Hi, everyone.
I hope your September has gone well and you’ve had a positive start to the new academic year. Whether you are in a school or nursery setting, many of you will have been welcoming new children this month.
I have a few announcements and a few resources this month, which I think will be really helpful, so read on for more details.
Bespoke Flags
I’m excited to announce another new feature has been released on Tapestry!
Bespoke Flags allows you to create your own flag sets for whatever you like. This will give you more control over your monitoring. Just like our existing flags sets, any flags you make can be added to Observations and Reflections. And you can use the Flag picker to monitor your use of these custom flags more carefully.
We have two tutorials to get you started with this new feature but if you have any other questions, you can always reach us on customer.service@eyfs.info
The Tapestry Webinar.
This month, one of our resident Tapestry experts and education advisors – Ben – hosted another webinar all about Tapestry and the new EYFS. It was streamed live on our Facebook and Zoom, but if you couldn’t make it for the live version, you can find the recording of it on our YouTube.
Ben covered lots of topics that we have seen cropping up recently: baselining, 2 year checks, how the flags work, monitoring high achievers, monitoring progress, to name a few! I would highly recommend giving the webinar a watch. It would also make a great training resource for staff if you are looking for some free CPD.
Also, Ben collected the most common questions from the webinar and has created some FAQs to support you as you move forward with the new EYFS.
Our Forum Post
While on the topic of the new EYFS, I want to remind you again of our Forum post.
This post compiles all the resources we have created over the past few months in relation to the new framework, the new Development Matters and Birth to 5 matters documents and how Tapestry adapted to fit these changes.
The EYFS and the ELGs
If you don’t have time to look through all the information on that forum post, I would like to discuss one thing in more detail which has been asked about a lot this month.
Lots of people have looked at our new EYFS 2021 flag set and have been surprised to see “old” aspects. For example, PD still includes “Moving and Handling” and “Health and Self Care” and it doesn’t show “Gross Motor Skills” and “Fine Motor Skills”. So why is this?
Well, The EYFS 2021 flags allows you to select areas from the new Development Matters; these are the seven areas of learning we are all familiar with: Communication and Language; Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Physical Development; Literacy; Mathematics; Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
The aspects within those areas are from the Birth to 5 Matters guidance document. These are not related to the new ELGs from the updated EYFS Framework. Some of the Birth to 5 Matters aspect titles (such as the PD ones I mentioned earlier) just happen to be the same as what the old ELGs used.
The authors of the above guidance were very clear that settings should not be using the ELGs throughout the year and that they are just an assessment point at the end of the Reception year.
You can review these guidance documents in the Reference section or download the full guidance materials from here:
If you were looking for the ELG flags, they are there under the ELG2021 flagset. However, if you plan on completing your EYFSP on Tapestry this year, you may benefit more from using the ELG2021 assessment framework as it will then feed into your EYFSP. You can enable that by going to Control Panel > Settings > Assessments > ELG2021. Controlling which assessment frameworks are enabled on your account
Again, the ELGs won't help your monitoring of the child's development throughout the year and should only be used towards the end of the Reception year.
While we are on the topic, a recent update means you can toggle off Birth to 5 Matters altogether if you are only using Development Matters. Doing this will remove the aspect flags, the reference material for Birth to 5 and its associated sections within the Thoroughness screen.
If you already have your EYFS 2021 flag set enabled, you can toggle Bto5 off by going to Control Panel > Settings > Flags > “Configure” next to EYFS 2021. Here’s the tutorial which shows you in more detail.
#NewAcademicYearOnTapestry
If you are on Twitter, keep an eye out for #NewAcademicYearOnTapestry - we are tweeting out loads of tips and tricks for Tapestry users which are particularly helpful this time of year.
Free Training
Lastly, if you are looking for some SLCN/EYFS training, Launchpad for Literacy founder, Kirstie Page, is delivering some free virtual sessions through Orgill English Hub this term. This training is open to all and is applicable for schools and settings. There will be a very strong emphasis on embedding interventions into Targeted Practice. You can find out more in this post on the FSF.
That’s all from me. Take care everyone and I’ll talk to you next month.
Best wishes,
Jack