Learning Journeys

 
In the Early Years Foundation Stage children learn through play, exploration and practical activities which help them to make sense of their world. The Learning Journey documents your child’s learning and development throughout their Reception year at school and is made up of the information, observations and photographs that we gather for each child. All of this information helps us to assess the children’s learning and development and plan appropriately for each child  as they work towards achieving the Early Learning Goals by the end of Reception. We also warmly welcome contributions from parents and other family members,  as this really helps to build a picture of the whole child from more than one perspective. Traditionally, these individual records have been collected in scrapbooks or binders, building up into a memoir that children can take with them when they leave for the next stages of their journey through life.

At Great Finborough we are always assessing our practice and looking at how we can improve. We have reviewed the learning journeys that we produce for each child within our setting and are now using online learning journeys using a piece of educational software called ‘Tapestry’. The Tapestry system is hosted in the UK on secure servers which conform to very high environmental standards and are proactively managed 24 hours a day. Each observation we make can be downloaded directly onto the system and linked into your child’s personal profile.

Each child’s learning journey can have individual accounts set up for parents and relatives to access. By logging on with a secure username and password you can access your child’s journal. You will be able to view the observations as a learning journey, flipping through your single child’s observation pages, in time-order, or filtering in flexible ways to access your favourite records. In addition, you can receive automatic emails generated for parents when new entries by the school staff are made.  Tapestry also allows you, as your child’s primary educator, to add observations and photographs of your own, as well as share your comments. We love to hear about learning and WOW moments from home to share with your child in school. At any time you can download a PDF of your child’s learning journey to share with friends and relatives. 

NOTE: Parents are only able to view their own child’s journal. However, because children play in close proximity with their friends it does not reflect a true picture of their time at school if photographs are only of a single child. Therefore, photographs of your child may appear on their friends learning journeys.