Feature Release: Bespoke Frameworks

Our newest feature release is one we’ve all been looking forward to. Bespoke Frameworks allows you to add your own frameworks to Tapestry and use them within Observations. The Feature page will tell you more about it, and if you want to get started using Bespoke Frameworks, please find the tutorials here. This video also gives you a quick introduction to what this feature looks like and how it works.

New CPD Course Available

There's a new Tapestry CPD course available for free!

Written by Tapestry's education advisors and former teachers Ben and Jules, 'Communication in a Child's Fifth Year' is designed to support your reflective practice in this area of development, for new and existing Reception teachers and support staff.

New 2-year-check Guidance

For those of you who do your two-year checks on Tapestry, you may well be aware that new guidance was released earlier this month – you can read the new guidance here.

The two-year check report format on Tapestry remains relevant and available for you to use if you wish.

We also published an interesting article last year: “An Interview with Fliss James, the project lead of ‘What to expect in the Early Years Foundation Stage: a guide for parents.’”

That guide for parents is something mentioned a few times in the new two-year check guidance and continues to be an excellent resource to share with your relatives. You can download the full document here.

Articles

We have two new articles this month.

"7 Things You Didn’t Know About Tapestry”, is worth a read if you think you could be doing more with your Tapestry account. It’s 7 things I think are really helpful about Tapestry that sometimes fly under the radar.

“How you can use Tapestry journals to support your provision”, written by Ben, helps you to get the best use out of some of the existing Tapestry features. Ben discusses Observations, Flags, Reflections and Child Login.

A Message for Finance

If you are planning on paying an upcoming or pending invoice by BACS, please note that the processing of BACs payments is not automated so we do ask that you allow 5 to 7 working days for the payment to be processed. To ensure your payment is assigned to your invoice as quickly and efficiently as possible, please make sure you do the following:

·        Include your invoice number in the payment reference. This is vitally important if your setting has a name likely to be duplicated by another setting such as ‘St Josephs’ etc.

·        Send a remittance advice to bacs@eyfs.info confirming the amount being sent and your invoice number. This is especially vital if your payment is coming from an academy trust where your setting name or invoice number will not appear in the payment reference. You can also notify us that a payment has been sent from within your Tapestry account by clicking on the ‘contact us’ link.

·        Ensure your remittance advice refers to the organisation making the payment on your behalf, such as a local authority or academy trust.

·        Finally, a reminder that we moved banks in October 2019 to HSBC (Account name The Foundation Stage Forum Ltd - sort code 40 18 22 - Account number 42445565). Payments made to our old Lloyds bank account will not be processed.

If after 7 days your invoice has not been marked paid, please do contact us as it might be that we have not received sufficient information to process monies received or that funds have not reached us. All payment queries can be directed to customer.service@eyfs.info.

Android Support

We will be dropping support for Android version 4.4. This means if your Android device is running Android 4.4 you will no longer be able to update your app. You can still use your Tapestry app on the version you currently have but in order to upgrade the app any further you will need your device to run a version of Android above 4.4.

Reflection Toolkit

This month also sees the release of the Reflection Toolkit, a resource created by the Education team at the Foundation Stage Forum and the Early Years Inclusion and Portage team at Doncaster Council. The Toolkit encourages educators to reflect on their provision and adjustments they can make to it to support children with learning differences and disabilities. You can read more about it, and download a free copy of the Reflection Toolkit, here.

Infographics

We have a new Tapestry Infographic this month.

This one explains a bit more about the ELGs and the EYFSP on Tapestry including the difference between the flags and the assessment frameworks. Very useful for this time of year! You can download that infographic here.

Tapestry Survey

This is just another reminder that our Tapestry Survey is still live so if you haven’t had a chance to fill it out (and be entered into the prize draw) then you can do so from this link. Thank you!