Lauren

You can now export the group summative assessments for the years in KS1 and 2 as PDF files. 

Hi Maggie, 

Hope you're well! Sorry to hear that, I can imagine that did get a bit confusing! I'm afraid it isn't possible to do that, although as always, if several customers request a new feature we'll investigate to see if it's feasible and then add it to the to-do list if so. If anyone reading this would like that too, please let us know! 

We do have a system for merging profiles when you do end up with two profiles for the same child though. It sounds as though it's all sorted for you now anyway, but just in case not, or for in case it happens again, take a look at this tutorial.

Best wishes,
Lauren 

Hi Gill,

That's a tricky one! I think ultimately the best thing would be for you to be able to add multiple baselines. That is something on our 'new feature' to do list, but unfortunately we're not sure when that will be ready yet. 

In the meantime you have a couple of options:
1) Rather than using autumn as the baseline, you could override the scores in the last period of the year before (summer). Obviously that would mean you then lose the data from that if it is different to your baseline though, so also might not be ideal if you're looking at progress jumps over several years. 
2) Override the baseline, but export the original one as a PDF before you do so. You wouldn't then be able to do tracking using it on Tapestry, but you could still refer back to it. 

Would you like me to let you know when it is possible to add multiple baselines though?

Best wishes,
Lauren

Hi Eleanor,

We're happy to add any staff set up on Tapestry with full access to the forum free of charge (well, as part of your Tapestry subscription anyway)! 
We will need to hear from them directly though - we need their consent to collect their data, so would you mind asking them to each send an email to customer.service@eyfs.info to say they would like to be set up with access to forum and what they would like their username to be? 

As part of your membership to the forum you can also opt in to receive half termly newsletters. These include things like important recent changes to policy and early years sector news generally as well as links to some of the most interesting conversations going on in the forum. Could you also please ask them to say whether they would like to get those? 

Best wishes,
Lauren

Hi Sarah, 

Great! I hope you're getting on well with it all so far! 

The reason we compare their assessed age to their midpoint age for the term is that the assessed age is also the average for the term; so, the idea is that the assessed age will be the midpoint too. Does that make sense? 

Best wishes,
Lauren

Hi stray1968,

Welcome to Tapestry and the Forum! I hope you're getting on well with them both so far!

The good news is that parents don't have access to that section of Tapestry, so they won't see those scores and become concerned. Those scores will carry through to the reports section though, so what you might want to do is create a new report, use the text box space to explain what the score means, and then make that visible to the parents. I know lots of settings actually go through those reports with parents face to face before making them visible on Tapestry so that might be something worth considering. You should also know that the colour coding won't carry through to reports so there won't be any obvious red ones. This tutorial will tell you about the reports section. 

If you want to print off the summative assessment snapshot for parents though, something you might want to think about is whether you actually agree with that colour coding. It sounds as though you might have it set to take refinements into account. That means that Tapestry splits each age band into 3 and sees if the child's actual age and their assessed age match. This tutorial will show you the full break down of all the age bands, but a 40-60 developing assessment would be where we'd expect a child who is between the ages of 47 and 53 months to be. Therefore, if the child is 54 months old or older then they will show up as being below. You can change it though so that if their actual age is anywhere in the age band (so any age above 40 months for the 40-60+ age band) their score shows up as green. This is the tutorial you need to see how to change that. 

Best wishes,
Lauren 

Hi,

This post is to let you know about some of the changes that we're making to the Tapestry Key Stage assessment system in preparation for the new term starting.

The system was released around this time last year and since then, we've received lots of really positive feedback! One thing that has come up a few times however, is that assessments made from the summative and formative assessment screens are taking priority over assessments made as part of observations. This is happening even when the observations are made later on in the term than the formative/summative assessments. 

We completely agree with those of you who said the most recent assessment should be the one that shows up for a child. Consequently, we are releasing an update to Tapestry for the start of this academic year that will make that change. This will affect previously made assessments, so rather than you having to go back through all of last year's data to make sure all of your assessments have been taken into account, they will appear automatically.

As part of making that change, we've added a new feature. Now, whenever you add a new summative or formative assessment, an observation (or several) will automatically appear in your observations list. This will allow you to see a full history of the assessments you've made across a period and means that you'll have the opportunity to add notes and media to any summative/formative assessment you make.

Here is an example of what those automatically generated observations might look like:

The first two in the list have been created from a formative assessment which was made for a group of children. You can see that the first obs in the list is for the children who were assessed in the selected statements as 'Working At' and the second one is for the children who were assessed in the same statements as 'Working Towards' (1). 

The third observation in the list has been created from a summative assessment. The start of the title (2) shows you whether it was a formative assessment or if it was a change made to a summative assessment.

All of these automatically generated observations are set by default as 'Staff View Only' (3). This means that only staff will be able to see them but they will contribute towards any analysis screens you use. If you would like to change that status though you can! You just need to edit them in the way you would any other observation; either by using the cog or tick box on the right hand side of the obs entry on that page, or by clicking on the 'Edit' button and changing the status from inside the observation. 

The other thing I'd like to point out is that they will all have a tag on them to indicate that they have been generated by snapshots (4). If you choose to make observations with that tag visible to relatives, the tag will be visible to them too. 


We know that you won't necessarily always want to see those 'staff view only' observations so we have also updated the page filters to make it easier for you to say which observation status you would like to see. 

So that's it! If you have any feedback for us please do let us know!

Hi both,

We hadn't intended on adding a permission for this but we'll give it some thought!

Your staff won't be able to search for your posts by your real name or email address though, they'll only be able to find them if they know your username. I should say though that they could do that currently anyway, even without being a member! 

The main reasons we want to do this are so that all staff can access the resources on the FSF and so they can find invoices and payment pages for Tapestry which should make it a lot easier when it comes to making payment. 

Best wishes,
Lauren

Hi everyone,

Just in case you missed it, we sent out an email at the end of last week about a change we're making to the cost of Tapestry and the FSF. This is what it said:



Dear all,

We wanted to let you know of a change we are making to the way we charge for Tapestry.

During the very early days of Tapestry, most of our customers came from our Early Years Foundation Stage Forum (The FSF). The FSF was available via a £20 subscription paid annually.

At the time, it made sense to ensure that the FSF members received a £20 discount on Tapestry and anyone wanting to subscribe to Tapestry would subscribe to the FSF first. However, this system has caused much confusion with customers who are either not aware of what the FSF is, or who would like all their staff to have individual access to it.

We are therefore changing our pricing system for all invoices generated from now, so that the cost of Tapestry is only dependent on the package size you purchase, not also whether you currently have a FSF membership or whether you're buying multiple packages or already have any existing Tapestry packages. You can find our full price list here. 

Those of you that joined via an LA scheme will still receive your LA discount all the time your LA continues their participation in the LA membership scheme and we will continue to include access to the FSF for the email address any Tapestry account is set up under. This will allow you to access the resources and FSF community as well as download and pay for Tapestry invoices.

We are also working on a ‘single sign-on’ feature which will make it possible for all Tapestry staff and managers to login to the FSF using the same email address and password they use for Tapestry, so stay tuned for that!

If you have any questions about this, please contact us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.

Yours sincerely,
The Tapestry Team
 

Hi Alice, 

Although we don't come out to settings to give full training sessions, we do offer bookable remote training sessions!

For that you just need to choose one or more 30 minute time slots for us to call you in and talk you through any areas you are having problems with or would like to know more about. As part of this we can share our screen with you.

These sessions cost £30 + VAT per 30 minute session and can run between 9:30am and 4:30pm any day Monday to Friday. We only run 2 each day though so please let us know if you’d like more than that! As soon as a day and time for your session has been arranged we will prepare an invoice to cover the cost of the training and send it over to you. We do ask that payment is made prior to the session taking place, especially if that is more than a couple of weeks after it is organised.

If you're interested in booking a session for the next academic year, we are not running any training sessions between the 23rd August-9th October, but otherwise just get in touch with us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info to let us know the best potential dates and times for you and we'll check that we have some availability.

Best wishes,
Lauren 

It was great to see so many practitioners and MPs attending the APPG. The shortfall between the funding of the 30 hours free childcare scheme and the cost of provision is something that lots of people are obviously passionate about, but unfortunately there are also still a lot of people who are not aware of it. It would be great to get this topic into parliament so please do try and speak with your MPs about it. Even if funding can't be increased, it would be good to reassess the scheme and adjust it to make it work better for everyone!

That would be fab, thank you Foreveryoung! We're not totally sure when it'll be ready for beta testing and feedback yet, but we're getting close now!  

When looking at the 'Downloads' section within the control panel you can now see whether each file has been downloaded. That will apply to managers for all files (to see exactly which manager you will need to look at the history) and to relatives when the recipient of the file has been set to 'relative'. 

If you click on the question mark next to the Care Diary title (on that page) you will be given a tour of the page and within that, an explanation of what each button does.

Hi, 

There are a couple of things you can do. The first thing would be to actually have a lawful basis to share those photos - in this case I think consent would be the best one. So, just ask the parents for permission to share the pictures which include their child with other parents from your setting. Lots of settings do get consent for this sort of thing when a child joins because when you set the parents at your setting up on Tapestry, they can see the pictures that are part of published observations of their child, and if they can see something, they can copy it. The other thing you can do is stop parents from seeing the media from group observations (as those are the observations most likely to include multiple children). If you change that permission from within your control panel and then export the journals with relatives as the recipient, that media will not be included. You can also choose to just not include any media in the export at all. It would be a shame to not be able to pass over any of those pictures, but I'm sure the parents would still appreciate getting the notes! If you know there are only a few observations which include several children, perhaps it's worth editing that media specifically to remove the child who shouldn't be there? 

Best wishes,
Lauren

If pictures of other children only show up in group observations you can set it so those images aren't exported as part of the journal. To do that you just need to go to the permissions section of your control panel and in the relatives bit there, set the permission about them seeing media in group obs to not permitted. Then, if you choose relatives (or the relative's name) as the recipient when you export the journal to PDF, those won't be included. You can also export journals without any photos if you like or if you know that there will be other children in lots of pictures.  

Hi Claire, 

Parents using the app will still get email notifications if they have those set up, but unfortunately they don't get notifications within the app just yet. We would like to see that on the app at some point in the future though! 

Best wishes,
Lauren

If you no longer have a lawful reason to store someone's personal data on Tapestry, for example if a child has left your setting or if a parent has withdrawn their consent for you to use their email address for Tapestry, you will need to delete their profile. In some cases you will find that you have a legal obligation to retain certain data e.g. accident records, but in a lot of cases, you may find it easier to export just that from Tapestry and hold onto it along with all other retained data outside of Tapestry.  

To delete a profile you will need to be logged into the browser version of Tapestry as a manager and go to the control panel (1). From there you'll need to find the data subject you need to delete from the tab on the left hand side which is most appropriate for them (2).

You should be able to find them in the list of names within that section, but if they aren't immediately obvious you might want to use the search box (1), the status buttons (2) and/or the page filters (3). 

Once you've found the user, you then need to click on the cog along the line from their name (1) and choose to delete them (2). Please make sure you have exported any data you or the data subject (or their parents, if they are a child) wish to keep before you do this though!

You'll then be taken to a page, informing you that the profile will remain in an 'Awaiting Deletion' state for 90 days, during which point you may restore them. You will then need to confirm the deletion (1). If you decide not to delete, then you can click on cancel instead (2).
 

If you do need to restore them, you can do so by clicking the 'Awaiting Deletion' button at the top of the screen.
 

You will then just need to click on the cog along the line from their name (1) and choose to make them active (2). They will then move back onto your list of active profiles. 
 

Once a profile is in this awaiting deletion section you will not be able to add any observations for them and they will not count towards the number of children in your account if they are children, and if they are staff or relatives, they will not be able to login or receive any notifications. This is essentially as though you have restricted processing of their data. 

If however, you need to delete them immediately, without the 90 day period for in case you change your mind, please email us from an email address you use to sign in as a manager. Our contact address is customer.service@eyfs.info. 

Go back to Main Tutorials Page

Hi StTeresa,

As long as you're an FSF member (which I can see you are!), you're welcome to download any of our resources and take anything you find useful from them. To get rid of the water marks, just copy and paste the text into a new document .

Best wishes,
Lauren

If you are processing someone's personal data, they have the right to ask you to restrict processing. This means that although you should still store their data, you should stop doing anything else with it, unless you have a lawful reason to do so, for example if it's to protect the rights of another person. 

If you haven't already done so please do take a look at the ICO guidance on this. 

If you do need to restrict processing, the easiest way to do that when it comes to Tapestry is to make the user/child inactive. You will be able to reactivate them at any point though, and their data will be just as you left it when the profile was made inactive. Whilst they are inactive you will still be able to export PDF copies of their journals, zip files of their media, and any accident forms (if they are a child), and download all of their data as part of a response to a a subject access request.

To make someone inactivate you need to be logged into the browser version of Tapestry as a manager and go to the control panel (1).  From there you'll need to find the data subject you need to delete from the tab on the left hand side which is most appropriate for them (2). 

You should be able to find them in the list of names within that section, but if they aren't immediately obvious you might want to use the search box (1), the status buttons (2) and/or the page filters (3). 

Once you've found the user, you then need to click on the cog along the line from their name (1) and choose to make them inactive (2).
 

They will then disappear from your list of active users within that section of the control panel. You will be able to find them to export their data and/or reactivate them by clicking the 'Inactive' button at the top of the page. 
 

Then, in the same way as you made them inactive, just click on the cog next to their name to change their status again back to active or to perform any of the other options in the list. 

If you have any questions please do get in touch with us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.

Go back to Main Tutorials Page

Hi Diesel10,

I can definitely see the benefit in having that and it is actually something we have looked into doing in the past!
It's not at the top of our list of things to do right now, but it's not out of the question for the future by any means!

There are a few things that need to be taken into account with it though, for example security and data protection - we wouldn't want to direct anyone to use a company unless we were sure they were keeping the data very securely. 

For now I have made a note of this thread on our to do list and will update you if we do start moving forward with it!
 

Best wishes,
Lauren

 

Hi Millhill, 

Just wondering if you've seen the resources we've put up to act as example GDPR compliant privacy notices and enrolment forms? You might be able to adapt those to suit you!

Best wishes,
Lauren

Hi everyone,

This post is to let you know that following an update to our system on the morning of the 30th of May, an issue occurred where some assessments made through the app as part of new observations were not saving. This did not affect anything added through the browser (website) version of Tapestry. It did affect all assessments made through the app in the following frameworks:

• Aistear
• Characteristics of Effective Learning
• Early Years Foundation Stage
• Early Years Learning Framework
• Key Stage
• Leuven
• Northern Ireland Foundation Stage
• Northern Ireland Preschool Progress Indicators
• P Scales
• Welsh Foundation Phase Framework

We're so sorry to anyone affected by this. 

The issue was resolved at 11am on the 31st but unfortunately we do not have a record of the unsaved assessments, so they cannot be added back into the observations by us. This means that you will need to log back into your Tapestry accounts and edit any observations where the assessments did not save in order for them to appear on Tapestry. 

We can assure you however, that everything else about the observations e.g. notes and media, were saved and no data already on Tapestry was deleted. 

If you made an assessment as part of an edit to the observation through the app or added it through the browser version, the assessment will have saved. 

Apologies again. If you have any questions please do get in touch with us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.

Best wishes,
The Tapestry Team 

Of course. We did hit a bit of a snag with it which is why it isn't ready yet, but we haven't forgotten about it! 
I'll update you all by emailing you as well as posting here when it's released .

Best wishes,
Lauren

We've been taking a look through the statutory framework for EYFS document here today and it seems as though it is encouraging you to share some information about the child with other relevant early years professionals (and we think that includes future teachers). However, there is a very clear line in 2.5 about only sharing the two year progress check if you have consent. So, we were thinking that you should share the assessment data with new settings, but get consent to send reports (including progress checks). Would that make sense? The easiest way we came up with to do that is to get a copy of everything you want to send to the new setting and then tell the parents that you will send a, b, and c, but you'd also like to send x, y, and z if they will give you consent to do so.

Something to watch out for though is media - remember that sometimes other children will appear in the same picture, even if it's just in the background, and you would need consent form their parents too if you want to send over those images. 

We wanted to create a general consent form, but ultimately found that there were so many variables that any form we came up with would be too complicated to be particularly useful!