Birth to 5 matters

[CDNPS]

Just wondering, will Birth to 5 Matters links be available to flag on observations from September?

Thank you.

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

Hi,

Regarding Birth to 5, we are waiting for the final version of the document to be released as well as remaining in talks with the authors to see whether we will be allowed to add it to Tapestry. 

The way that the flags work in Tapestry, and how the areas in Development Matters and Birth to 5 are the same, there is nothing stopping you from using the Development Matters 2020 flags and associated Areas of Concern screens for Birth to 5 Matters monitoring though. The only thing that currently won't appear in Tapestry is the reference material for Birth to 5 Matters, but this could easily be open in another tab in the browser to refer back to. As Birth to 5 Matters does have aspects within the areas, these could be discussed and monitored more closely using the reflections feature which is linked in the Areas of Concern screen. 

The benefit of using the flags in this way means that you would not be tied to one document and instead having more materials to support your monitoring of the children. 

I hope that this helps!

Best wishes,

Emily

[Mouseketeer]

Hi I’ve had a play around with an ob using the ELG 2020 and the concerns/no concerns screens this morning, from that I have the following thoughts/questions:

1- when you assess an Observation and click on an area are the statements that open up based on the age of the child you’re observing? 

2- will there be aspects at a later date or just areas (one of the main things I liked was the breaking down of PD to gross & fine, they could be expected in gross but emerging in fine?

3- I was surprised the statements that came up could still be ‘ticked’, are there tracking screens that you’d need to have ticked them to give any information?

4- I like the PDF screen for group concerns/no concerns (took me a while to realise I had to select assessments and not just totals to get the names in a given group list, will there be an option to export this to pdf in black & white? (or I’m going to get through a lot of coloured ink - might just have been that I was using an iPad)

5- will there be a group Summative Assessment screen like the age bands we have now that just shows if chn in a cohort are emerging/expected? I’m not sure how it will know if I’ve assessed chn in a cohort against 0-3yrs or 3/4yrs?

6- if a child is right on 3 yrs, or is 3 yrs but high achieving for example in an area how do you choose to assess them as emerging or expected in 0 to 3yrs or 3 / 4 yrs?

Sorry, I know that’s a lot of questions, I’ve only just found time to explore it all, one of my thoughts is that 0 - 3yrs is too big an age range to just say a child is emerging/expected (but feel B25 is broken down into too many ages/ranges making it quite restrictive), I can see this is where professional judgement comes in but still feel that information needs recording somehow/somewhere.

Thanks for any advice/thoughts or even a ‘you’re overthinking this’, I’m just trying to figure out how Tapestry can still work for me as a tracking tool 🤔 

Edited April 13, 2021 by Mouseketeer

[JackTapestrySupport]

Hello @Mouseketeer! 

I'd be happy to try and answer your questions :) but I also might ask some follow ups if that's ok! 

1- when you assess an Observation and click on an area are the statements that open up based on the age of the child you’re observing? 

Do you mean the statements within the ELG 2020 framework? If so, then no they don't change with the age. They are just the ones found in the early adopters framework: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896810/EYFS_Early_Adopter_Framework.pdf

It's also worth mentioning at this point that the ELG2020 framework you see on Tapestry is just the ELGs to record at the end of reception, and shouldn't be used as they move through the EYFS. For that you'd be wanting to use DM or Bto5 guidance. 

Here's the tutorial for setting up DM2020 on your account - 

1. Setting up Development Matters 2020

2- will there be aspects at a later date or just areas (one of the main things I liked was the breaking down of PD to gross & fine, they could be expected in gross but emerging in fine?

We are still in discussion about Birth to 5 (I assume this is what this questions is referencing) and whether or not the aspects will be included so we will have to get back to you on that one! But in the meantime, you could always look at using Reflections to make the distinction in achievement between the two different aspects. 

3- I was surprised the statements that came up could still be ‘ticked’, are there tracking screens that you’d need to have ticked them to give any information?

As these are just the ELGs you are looking at then ticking the statements is a possibility as these criteria are ones that still need to be "met" for want of a better term - using this ELG framework feeds into the tracking screen by the same name (ELG 2020) and in turn feeds into the EYFSP screen. Again though, I think you might be better off looking at DM2020 not the ELGs for your purpose. 

4- I like the PDF screen for group concerns/no concerns (took me a while to realise I had to select assessments and not just totals to get the names in a given group list, will there be an option to export this to pdf in black & white? (or I’m going to get through a lot of coloured ink - might just have been that I was using an iPad)

that's a good point and I will certainly pass that along as we do have similar options when printing out child journals. You should also be able to print in black and white after you have downloaded the PDF when you choose to send it to your printer though. This is a printer/computer setting, not a tapestry one at this stage. 

5- will there be a group Summative Assessment screen like the age bands we have now that just shows if chn in a cohort are emerging/expected? I’m not sure how it will know if I’ve assessed chn in a cohort against 0-3yrs or 3/4yrs?

I think the key here is that you know! So instead of worrying about emerging/expected and age bands, this is where professional knowledge and knowledge of the children comes to the forefront. The Areas of Concern group screen can function as your "summative assessment" screen as this will show you who you have deemed on track or not in each of the areas, it can then be updated when and if it needs to be. More like a live working document. We envisage the information on you AoC screen being a helpful tool to inform your planning going forward. Identifying the children that need extra support early means you can plan more effectively for them. 

6- if a child is right on 3 yrs, or is 3 yrs but high achieving for example in an area how do you choose to assess them as emerging or expected in 0 to 3yrs or 3 / 4 yrs?

Similarly to my last answer, as you won't be choosing the age band/refinement any longer, simply tagging an area of learning, you no longer need to worry about that. If you're talking about the Checkpoints specifically (where we do have separate flag sets) it would be really up to you how you approach that. You can always refer to the reference material for more detail on the checkpoints. But Checkpoint flags don't currently feed into anywhere else, it would just purely be on the observation so you can refer back at any time. 

 

I do hope that helps! And let me know if you have any other questions :) 

[Mouseketeer]

Hi Jack, Thank you for taking the the time to work through my questions and reply to them 😊

let’s see if I’m getting this ....

1. You can only assess as emerging/expected against the ELG’s and not the 0-3 or 3/4 checkpoints? 
 

2. I don’t know...I’ve confused myself 🤦🏻‍♀️ I think I was thinking I’d be able to assess an observation by saying this child is ‘expected’ at 0-3yrs in Maths/number patterns (the age bands before the ELG’s) 

3. Get it 👍🏻

4. Thank you for looking into the option to unselect colour as you can now when exporting summatives.

5. I also think the AoC cohort screen is going to be where the most useful EYFS tracking comes from e.g it will show if we have ‘concerns’ say in a few of our oldest boys in literacy and what are we going to do about that and use reflections related to 3 I’s.

I’m now thinking all the children in my 2022 cohort should be working within the 3/4 yr band unless we have concerns.

Thanks again, it’s helped me clarify some points in my own head before trying to feed it to other staff 👍

[BenTapestrySupport]

Morning @Mouseketeer

With the new materials, you'll not be assessing them as being in 0-3, 3/4 etc at all. You'll just be 'flagging' an observation to say which areas it relates to, and then this pulls these observations in to look through when you do the Areas of Concern screen. Here, you'll be using your knowledge of the child and child development to say whether you feel that the child is a concern in that area or not. If they are a concern, you can then adapt your planning to support these children. 

 

The checkpoints can be seen as reflection points to say whether a child is doing the what is expected of a child at around that age: They are all written as "Around the age of ..." so if you have a 3 year old child, you can look at the ones that say "Around the age of 3.." to see whether they are doing these things (or similar) and that would help you with the concern screen too. 

 

The AoC screen will the most useful as it will be where you can quickly see the children or areas that are concerns. It is going to be a much more active document that can be used as often as you feel is appropriate. There is a chance that some children will never move off of being 'No concerns' which is ideally where you want them all as it means your planning is helping them develop. 

I think one important thing to try to move away from is the 'working within' an age pathway, as that can lead straight back into ticking off statements etc. Use the documents (Development Matters old and new, Birth to 5, and everything else you can get your hands on) to help with your planning of activities that help with the development of the child and then refer back to the documents to help decide whether a child is a concern or not. 

 

[Mouseketeer]

Thanks for your insight Ben, I’ve watched your video too and will get the rest of the staff on that, I have asked staff to stop statement ticking for the next cohorts a while ago so they’re already getting that out of their heads.....hopefully 🤞

 

[BenTapestrySupport]

It is a massive change so great that you've started preparing already. 

Any questions, you know where we are 😀