The Dolphins Pre-School
How Tapestry helps to support children’s learning and development
The Dolphins Pre-school is an Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ family run early years setting based in Hove. It is a long-established nursery, founded in 1960, with strong roots in its community. There are usually around 30 children at Dolphins on a daily basis, and they have been using Tapestry since 2015. We talked with Head of Operations at Dolphins, Peter Farrant.
Building and maintaining partnership with parents
One of the ways Dolphins supports partnership with parents is by using the Observations feature on Tapestry to share photos and videos of each child. This helps the team to retain the parents’ connection with children’s daily experiences at the setting:
I can’t overstate how important Tapestry is for connecting with parents, it’s really good for that engagement. We use observations to build parent partnership. Sharing photos and videos of their child helps parents to get a picture of their development and progression, and allays everyday worries about their child.
Dolphins makes use of the Tapestry tutorials for parents to help families become familiar with Tapestry when their child begins at the setting. This includes the About Me feature, which parents are encouraged to fill in as part of the transition from home to setting, giving staff valuable information to make sure the environment is ready for each child. Staff can update About Me together with parents during the settling-in period and beyond.
Monitoring and reflecting on the provision for every child
Dolphins have been using Tapestry’s Areas of Concern Screen to quickly identify any children who may be struggling in a particular area. This information can then be used to develop targeted support:
Staff use their professional judgement with the Areas of Concern screen. It is about seeing what impact they’ve made on that child’s progress, so we are aiming for a flow, a movement towards no concerns for each child, because we have adapted our provision to support their development.” The team uses the Reflections feature to record their thoughts and plans for individual children. “While some staff were initially reluctant to use Reflections due to the perceived extra workload, we have found that this is not the case. Reflections have helped staff to stay organised and focused on each child’s individual needs without adding to their workload. They also provide a valuable record of progress over time. The use of the Areas of Concern screen with Reflections has had a positive impact on the development of the children. By identifying and addressing concerns early on, staff are able to help children reach their full potential.
Organising the team’s knowledge about each child
It is important for each Key Person to really know their key children, and also for other staff members to get to know every child. At Dolphins, they use the Observations and Reflections features to help them retain and share their knowledge about the children.
Staff have to recall a vast amount of information, as they get to know each child and their families… Tapestry helps to hold that information through any observations we decide to make. At Dolphins we work together to notice the learning and progress children are making, so we can all observe something about a child and just grab a quick photo to add to their learning journal and share with parents.
Later, that child’s Key Person might decide to flag that observation, as a prompt for them to remember some significant development or that a child is showing a specific interest. Then they might use Reflections to note down how they are going to support the progress. All this really helps with communicating as a team, for example for dual key people to share knowledge and understanding about their key children.
Want to read more of our success stories?
Take a look at our case study library, or download a PDF booklet containing a variety of customer success stories.
