we are all glad we now have it to support all that we do.  It is encouraging to see parents commenting and adding their own photos and videos too, which can easily be entered into the journals if you want to.

Edited November 7, 2020 by Dennie
typo

[Mouseketeer]

We’ve used Tapestry since 2014 (I think, a good few years anyway), parent partnership was the main reason for moving to online and this has worked out very well, on the whole our parents are pretty good at using it, even those who don’t comment or add so much I can see  they are viewing obs/newsletters etc and if they’re not they get a gentle nudge, I say a gentle nudge it’s more ‘have you forgot your password’ 😆

We use it for cohort tracking (I find the group Summative in school years and the Age Band tracker most useful for this), it shows where individual chn need next steps but also if we need to improve provision e.g. if our oldest boys didn’t show much progress from the previous term in writing what can we add to promote this? (That is the only planning we do)

Time: Many people say it saves time compared to the paper learning journal, we haven’t really found this, staff still need time out of ratio to add and assess for their key children (but I think a lot of that is because they do too much that isn’t necessary).

Top tip: Ensure staff are consistent in the band a child is working at, going back to pick up missed statements or selecting one in a higher band when they aren’t really secure in the previous will throw the progress tracking.

Reflections: Great for sharing info, policy updates etc with staff, staff can add CPD feedback, add handouts and suggest for discussion anything we should/could implement, we can add any changes we want to make so it’s kind of our SEF too. (Love this feature).

Negative for us personally: I would like to be able to just pick up things you know chn can do from the DM screen (I know, I know, don’t shoot me), as some analysis screens work on selected statements and if you don’t ‘tick’ statements a couple screens don’t give you any information.

Care diary /accident reports: I can’t comment on as we don’t use, I just haven’t taken the time to work out how really.

Reports: These are great for shared setting info, 2 yr checks, transition reports..

On the whole I can’t imagine working without it now, good luck 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jules]

Hi JoB and welcome to the Forum!

Thanks to Dennie and Mouseketeer for sharing their experiences of using Tapestry in their settings. 

One thing I always notice is how different settings are and how they use Tapestry in a variety of ways to suit what works for them, their staff, children and families. 

I just wanted to say hello, and also link you here to the Tapestry Tutorials page, which might be helpful as you think about what would work best for your setting. 

Hope to hear from you again soon. 😊

[JoB]

On 08/11/2020 at 10:33, Mouseketeer said:

We’ve used Tapestry since 2014 (I think, a good few years anyway), parent partnership was the main reason for moving to online and this has worked out very well, on the whole our parents are pretty good at using it, even those who don’t comment or add so much I can see  they are viewing obs/newsletters etc and if they’re not they get a gentle nudge, I say a gentle nudge it’s more ‘have you forgot your password’ 😆

We use it for cohort tracking (I find the group Summative in school years and the Age Band tracker most useful for this), it shows where individual chn need next steps but also if we need to improve provision e.g. if our oldest boys didn’t show much progress from the previous term in writing what can we add to promote this? (That is the only planning we do)

Time: Many people say it saves time compared to the paper learning journal, we haven’t really found this, staff still need time out of ratio to add and assess for their key children (but I think a lot of that is because they do too much that isn’t necessary).

Top tip: Ensure staff are consistent in the band a child is working at, going back to pick up missed statements or selecting one in a higher band when they aren’t really secure in the previous will throw the progress tracking.

Reflections: Great for sharing info, policy updates etc with staff, staff can add CPD feedback, add handouts and suggest for discussion anything we should/could implement, we can add any changes we want to make so it’s kind of our SEF too. (Love this feature).

Negative for us personally: I would like to be able to just pick up things you know chn can do from the DM screen (I know, I know, don’t shoot me), as some analysis screens work on selected statements and if you don’t ‘tick’ statements a couple screens don’t give you any information.

Care diary /accident reports: I can’t comment on as we don’t use, I just haven’t taken the time to work out how really.

Reports: These are great for shared setting info, 2 yr checks, transition reports..

On the whole I can’t imagine working without it now, good luck 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for your detailed response. The information you have given is really helpful to my research. Thanks for taking time out to reply. 

[JoB]

On 08/11/2020 at 10:33, Mouseketeer said:

We’ve used Tapestry since 2014 (I think, a good few years anyway), parent partnership was the main reason for moving to online and this has worked out very well, on the whole our parents are pretty good at using it, even those who don’t comment or add so much I can see  they are viewing obs/newsletters etc and if they’re not they get a gentle nudge, I say a gentle nudge it’s more ‘have you forgot your password’ 😆

We use it for cohort tracking (I find the group Summative in school years and the Age Band tracker most useful for this), it shows where individual chn need next steps but also if we need to improve provision e.g. if our oldest boys didn’t show much progress from the previous term in writing what can we add to promote this? (That is the only planning we do)

Time: Many people say it saves time compared to the paper learning journal, we haven’t really found this, staff still need time out of ratio to add and assess for their key children (but I think a lot of that is because they do too much that isn’t necessary).

Top tip: Ensure staff are consistent in the band a child is working at, going back to pick up missed statements or selecting one in a higher band when they aren’t really secure in the previous will throw the progress tracking.

Reflections: Great for sharing info, policy updates etc with staff, staff can add CPD feedback, add handouts and suggest for discussion anything we should/could implement, we can add any changes we want to make so it’s kind of our SEF too. (Love this feature).

Negative for us personally: I would like to be able to just pick up things you know chn can do from the DM screen (I know, I know, don’t shoot me), as some analysis screens work on selected statements and if you don’t ‘tick’ statements a couple screens don’t give you any information.

Care diary /accident reports: I can’t comment on as we don’t use, I just haven’t taken the time to work out how really.

Reports: These are great for shared setting info, 2 yr checks, transition reports..

On the whole I can’t imagine working without it now, good luck 🙂 

 

 

 

 

On 07/11/2020 at 11:58, Dennie said:

We went over to Tapestry when operating with reduced numbers of children early in the pandemic.  We still have folders for children's work and anything 'physical' parents send in but everything else is on Tapestry now.  It has been so useful now that parents are no longer entering the setting and helped our new families see how their children were settling in.  We had been looking at moving over to Tapestry for some time and our staff really like it.  I also think that it is a worthwhile investment and will save us a lot of money that would previously have been spent on printing.  We no longer have to limit colour photos as they are online for parents to see in addition to videos.

We are still learning about Tapestry, but we are all glad we now have it to support all that we do.  It is encouraging to see parents commenting and adding their own photos and videos too, which can easily be entered into the journals if you want to.

Thanks so much for taking time to respond to my query. The information you have given is really worthwhile to my research. 

 

 

On 07/11/2020 at 11:58, Dennie said:

We went over to Tapestry when operating with reduced numbers of children early in the pandemic.  We still have folders for children's work and anything 'physical' parents send in but everything else is on Tapestry now.  It has been so useful now that parents are no longer entering the setting and helped our new families see how their children were settling in.  We had been looking at moving over to Tapestry for some time and our staff really like it.  I also think that it is a worthwhile investment and will save us a lot of money that would previously have been spent on printing.  We no longer have to limit colour photos as they are online for parents to see in addition to videos.

We are still learning about Tapestry, but we are all glad we now have it to support all that we do.  It is encouraging to see parents commenting and adding their own photos and videos too, which can easily be entered into the journals if you want to.