BenTapestrySupport

Definitely! Being able to have those conversations with others can help you understand things from how others have approached a task as well and might give you and them, ideas for next time. It's also useful as some children learn differently with different adults/children around them. As always though, time works against us, but if you are able to find that time, the impact can be huge.

I think as educators, we naturally reflect on how things go, adapt quickly, and don't realise that we're doing it. It's only when you take a step back and reflect on things 'properly' you realise that you've been doing it all along! That said, I do think that taking that time is an important step at any stage of your career, and having a space for it on planning docs is great - as long as it get reviewed later too (which was where I fell down!)

If you're interested in reflecting on CPD, this TEC event may be worth a watch: https://tapestry.info/tec/reflecting-on-cpd-in-the-early-years.html You may also be interested in reading more about Donald Schön's theory of reflective practice https://content.iriss.org.uk/reflectivepractice/practitioner.html https://early-education.org.uk/reflective-practice/ Personally, I think that reflecting on our practice and what we are teaching is really important as it helps keep things relevant and appropriate. It's all too easy in the busy day to day life of teaching to just do what you have always done before because you know what you need to do, possibly have some of the resources available already and don't need to spend time coming up with new ideas. The problem with that is that it may not be what the children need at that time, or where their interests are at that time. Reflecting and celebrating what also went well is important too! Having those conversations with experienced members of staff, as well as with new members of staff will help with the reflective cycle - and your own personal development.

I've been quite lucky in the people I've met over the years through different things I've done. I think one of the nicest people I've ever met though was Ben Shephard when I was lucky enough to take part in the first series of Tipping Point. We all turned up at the old ITV studios, no idea what the show was all about, and he really made all the contestants feel at home. The best part of the day though was....even though I almost got knocked out in Round 1, I got back in the game and went on to win! I also took my class bear with me, and Ben was more than happy to have a photo with him after recording: (7 years after recording date, I tagged him in a Tweet and to prove how nice he is..he replied!)

I guess the some things to consider would be: Personal Safety Are the staff doing visits alone or in pairs? Stick to a timetable of visits, checking in and out from each one with someone (text), location sharing on mobile device? What to do if staff members feels at risk - ask to go to toilet and message for support? Travel Using own car? Planning routes between visits I'm sure there are other things to consider too.

It's only an issue when you want to remove it....

Having watched a neighbour get someone in to remove some bamboo, I was amazed at how deep they had to dig (and they brought in diggers etc to do the job)

Exactly - and one thing I think that helps settings and schools, is when the staff are part of, and understand, the community of their students.

I was shocked, but not surprised, to read that some schools are closing or being made smaller. I have been following how reactive some local authorities have been to fluctuating student numbers, and I am concerned about how they will deal with any larger cohorts in the future. This issue is often associated with rural areas, where students may have to travel long distances to find a school with space. However, the fact that this is happening in cities is worrying, as children are the future of these areas. Without children growing up and forming roots in these communities, there is a risk that the area becomes an area that struggles later on. If there is a larger cohort in the future, some of the challenges that local authorities will face are finding enough space to accommodate all of the students, hiring enough teachers to provide a quality education, providing enough resources and space, as well as ensuring that all students have access to extracurricular activities. These challenges are not insurmountable, but they will require careful planning and coordination by local authorities. It is important to remember that the future of our communities depends on the education of our children. We must do everything we can to ensure that they have access to a quality education, regardless of where they live. Personally I think that local authorities should be doing all they can to encourage young families to stay or come to the area - but do also realise that this may be something outside of their control.

There are 2 ways to Start a new Topic on the forum and this tutorial will show you how. First method: When the box below open use the drop down menu to see the forum areas that are available to post in. You can scroll down to see them all: Once you have selected the forum area you wish to post in the click continue to go there: Once in the forum area click on start new topic: You must add a title, then type in the text box where you can add links, upload files or pictures to ask you question or share information with others. You can select 'Follow Topic' to receive notifications when people respond to your post. Once happy with your post click 'Submit Topic' The second method is to just go to the forum area you wish to post in directly from the landing page. Select 'Forums' and then select the forum area and click into it and start a new topic as above: So that is how you start a new topic now let me show you how to join in with an existing topic. Once you find a topic that you are interested in you can 'Reply to this topic' buy clicking on the green tab at the top of the page or by clicking into the text box at the bottom of the page to add your thoughts to the conversation and then pressing submit reply: Use the 'Follow' link at the top if you want to follow the conversation before actually replying - see this tutorial to learn more about following content and setting up your notifications

How did the mapping out go @Froglet? I had a look back through some of my old plans, and came up with a few possible books if you were still interested: "The Wise Fool: Fables from the Islamic World" by Shahrukh Husain "The Little Book of Hindu Deities: From the Goddess of Wealth to the Sacred Cow" by Sanjay Patel "The Three Questions" by Jon J. Muth

Over the last week, the tragic news of Ruth Perry made the news. By all accounts, the inspection report that led to this situation highlights the flawed approach that is currently in place during inspections. Ofsted's inspections have often been criticised for being too focused on achieving a specific set of targets and not taking into account the context of the school. The situation that Ruth found herself in was from Ofsted's own systems, which states that if there is an issue with safe guarding, then leadership must be failing. The rest of the report did not support this though - so where did common sense come into this? In my opinion, Ofsted should adopt a more supportive approach in their visits to schools. Instead of solely focusing on areas of improvement, they should also acknowledge the school's strengths and provide constructive feedback to help schools improve further. Spending a day at the school, and providing a few areas of development for the school to act on, before a follow up visit a few months later to see how they are getting on, would be far more supportive. I also believe that instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach, Ofsted should consider the unique needs of each school and tailor their inspections accordingly. This would not only help schools improve but also create a more positive learning environment for students. As teachers, we are expected to approach things with the child at the centre of all we do - so why not inspect with that approach too?

He gets the point across so clearly and shows why the plan from government isn't workable. If only they would listen to him!

I think this clip from yesterday sums up the issue with the offer that was in the budget. From what I've seen, the changes are for those parents who work 16+ hours. Otherwise, you get the 15 hours - which again drives up the divide for the disadvantaged groups of children. For me, the ratios thing is another area that leads to the divide getting wider. It's an optional thing - but if settings are struggling to recruit adequate staff, which is already an issue but may become a bigger issue if some leave settings to become a child minder and grab the £600 welcome bonus, then they are not going to have any option but to increase ratios. Staff-Child Ratios and Early Learning" Melhuish & Sylva (2018) found that that lower ratios were associated with better outcomes in language and maths, but that this effect was stronger for disadvantaged children. Increasing the ratios then is most likely going to effect those same disadvantaged children who may only be entitled to 15 hours. Sadly, it's just another headline grabbing policy that will lead to more chaos in the sector.

I enjoyed listening back to this podcast with the wonderful Sejal Payne on the "Importance of an oracy rich learning environment".Developing oracy skills supports children's learning across their development and curriculum by enabling them to articulate their thoughts and ideas, understand others' perspectives, and engage in meaningful dialogue.It is important to consider the unique needs of multilingual children in fostering oracy skills, as they may require additional support to navigate multiple languages and cultural contexts. As someone who was brought up in a bilingual household, I now fully appreciate what a great position I was in, but also how that extra support was required to ensure that I was able to cope.Encouraging oracy alongside literacy can create a strong foundation for lifelong learning and success and this leads on to so many more opportunities through life.I hope you all enjoy this podcast too:Importance of an oracy rich learning environment

Messaging on Tapestry allows you to send direct messages to staff members and relatives on your account. Relatives will only be able to send a message to members of staff on the account, not other relatives. Staff will be able to send a message to any other member of staff or relative. The feature can be enabled from the Control Panel by following these steps. Once enabled, you will be able to access the Messaging in the Android app by going to "Messaging" (1) at the bottom. Until you start your first conversation with another user, there will be no conversations shown and your screen will look like the one below. To start a new conversation, select the "New Conversation" button (1). Managers are also able to view conversations that other members of staff have been having (2). Please note, if you are not a manager, you will not be able to view another user's messages and this section will not be visible to you. This is also not visible for relatives who will only be able to view messages between them and members of staff. To start a new conversation, once you have selected the "New Conversation" button, you will be presented with the following screen. From here you will see all staff and relatives on the account (with relatives having any linked children shown in the list for reference). You can either select the name of the person you want to send a message to (1), or if you know their name, you can search for them (2). The search option allows you search by either the staff/relative's name, or the child's name, in which case it will bring up any relative's that have that child attached to them. The conversation window will then open, and you can start typing your message (1). Once you have finished typing your message (1) you can send it by selecting the blue send icon (2). After you have sent your message, it will then appear it your conversation list with that user. When you have received a message from another user, it will show up in your conversation list. Opening the message again, you will see the messages that you have sent on the right-hand side (1), and the messages received on the left-hand side (2). You can see whether the message has been seen by the recipient (3), and if there are any messages that you would like to delete, this can be done by selecting the bin icon (4). Back to Main Tutorials Page

Do you follow a scheme for phonics at the moment? It's going to be a real struggle in any classroom with only 1 supporting adult however you approach it. One thing I used to do was let the class go off in their child initiated time with the other adult supporting children as and when, and you take a smaller group for a phonics session. It's not easy though - the children doing phonics can struggle to stay engaged as there is more going on around them, so short burst sessions are needed. The other adult also needs to be constantly moving around, supporting all the other children as much as they can, without taking their focus off the others too. During this time, another option would be to only have 'phonics' focus activities which isn't really ideal for EYFS, but does mean that the general noise in the room is phonics based too, and if you are able to keep sessions short, you would be able through whole class fairly quickly if there were 6/7 children working with you at a time for about 10 minutes. You could then tailor the groups so that the children were roughly all accessing the same things.

You will only be able to register an email once on each setting - therefore if you have a member of staff who is also a relative, they would need to have 2 email addresses to login to view either of these views. One thing to note: if they have a gmail account, then they could use full stop somewhere in their name part of the email address, and it will still go to the same mailbox e.g. name@gmail.com and na.me@gmail.com - but Tapestry would see them as different emails. If they don't have a gmail account, then if they didn't mind not getting notifications on one of their accounts, then what you could do is set up one with their actual email address e.g. name@email.com, which will get notifications, and the other with something like name@email.com.relative or name@email.com.staff The one with the extra bit at the end would need to be activated manually, and no notifications would be received for it, but it would still work for them to login.

Hi, Thank you for your question. The EYFS Statutory Framework states: As this is statutory, they would be on fairly dodgy grounds to go beyond this, and it would be something checked by Ofsted for certain, and could trigger a visit. I hope that you are able to get them to listen and not push it beyond the limits.

Hi, Thank you for your suggestions. We are currently working on bespoke reports which sound like they will fit your needs of creating one place for all this information. Please email customer.service@eyfs.info if you would like to be informed when these are ready for release.

Hi, Thank you for your post. The flags are a way to keep observations together so that you can locate and refer back to them quickly - a bit like putting them in a folder. Have you seen this article that my colleague Jack wrote about a possible way to use Celebration flags? This tutorial will also explain how to use flags in general: Using Flags Do let us know what you think of these flags!

Depending on the age of the children, I ran a Goblin car club at school for over 10 years. Details for them can be seen here: https://www.greenpower.co.uk/ The children in the club do have to be between 9 - 11 to take part in the organised events, but in school, you could run it for any aged children that were sensible. It is quite expensive now to get started, but if you ask around, some other schools may have old kits that they're willing to give away. Also, sponsorship from local businesses can help with the costs. It's great for team work, as well as building a car, electrics, safety and driving!

I don't have any 'real life' advice I can offer sorry, but this might help: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/childminders-and-childcare-providers-register-with-ofsted/registration-requirements Under Facilities, it states: This could be the sticking point that the previous setting experienced as, without being able to lock that door to the other hall, you wouldn't be able to be sure, unless you had someone who always was positioned at that door - which probably wouldn't be practical. Having it covered by your risk assessment is certainly a great idea, but finding the solution to that risk might be the trickier part! Hopefully someone with practical advice will be able to help soon.

This sounds like a great idea. Please could you email customer.service@eyfs.info with the suggestion, and the types of things you would be looking for in this feature e.g. would you be needing to upload documents, link to other areas, only be visible for certain staff, would it be something that relatives should be able to view if allowed? etc... We can then certainly look into this further for you.

I love the idea of getting them to understand 'buying' the snack too!