Lauren

We now have a system for early adopters using the new Developments Matters statements. Following guidance from Dr Julian Grenier, the author of the new Development Matters, and Gill Jones and Wendy Ratcliff from OFSTED, we have decided against allowing users to tick the statements. You can read more about our thinking behind it in this article written by one of our education team, Ben Case. Instead, we have added the ability for you to ‘flag’ the observation as being evidence towards an Area of Learning. This will create an organised bank of observations for you to refer back to. It consists of 2 key parts: 1) Flags. You may already be familiar with these from Tapestry Reflections. They act as ‘labels’ that you can apply to observations, organising them according to what they relate to. You will find flags for Development Matters, ELGs, and Checkpoints as well as other descriptors e.g. CoETL, Motivation for Learning, and reasons to celebrate. 2) Reference material. Whenever you select a Development Matters Guidance 2020, Checkpoint, or ELG 2020 flag, you will also be shown a list of reference material. This includes the Development Matters and ELG statements but also a variety of other useful articles and videos. These will provide a reminder as you become familiar with the new guidance and support all staff as they make meaningful observations about the development of each child. We know many of you really wanted to be able to tick statements, and this is quite a big change from how you were assessing before, but we are confident that this approach is more aligned with what Ofsted want to see. We are hopeful that this will save you a lot of time and generally improve provision in early years in the long run. We do want to work with you though. If you have concerns about how to use it or ideas for things that would help, please get in touch by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info. An assessment screen to follow the progress of your children is not available just yet, but we are working on it now. It will enable you to know which children are falling behind and who will need extra support, while still relying on your professional judgement. Flags and reference materials are not currently available on the apps.

The latest iOS update is ready! This version allows you and the relatives at your school or setting to view the activities and memos that have been posted via the browser, as well as the observations. Along with that you will see that the page filters have been amended slightly to allow you to search for a specific type of post (we call that ‘page type’). This update is only for those of you using Apple devices e.g. ipads, but we are working on a similar update for Android.

This post is for those of you accessing Tapestry via an Android mobile/tablet running Android 4.4.4 or below (this is the operating system for the device), or on a computer using a really old version of Windows/OS X and using the ‘classic app’ or an old internet browser. For those of you accessing Tapestry via the browser, this might be you if you’re using a very old computer or mobile/tablet and you don’t think the browser you use to access the internet has been updated in a long time. The browser might be an app you click on to open a webpage, or it might be a ‘google’ bar on your device’s home screen. I’ll explain at the bottom of this post how you can be sure what operating system your Android device uses, but one sign of it being 4.4.4 or below and you having a very old browser is that other websites have stopped working over the last few years when you access them via that computer/device or other similar ones. Unfortunately, the same is about to be true for Tapestry. As of Wednesday 4th of November, we are stopping people from accessing Tapestry or the Foundation Stage Forum if we can see that the connection between them and Tapestry/the Forum isn’t secure enough. If you’re interested in what we’re doing technically, we’re switching off connections to ‘TLS 1.0’ and ‘TLS 1.1’. You don’t need to know what that means technically, but you should know that this will help to protect you and the data stored on your account. Luckily, there is a, hopefully, quite simple way for you to be able to access Tapestry again! If you’re using our Tapestry app you just need to download the newer version of it (it's a different app to the 'classic'. It's called 'Tapestry Mobile' and has a colourful logo). If you’re using a browser, you just need to update the browser you use to get onto the internet (and therefore access Tapestry). If you’re using a mobile/tablet you will be able to download an up to date browser from the ‘play store’. We use ‘Google Chrome’ or ‘Firefox’ here mostly, but you might have another preference. If you’re on a computer, you can google for those and download an up to date version. If you’re not confident doing that though, it’s worth speaking to your IT team, or someone else who generally helps with your computers/devices. This is how you can check the operating system for Android mobile/tablets 1. Turn on your device. 2. Go to ‘Settings’ 3. Scroll down through the ‘Settings’ options and look for one that says ‘About phone’, ‘About tablet’, or ‘System’. Click on that. 4. If you’re given another level of options to choose from, click on one that says something like ‘Software Information’ or ‘About’. 5. Look those the list of details you’re given until you find one that says ‘Android Version’. 6. If the number under that starts with a 4 or less then this may well affect you and you should update your browser. If you can’t find the operating system number, or you’re still not sure for another reason, then it’s worth updating your browser anyway, just in case. If you have any questions, please email customer.service@eyfs.info.

Children who are becoming more independent can now log into the browser version of Tapestry themselves using our newest feature: Child Login. Every child who you set up to use this feature will have their own password and will be able to view and reply to observations attached to them, access activities set by their teachers, and create their own observations. Staff can set up ‘group login pages’ to allow specific children to sign into Tapestry on selected devices while in school, and set whether they can sign in via their parents’ Tapestry accounts when at home. It has been designed to be easily used in classroom situations. Staff will set up the group they want to sign in, enable the ‘group login page’ for those children, and those children can then go to tapestryjournal.com and enter their passwords to access their own accounts. That access can be turned off when not in use and quickly added to new computers or tablets when needed via a QR code, a web address, some ‘magic words’, or by the teacher logging in and switching to a child’s account. You can read in detail about how it all works in our tutorials and get an overview of Child Login from our Tapestry.info page. We're really excited to get children engaged with their journals. This is a new kind of feature for us, so we'd love to know what you think of it once you've had time to explore it. Please do send any feedback you have to customer.service@eyfs.info. This is currently only available on the browser version of Tapestry. Children cannot log in via the app.

If you want to permanently delete or remove access to a group login page (so no one can login from the devices that had previously been set up), there are a couple of very easy steps to take. Please note that this is different from just temporarily turning access off. You can see how to do that a the end of our how to use the Child Login feature tutorial. The first thing to do is log in to Tapestry as a manager, the staff member who created the group login page in question, or a staff member who is allowed to edit group login pages created by other staff members. Then, go to Child Login (1), find the group login page you want to delete/remove access to (you might need to click on 'Show class or group login pages set up by your colleagues') (2), then click 'Manage' (3). At the very bottom of the page you're taken to, you'll see two red options. The first one is to remove this group login page from all computers (1). You'll possibly want to do this if you've got rid of some devices you were previously using, or if they were stolen. It could also be useful if you've held onto the devices but they've been moved to another part of the school. It will mean you have to set new devices up in order for the children to log in at school though. See our tutorial on enabling other devices if you're not sure how to do that. The second option is for you to permanently delete the login page (2). You should only do this if you don't need this group login page at all any more. You might want to do it as an end of year tidy up. Please note, this action is irreversible. If you just want to change something about the group login page, it might be easier to edit it rather than delete and start again. This tutorial can help with that! Go back to Main Tutorials Page

There is a new analysis screen for settings and schools using the Montessori framework. It’s called ‘Assessment Counts’ and will let you compare the number of times activities within each subarea, for example ‘Mathematics – Introductory Activities’, have been assessed. You can view and compare those figures for up to 4 individual children, 4 groups, or 4 staff members, or just 1 child, group, or staff member across up to 4 periods. You can find it in the ‘Tracking’ tab along with the other Montessori snapshot screens. This is only available on the browser version of Tapestry – you will not be able to find it within the app.

If you use the MOVE programme, you can now enable a branch map based on it as part of the Cherry Garden framework. MOVE is an activity-based programme that that uses the collaborative approach of education, therapy and family knowledge to teach disabled children the skills of sitting, standing and walking. You can find out much more about it here: https://eyfs.info/articles.html/primary/what-is-the-move-programme-r315/ We do not own the rights to MOVE and it is a paid for resource. It is therefore not available for every Tapestry setting to turn on by default. If you use it or would like to use it, please get in touch with MOVE with your Tapestry account ID – they will be able to instruct us to turn it on for you.

The new ELGs are now available on Tapestry. If you’d like to be an Early Adopter of them, a manager can enable them from within your control panel by going to Control Panel > Settings > Assessments. They will appear on the new iOS and Android apps (but not the Classic/Legacy versions). Currently there are no tracking or EYFSP submission forms on Tapestry for them, but these will be added later. Please note that for now, enabling these will not remove the current ELGs from the EYFS framework or snapshot screens.

The top of the 'Manage Children' page within the control panel of Tapestry has changed. When you go there, you’ll now be able to clearly see how many child profiles are in each status. You will also be able to see how many children have been left as ‘Inactive’ for over 90 days. That acts as a prompt for you to look at the inactive profiles and think about whether any of them should now be deleted in line with your data protection obligations.

We have created an additional status for child profiles: ‘Enrolling’. This status will allow you to create profiles for the children joining your setting soon, before your existing children have moved, but without you needing to upgrade to a larger package size. Although you will not be able to link enrolling children to posts (observations, memos, activities, reflections), you will be able to fill in their ‘About Me’ pages, create labels for them, and organise them into groups. You can also set up the relatives of these new children and link them together. Relatives will be able to login to see their children on Tapestry, contribute to the About Me, and see any Documents you’ve made visible to them. Children added to your account via a CSV file or as part of a transfer from another setting will now come in with the status ‘Enrolling’ but that can be changed to ‘Active’ as soon as you’re ready. You have space for as many Enrolling children as you do Active children e.g. if you have a 20 child package, you can have 20 active children and 20 enrolling children simultaneously. If you need to go beyond that limit you will need to increase your package size. This tutorial talks you through how to add children as enrolling individually and this one explains how to do this in bulk. Once you have added children as enrolling, this tutorial will talk you through how to activate them.