Learning Journals and special books have grown in popularity over the last decade, offering early years settings a way to record the special moments of their children, and to keep parents involved in a partnership as their children blossom and grow. More recently they have been used in conjunction with the EYFS developmental stages to assess more formally how children are progressing.

Traditionally these individual records have been collected in scrapbooks or binders, building up into a treasured memoir that children can take with them when they leave for the next stages of their journey through life - each entry forming a thread in the warp and weft of the tapestry that is their life.

The cost, in both time and money, of providing these journals has often caused great problems for managers and staff in EYFS settings. The purchase of the scrap books alone can be significant, and printing photographs, and cutting, pasting and writing in the journals is a time consuming affair.

New Road Nursery - Information for parents

Tapestry is an online E-learning journal to record the development of each child in our setting.  This system provides a quick and easy record that can be accessed by parents or relatives anywhere they have internet access and will be more current than the paper based record. 

How we use Tapestry at New Road Nursery

Tapestry provides each individual child with their own e-learning journey.   Parents and carers are given a personal log-in using their email address and password (please ring the office for your password, this can then be changed by yourself) All our keypersons are given secure pin log-in number (which only work when the manager is logged in).  Staff will then record and assess children linking observations to the EYFS curriculum, uploading photo or video media as evidence.  Once saved and completed each observation can be approved by the manager.  An email is then automatically generated to parents/carers set up to that child’s account and they are informed that an observation has been added so they can have a look and add any of their own comments to it.

Staff will access Tapestry on Samsung tablets or via the PC or laptop so they can upload observations and photographs on a weekly basis.  These can then be checked by the manager before being added to child’s e-journal and parent being emailed. 

As parents/carers you can choose who has access to your childs e-learning journal.  If you would like both parents added or you wish to add grandparents/aunts/uncles etc. to the account please contact the office and they can be set up.  Only those people who you have given permission to have a login and password will be able to see your child’s journal.                                                                                       

A Tapestry App is available to download for Iphone and Android devices from the respective App store.  To access Tapestry from the website go to https://eylj.org/login/ .  There is also lots of information via the Tapestry website too.  Tapestry is relatively new so designers are continually adding features and making updates to improve the learning journey experience.

How to use Tapestry

To login to your child’s journal ……………

• Go into the website: https://eylj.org/login/new-road-nursery/
• Put in your personal email and password
• You can then view your child’s journal and look through the observations. You can print these off for your own keeping if you wish.
  
• Add your own comments at the bottom of the observation.

You can also add your own fabulous observations using your phone/ tablet or via the web.

User guides

Download the user guides for IOS and Andriod here

• IOS user guide
• Andriod user guide
• Web site user guide
  

If you have any questions or queries about Tapestry please email Mark. 

Tapestry Privacy Policy

The Tapestry Online Learning Journal service is owned, managed and operated by The Foundation Stage Forum Ltd. (FSF), a UK based organisation entirely concerned with offering supporting services to professionals working with early years education. To read the FSF privacy policy please ask the office if you would like a paper copy.

For Tapestry the FSF have drawn up a more specific policy since, by its nature, they have potential access to the data entered into Tapestry accounts.  In accordance with the data protection act you own all the data you enter, and the FSF won't look at it or make use of it unless you ask them to. Listed below are some of teh more relevant points you might like to note:

• When you open a Tapestry account all your information is stored in a dedicated database in servers physically resident in the United Kingdom.
• When you take out an account with FSF, or when you download and install an app, information will be exchanged. FSF will not trade or otherwise pass on that information to any third party.
• FSF services and apps carry no advertising or related tracking software, either for their own use or other commercial organisations.
• The data you enter is stored by FSF, but owned by you. If you decide to terminate your Tapestry account they will ask you if you would like them to archive your information for a limited period. If you do not want to do this, they will delete it completely, which means that the data will disappear forever. They will also delete all media files associated with the account.
• The system necessarily stores cookies on the computers of users and mobile devices. These are simply to allow navigation of the system and collect no personal data.
• FSF will not visit your account unless you ask them to (eg to address any issues you are experiencing)
• FSF will not access or use any contact information that we enter (for example, in setting up your parent accounts they will enter email addresses allowing you to be notified of additions to your child's journal). Email harvesting and exploitation will not happen!