For anyone who has read my previous post, you will know that I am new to Early Years and the way things are done there. My experience of it appeared to be of children being supervised by adults who wondered around the room with post its and a camera. Now, at the end of my first half term there, I know that this couldn't be further from the truth of what really happens there!
First of all, the children aren't just 'playing' - no matter how much it looks like it! They are using their imagination most of the time, but the room is set up in a way to help them achieve that and to show off their own unique skills in a range of different ways. For example, that role play area in the corner that has the food all of the table and a cooker with pots and pans all over it isn't just an area for a child to chew on plastic food and spread germs. It is an area that, if you take the time to listen, you will hear some of the most amazing discussions between children, without any adult involvement, in which they are using their own experiences of the world and applying them in that role play area. This is where the adults in the room come into play - they are there to catch these moments and record them as evidence for each child's file, proving what 'level' they are at. I have heard of weekends being spent printing out lots of photos, matching them up with the post it note for that activity and then finding where it fits in the Development Matters document! That, for me, sounds like a complete recipe for disaster as I am unable to organise post its in anything other than a complete mess!
Luckily for me though, our school has invested in a piece of software called Tapestry. This is a web based learning journal for your setting that allows you to add photos, comments and link it to the Development Matters document, all without the need of a pen and paper! This is because it comes with an iPad (and Android in Beta!) app which means you can take the photo (and I recommend you do this first before they move on to something different!), choose the child(ren), add a comment and select the areas that it fits into. By pressing save, it sends it all off to the portfolio in the cloud which can also be shared with the parent if you wanted to.
With our baseline assessments due next week, I have found this system to be very easy to check which areas I need to focus on and with which children. It gives the information I need clearly and I can view the whole year group or just my key children. One thing I would like to see added is the ability to select my class so I can really help support my teaching assistant without having to trawl through all the other children in the other classes.
One area that I have found really positive with Tapestry is the forum support. It is expected that you will have questions, especially as a new user, and the forum allows you to get support for the developers as well as other users. So far, my questions have been answered quickly and efficiently.
We use iPads to do our observations on, and whilst the app is very easy to use, it does have some bugs that are still to be ironed out. Bugs like not always being able to log in first time using the pin entry system, meaning that you have to log out and back in, as well sometimes mixing up observations linked to certain statements - but this is only a temporary thing - if you check back an hour later they are back to normal! As this is a relatively new app, I am happy to help develop and iron out these bugs, especially as it really has the potential to become such a powerful tool in the EYFS setting.
One thing I haven't mentioned is the cost. For our setting, we have 90 children, and so the cost for us is £50 + VAT - which is nothing really when you consider that cost against the cost of printing photos, post it notes and profile books - and time!!
There are other systems that do similar on the market, and I can not comment on whether they are better or worse as I have not had a chance to use them in a classroom setting. What I can say though is that Tapestry has proved itself to be a useful addition to our setting and, whilst some of the bugs are frustrating, it has helped save us time and given us almost instant feedback on where our children are.
More information on Tapestry can be found here: http://eyfs.info/tapestry-info/introduction
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