10.14 Tapestry | westwoodfarm

10.14 Tapestry Policy

Policy statement

At Westwood Farm Community Pre-School we use an online system called Tapestry to record and store all observations relating to each child. It is a safe and secure system and one that enables parents and carers to access their child’s learning journey at any time. They can share it with their child, family and friends at home and also post any comments and photographs of their own, helping to create a fully holistic view of the child and strengthen the parent partnership.

Procedures

· Observations input into the Tapestry system are published once a week by the keyperson and added to the child’s Learning Journey for viewing by the parents.

· The Learning Journey is set up prior to the child having started at Westwood Farm Community Pre-School.

· Staff are encouraged to make observations of all the children at the setting, not just their own key child.

· Tapestry is not used as a general communication tool between Westwood Farm Community Pre-School and home. A child’s learning journey is a document recording their learning and development and parents may add comments on observations or contribute photos, videos or information about activities they have been doing at home.

Safety and security

· Staff use iPads to take photographs for observations which are then uploaded to Tapestry.

· Each staff member has a secure login which is password protected.

· We have sought permission on our registration form for staff to take home the iPads and work on the childrens learning journey.

Staff sign a statement stating that no other person in their household will have access to the iPad.

· Staff are not permitted to download any photographs of the children onto their own device, and this setting has been disabled in Tapestry.

· Staff working from home must make sure they are not overlooked. They must logout as soon as they have stopped working.

· If any member of staff suspects that their login details have been compromised in any way, they must inform the Pre-School management team and a new login will be created.

· The Tapestry online Learning Journey system is hosted on secure dedicated servers based in the UK. We are registered controllers of data with the Information Commissioner’s Office and are bound by The General Data Protection Regulations 2018.

· Photographs of children which are stored on the iPads are deleted on a regular basis by the keyperson.

Parents

· Parents logging in to the system can only access their own child’s Learning Journey.

· Parents may input new observations and photos and add comments to existing observations. They do not have permissions to edit existing content.

· Parents are asked to sign on their registration form/contract consent to give permission for their child’s image to appear in other children’s Learning Journeys. If parents withhold this consent their child is only ever photographed alone, and no shared observations are made including that child.

· Parents are asked to sign on their registration form/contract that they will abide by Westwood Farm Community Pre-Schools policy to not download/screenshot any images or videos that staff have uploaded to Tapestry, even if these only contain their child.

When children leave

· When children move to another setting, we will transfer the Tapestry Journal to the new setting if they also use Tapestry.

· When a child leaves Westwood Farm Community Pre-School to start school, we will offer the parents the opportunity to purchase a USB containing a copy of their child’s Learning Journey, so they have a lasting record of their child’s time at Preschool. The photos and videos should not be downloaded or saved from the USB to any device.

· The child’s information, and their Learning Journey will be permanently deleted from our Tapestry account so no data on that child will remain with us once they have left.