Lauren

This new feature is one we’ve been looking forward to for a while.

You can now add your own bespoke frameworks to Tapestry and assess against them within your observations. Any you add will only be visible to the staff and (if you enable it for them) the relatives on your account.

You’ll need to create each framework in a spreadsheet. You can find instructions on what that should look like and the format it needs to be saved in when you go to the feature on Tapestry or within our tutorials. You can then upload it to Tapestry using our Bespoke Framework Importer. From there you’ll tell us which part or parts of the framework you want to be able to select and which are just headings. You’ll also be able to create a ‘scale’ to use when you’re making an assessment. This will allow you to record a more detailed assessment than just a tick – like refinements, or tiers.

You’ll be able to edit your framework at any point and add as many different ones as you like.

Bespoke frameworks need to be uploaded and edited on the browser version of Tapestry. Your enabled framework will appear on the browser and iOS app when you view and create observations, and it will be available on the Android app after the next update (coming soon!).  

You can now allow relatives on Tapestry to see who has ‘liked’ observations and comments, not just how many times they’ve been ‘liked’.

To enable this, a manager will need to go to the Control Panel then within the ‘User Permissions’ section, choose the ‘Relatives’ tab, then ‘Pages’ and set ‘View which users have liked a page’ to ‘permitted’.

This won't allow relatives to see the names of other, unconnected relatives, or of children other than the ones they are related to (for example, on group observations). In those cases they will just see that a 'hidden user' has liked the post or comment. 

A new iOS app update is now out (version 4.3.2). This is for those of you using the Tapestry app on Apple devices e.g. ipads.

This is quite a small update. It is purely for a fix to a bug a few of you have been experiencing where observation previews have been showing up two or three times and the information displayed in them is sometimes getting muddled up with the previews above and below.

This does not include any new features. 

The 'Creative Development' Branch Map for the Cherry Garden framework has now been renamed to 'Expressive Arts and Design'. Everything else about it has stayed the same, it's just the title that has changed. 

We are removing P Scales entirely from Tapestry because the Government has replaced P Scales with The Engagement Model and The Pre-Key Stage Standards.

In October 2021 we permanently removed them for new users and for the accounts that already had them turned off. Today we removed them for the people who weren’t using them anymore but who either still had them turned on or who had historic P Scale data on their accounts.

There will still be a few of you who can see them – if that’s you, it’s because we believe you’re still using them. We will have been in contact with you about a date for their removal for you, but if you haven’t seen that email, please get in touch by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.

Today we have made some changes to the Cherry Garden framework. We have:

- Amended some statements in the 'Communication, Language and Literacy' and 'Mathematical Development' Branch Maps.

- Removed the statement ‘Responds to own name’ in Branch 2 of Attention and Understanding. 

You can find out more about these changes, including a short explanation of why we have made them and a full list of the amended statements in our forum post about it: https://eyfs.info/forums/topic/53915-changes-to-the-cherry-garden-framework-february-2022/

We have released a new screen to help you monitor the accidents recorded on your Tapestry account.

You can find it in the 'Tracking' section under ‘Care Diary’ or ‘Accidents’ (depending on which you have enabled).

There you can filter for specific children and choose the date range you’d like to look at.

The screen will tell you how many accidents matching those filters have been recorded and give you an overview of each of them.

That page can be exported as it is, or you can go straight from there to the ‘Download Accident Forms’ page, where you can export a PDF for each child containing only their own accident records.

The latest update to the Android/Fire app update is now out (version 4.0.6). This is for those of you using the Tapestry app on Android devices and Amazon Fire devices.  

There aren’t any new features this time, but there are quite a few tweaks and bug fixes, all of which should improve your general experience with it. Some of the most noticeable ones are:

- Improvements to the EYFS 2021 flag selector.

- Fixed a bug so that the app does now honour the ‘show me my Key Children only’ preference for managers.

- Improvements to how the app handles drafts and edits to drafts.

This isn’t for anyone using the Apple iOS app, but there will also be an update available for that in the near future.

Our latest initiative comes following the renewed calls for high-quality CPD. We’re well aware of the benefits of CPD but also appreciate that many settings struggle to offer their staff suitable opportunities. This can be due to time and/or costs involved.

So, recently, we have been working on a feature we’re calling Tapestry CPD.

It’s a site where educators can find engaging and interactive courses. They’ll cover education based topics e.g. areas of child development, and Tapestry specific topics e.g. how to set up your Tapestry account for a new academic year.

You can find them by clicking on the ‘CPD’ button on the browser version of your Tapestry account, or by going directly to https://cpd.tapestry.info/. Anyone with a full staff or manager account will be able to login using their Tapestry details and access all the courses for free whenever they like.

Everyone else (even people who don’t use Tapestry at all) will be able to see the slides for some of the courses, but the forum areas and some of the interactive elements will be hidden.

Today, as we release it, there are 5 available courses:
 

Additional Support in Mainstream Education KS1 - KS2

The First Year

Communication Approaches

EYFS 2021 on Tapestry

Starting a New Academic Year on Tapestry

And you can expect more over the coming months! We are committed to regularly creating new ones in response to the sector’s needs.  

The P Scales assessment framework is being removed from Tapestry.

This is because the Government has replaced P Scales with The Engagement Model and The Pre-Key Stage Standards.

You can add The Engagement Model to Tapestry using Flags (see our tutorial on adding bespoke flag sets) and we have a separate assessment framework for The Pre-Key Stage Standards (you can turn that on from the ‘Assessments’ section of your control panel).

We have already been in contact with those of you who we believe are still using P Scales and will shortly email anyone who we believe has historic P Scale data, but if you know that’s you, and you wish to keep a copy of any P Scales assessment data, please make sure to download it before the 21st of February.

You can do that by exporting a PDF and/or CSV of the Summative Assessment Individual and Group View screens (found in the Tracking section of your account), and by exporting PDF journals for the children with P Scale assessments. Just follow our PDF export tutorial and make sure to include P Scale assessments.

This will not affect any other assessment framework on your account and all of your observations will still exist – it will just be the P Scale assessments themselves that will disappear (as though you’d just turned off P Scales).

If you have any questions, concerns, or need more time/help to export your data, please email customer.service@eyfs.info from the email address you use to access your Tapestry account, with the subject ‘P Scales being removed’.
 

We will soon be making some changes to the Cherry Garden framework.

The first is to rename the ‘Creative Development’ Branch Map to ‘Expressive Arts and Design’. You don’t need to do anything for this, the name will update automatically in the next few weeks (late February 2022).  The content of the Branch Map will stay the same.

The second change does include something you do need to think about and possibly do.  

As you may know, the 'Communication, Language and Literacy' and 'Mathematical Development' Branch Maps include milestones from the respected Routes for Learning materials (https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/routes-for-learning). These materials have recently been updated to reflect the latest research. We have made some minor amendments to the Branch Maps, in conjunction with Cherry Garden School based on these changes.

Most of the changes are just wording updates, but one statement is being removed entirely and will no longer exist as part of the Cherry Garden Framework.

You can find the details of the amendments in the document attached below this message.

These changes will apply to assessments you’ve made previously as well. So, for example, if you can see that a child is assessed as ‘Secure’ (or whatever you’ve called your refinements) in ‘Reacts to close contact with a familiar adult’, after these changes are applied, the assessment will remain as ‘Secure’ but it would be for ‘Responds to close physical contact with a familiar person’ instead.

As ‘Responds to own name’ in Branch 2 of Attention and Understanding is being removed entirely, any assessments you’ve made of that will disappear. They will no longer appear on existing observations, and the statement will no longer show on the ‘Statements’ and ‘Baseline’ screens.

If you are using the ‘Term Progress’ and ‘Strand Scores’ screens you may also notice that the figures for Attention and Understanding Branch 2 there change as well. There will be 1 fewer statements and any ‘Score’ applied to the ‘Responds to own name’ statement will no longer be included. As such, the ‘Score/Max Score’ and so the ‘Percentage Score’ may change.

If you want to keep a record of any of those assessments or a record of any of the figures as they are, please make sure to export a PDF copy of them before February the 21st 2022.

If you have any questions or need more time, please get in touch with us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.

Cherry Garden Routes for Learning changes.pdf

To upload a bespoke framework to Tapestry you'll need to have it saved as a 'CSV' file. This is just a type of Excel file. 

Below you can see an example of a completed bespoke framework CSV. 

You may find it useful to download a copy of it (click on the file below to download it) and keep it open as you read through these instructions.

ks1y1 Example Bespoke Framework.csv

When you're creating your CSV file you will need to consider two things: the ‘Components’ and ‘Details’ of your framework. I'll cover these later in the tutorial, but you can also read more about them in this tutorial. 

Details

Each column you see in the screenshot above is for a particular type of Detail. 

The Details are the full content of your bespoke framework. They are what you’ll see when you’re looking at the assessment picker on observations. They will be any and all subject area names, aspect names, statements, objectives, or targets. 

In my screenshot everything apart from the row A of the spreadsheet (highlighted in yellow below), is a Detail. Row A is different as these are the Components of your framework, we’ll come onto this concept in a bit.

I’ll now breakdown the example CSV further for you.

If you look at Column A you can see in row 1 the title of this column is ‘Subject’. So listed in this column are all the subjects (English, Maths, and Science etc.) that make up this framework. Everything highlighted in the screenshot below, so all the subject names, are ‘Details’. Only row 1 is not a Detail.

Column E in the CSV shows the 'Statements'. Again, everything highlighted here is a Detail. That's everything other than the title of ‘Statement’ on row 1. 

 It is important that similar Details all go in the same column e.g. all statements should be grouped together in the same column. 

Repeated words

You may have already noticed that in column A, I have repeated the subject names quite a lot, but all the Statements in column E are unique. 

To see why, let’s take a look at some of the full rows for English. 

Each row needs to make sense by itself. You need to make sure that you can pick any cell and be able to tell from the rest of the row where you'd be able to find it in your framework.
 
If I looked at C14 I would find 'Word Reading'. I would be able to tell that I can find it in 'English' and then 'Reading' within my framework by looking at the cells to the left of it, and that there will be nine 'Statements' within it - 'Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words' down to 'Re-read these books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading'. 

I could look at any of those 9 statements and see that they all belong in 'English' > 'Reading' > 'Word Reading'. 

Lets take a quick look at what this will look like on Tapestry so you have some context.

When you first import it into Tapestry via the 'upload your CSV' tool it'll look something like this:

You can see how the further right columns are nested into the further left ones. 

When it is enabled for your observations, it'll look like this. 

As you can see, repeating a Detail doesn't mean it'll show up multiple times, but you need to do it so Tapestry knows where to put all the nested Details. 

Back to the spreadsheet! 

Every time you want to repeat the same Detail you can either rewrite it (which is what I've done), or use “ “. This lets our system know that you want to just repeat what is above. You can use this as many times as you like, it will keep looking up the rows until it finds a cell with something in (even if that's just a blank space to indicate that nothing should be there). 

Blank Cells

You may have noticed there some blank cells, for example the first row of English > Spoken Language. Here you have something for column A (Subject), B (Area) and E (the Statements) but nothing for columns C and D (the Aspects and Statement Groups). 

It is absolutely fine to leave a cell empty. These boxes won’t appear as empty when you have uploaded your framework to Tapestry.

Below you can see how this framework appears on Tapestry. Look immediately under 'Spoken Language'. There was nothing in column C or D, so the picker has jumped straight to what was in column E. 

Components 

You've likely already thought about 'Components' without really realising it. These are your overall headings for each type of Detail - they will each be a broad word (or words) to describe all the things in a column. For example, in the column with ‘English’ and ‘Science’, the Component could be ‘Subject’.

The other Components for this framework are shown highlighted below in row A of the spreadsheet. They are: Subject, Area, Aspect, Statement Group and Statement.

These Component names won't be visible on the assessment picker within observations, but they will be useful later to help you quickly find the assessment you're looking for.

Final notes on the spreadsheet content

• Earlier on I mentioned that you need to put all similar Details in the same column. To explain that a different way, don't mix Components in the same column. E.g. Don't put any Aspect names in the same column as any Statements. If you do, you'll find that your framework gets all jumbled up when it's on Tapestry and it won't be so easy to navigate.  
• Finally, please do not skip adding a Component name if you can't think of one. It's fine to use something generic as long as you know what it means e.g. 'Aspect 1' and 'Aspect 2'. 

Saving the file as a CSV

Once you’re done you need to save it as a comma delimited file (CSV). This is the final step before you can import it!

All you need to do is:

Select 'File' and 'Save As'.

Find where you want to save it within your file explorer.

Give it a name, and click the 'Save as Type' drop down. Then choose CSV (Comma delimited).

And that's it! Now you're ready to import the spreadsheet into Tapestry. For some help with how to do that, you might want to go to the Bespoke Frameworks: Uploading your CSV file tutorial. Alternatively, you can skip ahead to the tutorial on 'Bespoke Frameworks: Scales, Details & Components'.

If you've got any questions, email us here: customer.service@eyfs.info

Go back to Main Tutorials Page

Tapestry is constantly being worked on. Although we tend to only announce big new features in our newsletters, social media pages, home page colourful boxes, and yellow banners, we make small improvements every month. Here are some of the most interesting small additions made in October:

• The ability to sort the Activities Catalogue by ‘most recent’. This means you’ll be able to see the latest activity suggestions at the top of your page, rather than having to scroll though the list.
  
  
  
   
• The ability to edit which children you’re exporting a PDF journal for after you’ve already started the process of deciding what’s included.
  
   
• A new filter on the Observation page so you can look for posts that don’t have any flags selected.
  
  
  
   
• Permanent removal of the P Scales assessment framework for new users and for the accounts that have already turned it off. The official advice is that P scales should no longer be used. We have left it on for the people who are still using it, but will be removing it for most of them over the Christmas holiday. If you think that affects you and you haven’t already spoken to us about it, please do get in touch – email customer.service@eyfs.info.

We are aware that many of you are only using the new Development Matters curriculum guidance and would prefer not to see the Birth to 5 Matters aspect flags (the gold coloured ones) or reference material.

You can now turn off the Birth to 5 Matters part of the EYFS 2021 flag set from within your control panel. Just ‘configure’ the flag set and untick the box that asks if you would like to include the Birth to 5 Matters aspects. Our enabling and disabling the Birth to 5 Matters flags and reference material tutorial shows you that in more depth.

If you turn them off, you’ll notice a few changes:

·       Any Birth to 5 Matters aspect flags you’ve already added to observations and reflections will disappear.

·       You will no longer be able to use the flags filter to look for observations or reflections with Birth to 5 Matters aspect flags attached.

·       No reference material relating to Birth to 5 Matters will show up when you’re making an observation or reflection.

·       You’ll no longer be able to see sections for the Birth to 5 Matters aspects in the Areas of Concern or EYFS 2021 thoroughness screens.

You will still be able to see everything relating to the 7 Area flags and the Development Matters reference material though.

You may have already started using flags within your observations and reflections. They are premade sets of single words or phrases which you can use to categorise your observations and reflections.

Some examples of the existing flag sets are ‘EYFS 2021’, which let you highlight when an observation or reflection is about a specific area of learning, and the ‘Play’ flags, which let you say when a post includes an example of a particular type of play (‘Free play’, ‘Construction play’, ‘Games with rules’ etc).

These were created by the Tapestry team, but if you have ideas for your own unique ones, or you’d like to create your own versions with the specific words you use in your school or settings, you now can!

Within the control panel of the browser version of Tapestry, you’ll find an easy to use interface for managers to create and order them. Our ‘Bespoke flags: adding and editing flag sets’ tutorial explains how.

This latest feature gives you the flexibility of hashtags without the downsides of having to remember which words/phrases you’re using or the risk of typos. They’re a bit prettier too – they show up as little colourful labels (colours you can set yourself).

As with hashtags, you can click on flags within saved observations or reflections to find other posts with the same flag selected. You can also use the ‘Flags’ tab at the top of the Observations and Reflections pages to find them.  

You may have seen over the last few months that we’ve added some features for the early adopters of the new EYFS. Those were:

• New flag sets (under the EYFS 2020 heading).
   
• The Development Matters 2020 Areas of Concern screen
   
• The ELG 2020 EYFSP form.

We have now released some further changes to introduce the Birth to 5 Matters guidance, tweak the Areas of Concern screen, add a new thoroughness screen, and add a new a report template. I’ll go through each of those below.

Name changes to new EYFS features

Today we have changed the names of some of the features mentioned above. We wanted to reflect the year the EYFS reforms officially come into use and enable the use of the features with other guidance (for example Birth to 5 Matters).
 

• The flag sets will now be called:

- EYFS 2021 (rather than Development Matters Guidance 2020)

- ELG 2021 (rather than Early Learning Goals 2020)

- CoETL 2021 (rather than CoETL 2020).
 

• The Areas of Concern screen will now be called ‘EYFS 2021 Areas of Concerns’ (rather than DM 2020 Areas of Concerns) and that will be found under EYFS 2021 in the tracking tab (rather than under DM 2020).
   
• The EYFSP form will be called ELG 2021 EYFSP and will be found under ELG 2021 in the tracking tab (rather than ELG 2020).

This won’t impact any data you’ve collected using those features up to now, that will all still be there.

New flags and reference material for Birth to 5 Matters

The newly renamed EYFS 2021 flags have expanded to include the additional aspects used in Birth to 5 Matters. They are nested into the original flag set to show which area they relate to. You can access and select them by clicking on the ‘plus’ button next to the original flags.

You can select as many EYFS 2021 flags as you like, you’re not limited to only the nested ones or only the top level ones.

Although the names of these flags were chosen based on the Bto5 and DM guidance, if you’re not using either of those but the flags are still relevant to you, you can still use them!
 

We have also added reference material for the Bto5 Matters guidance. You will see full materials for ‘A Unique Child’, ‘Enabling Environments’ and ‘Positive Relationships’ as well as range specific ones for each of those. The reference material is weighted so that the ones we think you’ll be interested in move to the top.

If you’ve got any feedback on the weighting or on reference material you’d like to see included please get in touch – customer.service@eyfs.info.

Addition of Bto5 flags and visibility of flags in the Area of Concerns screen

Observations and Reflections flagged with EYFS 2021 flags already appear in the Areas of Concern screen. Now, you will also be able to see which specific flags have been selected on each observation and reflection.

Reference material to appear in Reflections

Up to now, reference material has only appeared on observations, but moving forward you’ll be able to see it in the Reflections section too.

New report template

We have a new report template: EYFS 2021.

It is very similar to the existing EYFS report template but it does not have the age band and refinement assessment information, leaving only free text boxes for notes and next steps for each area of learning. The ‘Child’, ‘Details’, ‘CoEL’, ‘Additional Information’, ‘Child Voice’, ‘Relative Contribution’, ‘Signature’, and ‘Media’ sections all remain.

It will automatically appear in your list of available templates as long as you have the ‘EYFS 2021’ flags enabled.  

New Monitoring Screen

The final addition to this fairly long list of changes is another new monitoring screen for the EYFS 2021 flags. This one is focused on thoroughness. It shows you how many of each child’s observations and reflection have been flagged with each of the EYFS 2021 flags.   

We strongly support the idea that practitioners do not need to make lots and lots of observations and we do not expect educators to try and reach a certain number in each aspect.

We do still think that having a screen like this will be beneficial to educators. It will allow you to quickly see if you’ve made fewer observations in specific areas. It will allow you the opportunity to investigate why that might be and ensure your curriculum is broad and tailored to your children.
Another example of why this screen might be useful to you is if you see a wide disparity in the amount of observations for certain areas, it might point to a lack of confidence in your staff. This means you may want to explore specific CPD options.

This latest update (version 4.0.3) comes with a collection of new features.

You can now use the Android and Fire Tapestry apps to:
 

• Add and view flags

Adding flags is just for staff members, but you can decide if you want relatives to be able to see them too when you turn on each flag set.

• Record audio clips and attach those to observations
   
• Switch between separate Tapestry packages

This is a feature for you if you have multiple Tapestry logins e.g. if you have children at two different schools/settings or you are an educator covering multiple year groups and each year group at your school uses a different Tapestry account. It stores a list of the accounts you’ve recently logged into on the device you’re using and lets you access the PIN screen of any of them. You can choose which account you want by clicking on the new ‘switch school/nursery/childminder’ button.

• Reply to observations with an observation

This new button at the bottom of observations lets you create a new observation and have it automatically linked to the observation you’re replying to via ‘page links’. 

This update also contains quite a few bug fixes meaning your experience with the app should be smoother and generally better!

You can now find a link to your existing support tickets from the 'contact us' page on the browser version of Tapestry. 
That will bring you here, to the Foundation Stage Forum site, and direct you straight to your tickets (after making you login).

Please note that it will only show the tickets you have sent either via Tapestry, via the forum, or from the email address you use to sign into those with. It will not show tickets sent by anyone else on your Tapestry account. 

The Tapestry login page has been updated today to introduce some colourful information boxes. These will update regularly with messages about new features, podcasts, articles and other resources as well as links to posts on the forum.

We have released 2 new name labels. These are called:

• First name, large
• First name, large with photo

We have a name labels tutorial which you might want to check out if you’re not sure where to find them.

If you access Tapestry via the iOS (iphone or ipad) app, you can now add and view flags on observations. You just need to make sure you’re using the latest iOS app version (4.3.0) and that flags are enabled on your account.

This is not available for Android and Amazon Fire app users at the moment, but it is on it’s way for you as well.
 

Part two of our solution for the new Development Matters for early adopters has now been released – the ‘Areas of Concern’ screens.  
 
Here, staff will be able to record their own professional judgement about the development of each child.   

 
 There are 3 choices:  

Concerns 

No Concerns (this is the default) 

Review. 

 By default, Tapestry will assume that teachers have ‘No Concerns’, but you can confirm that by selecting it specifically. By choosing ‘Concerns’ you can highlight to yourself and your colleagues that you feel this child needs additional support. ‘Review’ is for children and areas of learning where you’re not quite sure whether the child is developing as expected yet – that might just mean you need to think about it in a bit more depth or discuss with a colleague or manager before making a judgement. 

In all cases though, you will be able to quickly and easily refer to the evidence you’ve collected in terms of observations for the child in each Area of Learning, and create reflections to record your own thoughts, questions, and aims.  
 
The SLT may find the group view particularly useful because it will allow them to easily: 

1) See those children and areas of learning where staff have noticed development is falling behind, or is at risk of falling behind. 

2) View any observations and reflections staff have recorded to support their professional judgement. 
 
3) See when staff have made their judgements and whether they have actively confirmed that they do not have concerns.  

 
You can find the ‘Areas of Concern’ screens on the browser version of Tapestry in the Tracking drop down at the top of your page.  
 

We have tutorials for the Guided View and the Group View if you need a hand with how to use them.   

The Cherry Garden tree graphic now includes data from the Baseline tracking screen. This means that you will be able to see leaves on the tree if the corresponding statement has been selected and assessed as ‘refinement 3’, and petals on the flower if the corresponding statement has been selected at all. By clicking on the flower or petal, you will be able to see a message that tells you the statement has been assessed as part of a summative assessment.

A new version of the EYFSP screen has been released and can be found in ‘Tracking’ tab under ‘ELG 2020’.

The default scores shown on this screen are the most recent ELG 2020 assessments made as part of observations for each child. If there haven’t been any assessments as part of observations for that aspect and child, ‘No Score’ will appear. You can see all the previous relevant observations by clicking on ‘Show Details’.

If you disagree with any of the scores that appear automatically, you can override them in the ‘Individual’ view.

You can also see which children have reached a Good Level of Development according to this EYFSP form from the GLD view.

The Group and Individual views can be exported as CSVs, PDFs and a few different versions of CTF.

This is only on the browser version and is for the early adopters of the new ELGs.

We have released 3 new name labels. These are called:

• Paper Style 2, larger name
• Portrait Style
• Avery J8160, just picture

We have a name labels tutorial which you might want to check out if you’re not sure where to find them.