online learning journey eyfs

Tapestry Learning Journal captures each child’s unique learning journey through the EYFS and into Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, saving special moments, mapping progress and supporting transition.

Childminders, early years educators and teachers use photos, videos and notes to tell a child’s learning story. These are ‘woven’ together with home experiences added by parents and carers to create a picture of the whole child, all kept in one place.

A number of frameworks are freely available on Tapestry , including the EYFS, Montessori, Key Stage 1 and 2, and the Cherry Garden framework, which offers a unique way of seeing progress for SEND children. Tapestry Learning Journal is also downloadable as an easy-to-use app, meaning capturing and following children’s milestones is even simpler. All information held on the Tapestry platform is stored securely and is accessible to parents, carers and staff whenever required.

Tapestry enables you to add as many staff or relatives as you like on an unlimited number of devices. This means educators can easily add observations or images of learning as they happen throughout the day. At home, families can share their online learning journal , celebrating these moments together. In this way, Tapestry helps to build a united understanding of each child’s development.

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Online EYFS observations and learning journals software. Simple, quick & hassle free.

Edna is the easy to use online learning journal software for childminders, nurseries, pre-schools & reception classes..

Simple, fun online learning journals.

Creating EYFS learning journals shouldn’t be difficult or time consuming. Edna makes it simple, quick and, dare we say, even kinda fun!

So say goodbye to printing, cutting & gluing your observations and learning journals and say hello to Edna.

Child Profiles

Edna keeps a full record of all the children at your setting. Find and view child profiles with ease and never forget a birthday or nickname again.

Learning Journals & Observations

Take observations quickly and easily. Add evidence, curriculum information, child comments and more to build informative in depth observations everyone will love.

Increase parent & carer involvement through parent accounts and keep them informed in real time.

Child Progression

Get insight into each child's progress through the curriculum with Edna’s powerful tracking tools.

Edna is really easy to use and excellent value for money. It’s been life changing!

I love how simple it is to use! Just fab! I’ve managed to catch up on all my observations.

Everything is set out clearly and it looks lovely. Like something you want to use!

Build amazing child profiles.

Quickly & easily create child profiles giving you access to all the information you need including date of birth, timetable, key worker, description and much more.

Super fast observations. Brilliant learning journals.

Create observations in seconds on a phone, tablet or computer. Easily add EYFS curriculum info, photographs and more to create detailed observations. Build in depth brilliant learning journals as you go.

Access powerful tracking tools.

Get to the information you need easily and quickly with powerful tracking tools. See the progress children are making & identify issues early.

Improve parent communication & participation.

Keep parents & carers up to date on their child's day in real time. Get easy access to important info like email addresses, phone numbers and pick up and drop off authorization.

Do less paperwork. Do more childcare.

No more wasted time filling out costly paper based observations and learning journals., with edna you can take quick detailed early years observations easily. no mess, no fuss., helping you to give more time to the children in your care., try edna now, free for 30 days. no obligation, no credit card needed., safe & secure.

All data transfer encrypted with 256-bit SSL technology.

Edna is 100% web based. There is nothing to install.

Mobile & tablet friendly

Edna is fully optimised for any screen size.

Dedicated support

Email, live chat & a knowledge base. We’re here for you.

What are online learning journals?

Learning journals are a way of documenting children’s experiences and development throughout their early years. As well as helping educators keep track of each child’s progress, they can be an excellent way of keeping families and the children themselves involved in their learning.

When learning journals are kept online their potential benefits multiply!

• Journal entries and updates can be shared far more regularly. Parents and carers can see what their children have been doing whenever they like from the Tapestry website or app. If the school/setting likes, updates can be sent out as soon as they are recorded.
• Family members you don’t often see in person can be kept involved. Even if important people in the child’s life live or work abroad, they can view and contribute to the journal – Tapestry can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.
• Parent and carers will find it easier to add to and comment on journals, especially when it comes to uploading media. That gives staff an invaluable look into a child’s home life.
• Going digital saves paper. No more paper waste from post its, draft versions, or pictures you’ve cut out. You don’t even have to print the journals at the end of the year, you can simply download them to PDF.
• They’re faster to make. As well as the time saved on cutting and sticking, being able to edit things like spelling mistakes rather than redoing the whole entry, and duplicating and editing very similar entries for different children can save you countless hours.
• They’re cheaper to make. Although online learning journals usually come with a subscription cost, Tapestry often ends up actually being cheaper than the cost of the paper, ink, and glue sticks used to make paper journals. And that’s not to mention the money you save from staff hours spent on them!
• They’re easier to organise. There are lots of ways you can organise your entries on Tapestry – ‘flags’ and ‘hashtags’ help you to identify posts relating to something you’re particularly interested in, and our regular filters help you to find things like observations made by a specific person, for a specific group, or including a specific type of assessment. Even if you haven’t pre-sorted them and there isn’t a suitable automatic filter, you can use the search function to look for key words.
• Other staff can access them quickly and easily. This can be very useful for moderation purposes, if multiple staff members are contributing to the same journal, and for when people are away.
• Online journals won’t get left on a bus or have something spilled on them. It’s all too easy for paper journals to get lost or damaged in some way. Although journals being stored online isn’t 100% risk free, it’s significantly less likely that something would happen to make them irretrievable.
• They keep everything in one place, from EYFS to the end of KS2. Tapestry lets you send a copy of a child’s profile to another Tapestry package. This, along with the range of assessment frameworks and curricula available means that staff can easily pass the journal onto the child’s next school/setting/childminder/teacher for them to contribute to, and they in turn can pass it to the next, all the way up to year 6. At the end you’ll be left with one complete record of a child’s key years of education.

And, to add to that,  they don’t have to stay online forever . Although in most cases they’re easier to prepare and share online, they can be exported to either offline files (PDFs for the journal and a separate folder for videos) or printed off entirely as regularly as you like. This means that family members without access to technology don’t miss out. It also ensures that even when the child leaves the school/setting/childminder and no longer has access to the online service, they can keep their own copy – giving them something to look back on and treasure for years to come.

7 tips for using online learning journals in EYFS

I first heard about online learning journals in 2012 and I can well remember the initial scepticism at the idea. 

Are they safe? How will teachers be able to interact with the children?  What about the quality of observations? Don’t children need to see adults writing? 

I admit I was one of those sceptics. 

Quick read:  EYFS: In praise of the humble sandpit

Quick listen:   Why attachment-aware teaching matters for every child

Want to know more?   Active learning: make a drama out of teaching punctuation

However, I am so pleased that my curiosity got the better of me, and we decided to explore this new digital method of recording. Learning journals are now a fully embedded tool in our EYFS practice.  

We have been happily using Tapestry for quite a few years and we still love it, I would never go back.

As such, I am quite surprised when I come across other teachers who are yet to convert. There is a range of benefits. 

Online learning journals: the benefits

Firstly, there is huge potential for powerful parental engagement. Teachers work with a range of different parents from all walks of life. Some parents we know struggle with literacy and are reluctant to fully engage with school. 

Tapestry and platforms like it are really accessible for everyone because they offer similar communication features to social media - for example, parents can browse photos and click to ‘like’ an observation. 

For the hard-to-reach parents who may not attend parent’s evening, it is really beneficial.

Other parents really do want to know exactly what their child is learning. They can enjoy sharing the photos and observations with children when home. We have found online learning journals also enable parents to feel involved in the learning and it encourages parents to extend the learning into the home environment. 

They might see their child had been counting at school and decide to help with practice at home.

For the anxious parent, particularly through the settling in stage, it is also hugely reassuring for them to see a photo of their child happily playing with other children or just smiling on their first day, when the last image they had of them was their child wailing at the door at drop off. 

Workload boost

But is it more work for teachers?

The simple answer is no. The biggest selling point for teachers is losing hours and hours of cutting and sticking - I don’t think I need to say anymore!  Time can be much better spent.

For teachers in a job-share it also works brilliantly: both can access one another’s observations very easily and keep up to date with the children’s learning.  There is no struggle to deliver a pile of books to one another between shifts!

As with any aspect of teaching and learning, each school can fine-tune the way that they work with this kind of tool.  

Top tips for learning journals

Over the years I have learnt how to get the best out of the programme. We may not work in the exact same way as other schools, but it works well for us. So here are my top tips. 

1. A dead iPad is even more frustrating than not being able to find a pen! Get in the habit of checking and charging the iPad every day at the end of school.

2. Don’t fall into the trap of taking the photo and then writing notes to type up later. You will not benefit from saving yourself time. Always capture in the moment (note-form on the device works best).

3. Ensure the whole team starts with good habits of spending a few minutes checking and editing observations at the end of each school day, rather than leaving them to catch up with weeks later.

4. Avoid having lots of additional workbooks alongside the learning journal. This duplication works against the principle of all the learning being recorded in the same place. 

5. Work with SLT to make evidence easily accessible for subject monitoring.   Subject specific observations can be downloaded for moderation or staff meetings.

6. You can still review the observations without the need to allocate a judgement to every single observation.  

7. Remember the principles of good practice shouldn’t change.  Regularly review journals with your team to ensure quality and purpose to the observations. 

Helen Pinnington is early years foundation lead at St Thomas More’s Catholic Primary School in Bedhampton, Hampshire

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• Tapestry Online Learning Journal

Tapestry online learning journal

Tapestry is an easy-to-use, secure online learning journal helping staff and families celebrate and support their children’s learning from Early Years to Year 6, in mainstream and specialist provision.

Reduce workload, develop your setting and school’s provision, and enhance engagement all round.

Engagement with parents and carers

Collaborate with families in an equal partnership to support their children’s learning and development, build a picture of each unique child, and nurture a space to provide meaningful feedback to families and children.

Monitoring each child’s learning and development

Tapestry provides a supportive monitoring solution for every child: from EYFS to the National Curriculum and beyond, in both mainstream and specialist schools.

Share your unique curriculum, and collect rich information about children’s progress to inform staff and leadership, and influence adjustments to provision.

Children with learning differences

The Cherry Garden framework is a flexible, child-centred tool created to support educators working with children who have learning differences and disabilities.

The unique interactive orchard provides the opportunity to celebrate progress and engage children and families with their learning.

“Tapestry provides a supportive monitoring solution for every child”

Your children, your curriculum

Tapestry’s Bespoke Frameworks gives you the flexibility to create and upload your own curriculum, assessment framework, or milestones directly onto your account.

Capture learning and reflect on progress in a way that works for your cohorts, your team and your unique provision.

Reflective practice and CPD

Tapestry Reflections is a place for educators to discuss thoughts, experiences, and actions, and for leadership to gain insight into the pedagogical confidence of staff so you can tailor CPD to the needs of individuals and the team.

Tapestry CPD offers effective, free online training to support your staff with building their pedagogical knowledge to inform their professional judgment through engaging and interactive courses.

Try Tapestry for free with a no-obligation, two-week trial .

• The Tapestry app is a pared-down version of the browser, designed to allow efficient uploading, viewing and editing of posts. The app also allows users to quickly log back in via a PIN or using biometrics, and contribute while offline.
• Customise your account to your unique needs: upload unlimited media and files, create as many staff and relative profiles as necessary, download the app as many times as you need, use as many devices you wish, and pick and choose what features to enable at no extra cost.
• Encourage independent learning by setting up your account so children can log in from specific devices at school or at home through Child Login. Use in combination with Activities to provide learning that can be done anywhere.

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Document children’s Early Years development and daily logs

Capture every young hero’s story, observe and record early development milestones and daily events, creating a unique learning journey that encapsulates a child’s nursery story..

Discover what our Early Years learning journal software can do for you

Observe, assess and share instantly

• Add photos, videos and audio clips to create a detailed learning journey and instantly share key moments with parents
• Monitor individual and group progress against a range of Early Years frameworks including your own custom curriculum
• Identify learning gaps with simple overviews and trackers and celebrate successes with custom progress reports

Engage with parents as partners

• Build stronger relationships with parents through instant updates, real time communication and messaging
• Parents can add observations, share activities and learning at home to build a holistic view of a child’s progress
• Encourage engagement with our parent account activation view and reminders

Communicate with daily diaries

• Set up menus to record what children have eaten, add in/out times, bottles, nappies, toileting and more all from one easy-to-use group screen
• Easily log accidents and share with parents to sign, then monitor accident trends across the nursery
• Record when medicine is administered and share with parents in real time on our dedicated parent app

Choose your Early Years frameworks

Uncover more ey log super powers

Observation recording

Capture, tag and assess children’s development and progress in individual and group observations.

Media upload

Share multiple photos, videos and audio recordings of the child’s day with parents.

Assessment frameworks

Choose from 15+ assessment frameworks or create your own with our custom framework builder.

Review observations

Set individuals publish rights and easily review and approve observations by junior staff.

Learning journey

Instantly share learning journeys and updates with parents.

Next steps and planning

Plan, add resources and observe activities to support a child’s developmental next steps.

Custom reporting

Create custom templates and automatically bulk generate 2 year checks, progress and transition reports.

Daily diaries and registers

Record registers, meals, nappies, bottles and more and share with parents in real time.

Accident reporting

Document all accidents and incidents at home or the nursery and monitor accident trends.

Medicine forms

Record and instantly publish medicine doses to parents for review and sign off.

Communicate and share files in direct or group messages to parents.

Parent engagement

Parents can contribute with home observations, comments and ‘loves’ through our free parent app.

Make every learning journey memorable!

Children profiles, observations captured, media shared, daily diaries recorded, accidents logged, ey works is trusted by single nurseries to countrywide groups.

Don’t just take our word for it, read some of our customer success stories

Learn more about how we help your team work.

Take your first steps today.

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A digital platform for early educators and families to collaborate, share the workload, and nurture children together

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Whether it’s sharing invoices, photos, payments, observations, or knowledge, Famly brings all the grown-ups in a child’s life together.

Message, update and connect with families in a heartbeat.

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Ready, steady, open

No register stress, no paper attendance sheets. Sign everyone in in seconds with a sign-in screen, and get an overview of attendance in real-time.

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Document, observe and update staff and parents in seconds, so you can spend quality time with the children. That’s far more important than admin.

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See you tomorrow!

Sign children and staff out with one button, and end the day peacefully. No need to worry you’ve forgotten something - it’s all inside Famly.

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A snapshot of some of our core features that make collaboration easier

Online learning journals

Document each child’s unique progress

Easily document each child’s learning journey with an interactive news feed, observations, assessments and progress reports, as well as photos and videos.

Nursery staff rotas

Maximise the staff you have

Plan schedules months in advance to maximise staff hours, hit all the right ratios, and avoid stressful last-minute agency calling.

Instant messages

Forget frantic calls and unread emails

You don’t have time to make dozens of phone calls, or read hundreds of emails. Send private or group messages instantly, and never worry about missing an update again.

Daily diaries

Keep families up-to-date

From nappies to medication, log every moment to keep families updated. So you can use pick-up time for meaningful catch-ups instead.

In-app payments

Invoice and pay with one click

From one-click and automatic payments to payment reminders, you’ll never chase fees again. And everything is reconciled automatically.

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Reports to grow your business

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“Parents don’t have to wait for a consultation three times a year to see what their child is learning at nursery. Parents can log in and see straight away that their child has achieved something.”

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Product Focus

Tapestry Review – An Innovative Interactive Online Learning Journal

• Subject: Ace-Owner
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If you’ve been searching for an innovative, interactive online learning journal, look no further…

At a glance

• A secure online journal created by early years experts
• Accurately record and track child development
• Discover innovative ways to capture fun and playtime
• Fast, efficient educational reporting and in-depth data analysis
• Upload and share precious moments with parents in real time
• Available for Apple, Android and Amazon Fire devices, putting essential functionality right with you in the classroom and giving parents a secure way of receiving new entries in your child’s journal

The right online learning journal is a highly effective way to record and track individual wellbeing, learning journeys, milestones, experiences and developmental stages.

This is what Tapestry is all about. It’s a brilliant, glue stick-less tool that works with digital photos, videos and text. It takes the threads of what happens over the course of a day, so you can build a picture of what each child is doing, and stores everything in one place.

It’s easy to use, especially with a tablet, allowing you to get rid of those post-it notes and folders rammed with scrappy bits of paper. It’s also the perfect way for children to review their own learning.

At its simplest level, Tapestry involves adding setting details, children, staff and then observations. You then enable the assessment frameworks you want to use on your account and set up your assessment periods.

This is in-the-moment, real-time recording where you can add/edit notes and create PDFs of some or all of a child’s observations. It means you can add a wide range of evidence and upload as much as you want.

Features include an analysis section, which is brilliant because you can spot gaps in provision and areas where there is less coverage and help manage individuals and groups with laser-sharp insight.

Paper systems make this a huge task, but Tapestry means you can keep tabs on special needs mapped against development needs, get proper managerial overviews and plan with confidence.

This also helps managers readily see what their staff write and record, so it feeds into professional development, helping staff to improve their observations and planning.

There really is nothing better than having a dynamic tool like this because it makes you a more efficient practitioner, supports child development and massively eases your workload.

The system is engineered for better information sharing and improving provision because you can update journals instantly.

Of course, there’s plenty more to it than that, so there are lots of informative videos and webinars available to help you get started, plus over 170 tutorials featuring in-depth descriptions of how to use Tapestry’s various functions.

Thanks to the Tapestry app, it couldn’t be easier for parents to access either. They can look at their child’s password and PIN-protected journal, then explore their child’s day with their child at home – perfect for sharing, reliving and discussing.

Parents can read comments by key workers and reply with their own feedback.

Joining Tapestry means you also get to become a member of the EYFS Forum, an online community and support network for early years professionals.

To find out if it’s for you, you can request a free two-week trial (costs vary depending on the number of children you purchase it for; Tapestry for up to 40 children is £99 per year).

The verdict

• Easy, fun and affordable; a safe and fully backed-up system
• Accessible and intuitive to all, increasing parental engagement
• Makes formative and summative assessments quick, enjoyable and informative
• Unparalleled support to get the best out of the resource
• Promotes intelligent observation and careful reflection

Upgrade if…

You are looking for a safe, integrated and interactive resource to drive up standards.

Reviewed by John Dabell

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Learning journals with a major difference… the Interactive Learning Diary

The leading learning journal software designed by nursery managers, practitioners, and primary teachers.

Are you looking for a new system to streamline your child development recording, tracking and progress? If so, our Interactive Learning Diary software could be the perfect time and cost-effective solution you require.

From personal experience, we know that tracking child development in a busy nursery or school is no easy task. Maintaining the highest standards of education can be overwhelming at times. But our cutting-edge learning journal is designed to simplify your workload and assist you to provide the best learning experiences for young children.

But there’s much, much more to this than just education software. It’s about people… the education of young children and helping busy educators and parents to work in close partnership.

Pupil Timeline

Instantly view a comprehensive, chronological timeline of an individual child’s activity. This includes all Observations, Assessments, Checkpoints, Next Steps in learning, Reflections and Reviews, Parent and Practitioner comments along with specific Focus requirements.

Flag for Focus

A useful addition to your learning journal system, the Flag for Focus function assists with tracking child progress. Instantly flag a child as requiring extra focus or assistance in their learning from the Pupil Timeline, Next Steps, Reflections or Observation functions.

Designed to be used with or without recorded observations, Next Steps ensure children are making significant progress in their learning and development by identifying and planning their future targets and needs.

Parent Partnership

An enjoyable and productive partnership with parents can greatly assist with a child’s learning. Our online learning journal system with Parent Portal and dedicated ILD Parent 2 app makes participation so much easier for busy parents.

Weekly Planning

Create Weekly plans and include your teams’ ideas and related questioning. This process helps you to instantly collect, record and analyse everything that happened during the lesson which allows you to move from just experiencing to understanding.

Resource Library

Upload, update and share valuable teaching resources and ideas in various file formats such as Microsoft Word, PDF, Power Point, images, video files and web links. Link your resources to areas of learning along with keywords for easy reference.

So Why Choose the Interactive Learning Diary?

We have always adopted a ‘when you talk, we listen’ approach to everything we do. After all, it’s you and your nursery or school team who work hard to provide the best education possible. Because of this, every unique function you see in the Interactive Learning Diary learning journal has been suggested, requested, or actually designed by a nursery or school team member.

Checkpoints

Accurately tracking a child’s development progress should never be addressed as a tick box exercise. Children develop and learn at different rates and in different ways. Instantly view progress by child, age and any curriculum/s you wish to use.

Reflections

Create reflections and reviews for individual children, staff, or the teaching environment such as classrooms or outdoor areas. Combined with well planned activities, reflection allows you to assess and appreciate your own teaching.

Child Empowerment

Improve your teaching, child learning, and development tracking with our new unique framework. Children’s Empowerment in Play: Participation, Voice, and Ownership by Dr Natalie Canning of the Open University.

Curriculum Builder

With this unique ILD learning journal function, within seconds, create a copy of an existing curriculum to personalise. Or quickly design your own bespoke curriculum or hybrid using the easy, intuitive framework design functions.

ILD Pro 2 App

Available for Apple, Android and Amazon Fire devices. Instantly capture planned and spontaneous photo, audio or video observation evidence anywhere! No wi-fi required! With Child Mode, children can record their own video, audio and photo observations!

Interactive 360 App

Parents love to know what their children are working on at nursery or school! They can receive notifications and Pupil Timeline updates on their preferred device. They can also send activities from home for inclusion in their child’s learning journal.

It’s Your Personal System

With some systems, you can’t do anything to personalise it. They believe that one size fits all and you only discover how problematic this is after joining them. Requesting a new development or function you require usually falls on deaf ears. Many of our new nurseries and schools joining us share their experiences and problems created by using learning journal software with very limited functionality.

We understand that every nursery or school likes to do things differently. For example, you may wish to use the standard UK curriculums like the Curriculum for Excellence, EYFS or National Curriculum. Alternatively, if you would like to modify these to meet your own specific requirements, our ILD learning journal allows you to do this.

You can even create your own bespoke inhouse curriculums with our Curriculum Builder!

From babies to teenage development tracking, our system adapts to your needs, ensuring a seamless experience for you, your team, parents, and children.

Media Manager

2 year progress check.

The essential 2-year progress check summarises a child’s Personal, Social, Emotional, Communication / Language and Physical development. If parents are fully aware of their child’s needs, with practitioner support, this can enhance their development at home.

SEND Resources

With highly valued input from our SEND teachers, the ILD learning journal system is an invaluable resource for special educational needs schools and centres. Simply create your own specialised development frameworks or educational curriculums.

Digital Flipbooks

Create beautiful digital copies of children’s online learning journals for parents to download. Includes everything a child has achieved with text, photos, video and audio. Personalise cover pages with portrait and child images. Create timeless keepsakes.

Child Identity Protection

Assisting with Safeguarding & Child Protection, Child Identity Protection (C.I.P.) allows you to pixelate a child’s facial image if they are included in group activity images or if identity security measures are required.

Progress & Tracking

Instantly recognise knowledge gaps which assists educators to focus on areas that require additional support. View an individual child or group progress against a chosen curriculum showing performance in relation to the areas of learning.

End of Year Reports

End of Year / Termly reporting and 2-year checks are busy times in an educator’s diary. Instantly create the report templates you require. Simply prefill your reports with curriculum definitions before personalising for individual children.

Observation Manager

Provides fast track functionality to quickly include/edit and publish observations for children’s learning journals. Manage or edit your observations, assessments, next steps, reports, likes and my voice comments, all in one easy module!

Experience the Future of Child Development Tracking

Join the growing community of nurseries and schools that have switched to the Interactive Learning Diary and are now enjoying new unique levels of service, support, efficiency, organisation, and enhanced education. The Interactive Learning Diary isn’t just a piece of software; it’s your strategic partner in learning and teaching excellence. Helping educators and parents to enjoy an excellent working partnership which is highly beneficial for every child in your nursery or school.

Take control of your future success today with the Interactive Learning Diary…

Assessments

Assessing a child’s progress does not have to be a difficult, time consuming process. The ILD provides quick, easy functionality to enable assessments at the exact level you choose. Giving back valuable time for teaching.

Baseline Creator

Developed to quickly assist you in taking previous assessments for a class or pupil and building a new baseline for the new academic year. Simply select class, group or pupil and within seconds, instant baselines!

Learning Zone

Adverse weather conditions or emergencies can create temporary closures. Learning Zone allows you to maintain exceptional levels of education by sending and receiving homework.Virtually any type of file format can be used to provide homework for children.

User Manager

Staff can have either Super User or User status. Activate or deactivate access within seconds through your User Manager. You also have full control of who can access your system and when access is available.

Free Live Support

Designed by educators, the ILD system is very easy to use with our step by step user guides. But… we also include free support through Live Chat, by email or telephone for our busy educators.

Nursery Management

To perfectly complement your online learning journals software, we can also provide our unique nursery management system if required…The Interactive Nursery Manager.

The ILD can of course be used independently as a stand-alone system or alongside any nursery management system you choose.

Or… if used in conjunction with the INM, this provides you with a fully integrated learning journal / nursery management system.

We can also arrange a free online setup/configuration session to fast track your Interactive Learning Diary experience and provide exceptional levels of free support through Live Chat, by email or telephone. We are always here to assist you!

For a detailed insight into our latest version of the ILD, just click our discover more… or free trial buttons below.

Free, no obligation trial

There’s more than one reason why we’re the UK’s favourite digital learning journey

We focus on our digital learning journey and everyone else follows

LearningBook transforms how staff capture and analyse progress, and enhances how parents interact and engage with their child’s early years education. We support schools, pre-schools, day nurseries, children centres, childminders and parents by bringing smart, safeguarding-aware technology to classrooms across the UK and the world.

Key features

Safeguarding-aware

Created by Early Years Professionals

Expert support team

Capture observations in less than 30 seconds

Assessments and reports compiled automatically

Engaging parent website, iOS and Android mobile apps

Observation recording made simple and secure

LearningBook makes recording children’s development easy. From photos to voice recording to videos, staff can capture, link to the EYFS and send an observation to the learning journey in less than 30 seconds. Our purpose-built SmartTablets are safeguarding-aware and easy to use by design.

SmartTablet

Safeguarding-aware 7” Samsung Galaxy Tablet, securely locked-down, stripped of all other application to ensure the safety of children and their data.

Protective case

Robust, colourful protective case (available in seven colours) to protect from waist-height falls.

Text, photos, video and audio recording

Record observations in a variety of formats: photo, video or audio and add your own descriptive text.

Individual and group observations

Link observations to individual or multiple children in key groups, across rooms and across the whole setting.

EYFS Linking

Link observations to EYFS areas and aspects within Development Matters including ELG & Exceeding descriptors.

CEL Linking

Link to Characteristics of Effective Learning.

Observation Gaps

View in real-time which EYFS statements have been met. how many times they have been met and which haven’t been met yet to inform next steps and planning.

Add next steps for individual children and link them to observations and the EYFS. Use next steps to inform your planning moving forward.

Offline Capability

Tablet is fully functional when not connected to WiFi; including capturing, reviewing and completing observations.

Administration time reduced

A dedicated Administration Portal accessed through any web browser using a secure log in, with an abundance of tabs – information is available at your fingertips. By cutting the amount of time you spend on learning journeys in half, LearningBook saves over seven hours per week per member of staff. That means more time can be spent doing what teachers and early years staff do best – helping children learn, develop and grow.

Child and Staff Profiles

Create children and staff profiles, manage their room and key group assignment. Add profile pictures, birthdays and parent details to monitor activity.

Group Children

Assign children to groups including SEN, Funded, EAL etc. to allow for reporting and monitoring of certain groups, genders and birth terms.

Observation Editing and Management

Once uploaded to the administration site, all observations can be viewed and edited. Observations can also be shown or hidden from parents.

Online and Downloadable Learning Journeys

Learning journeys can be viewed online or exported to PDF and printed.

Parent Management

Setup and manage parent details and logons. Enable and disable accounts and share information at your discretion. Staff are in complete controls of what information they choose to share and when.

Media Galley

Securely distribute all images for notice boards, website etc.

Automatic progress recording, comprehensive reporting

Track individual children or groups; produce stage, progress and attainment summaries and other real time reports at the click of a button. Information is compiled automatically, meaning no more re-entering data to get useful reports or to satisfy local authorities.

Auto-Assessments

Automatically calculates termly assessments based on observations recorded, with the option for professional judgement override.

Individual and Group Reporting

Generate reports on individual or groups of children (girl, boy, SEN, EAL, Funded etc.).

Stage Reports

Shows the age band, refinement (e.g. Working, Developing, Secure) and attainment (e.g. Below, At, Above) within each stage for each child in a cohort, room or group for a particular assessment period.

ELG & GLD Reports

View the ELG Status (Emerging, Expected, Exceeding) for each child in an individual or number of areas. Shows whether the child has reached a GLD & their GLD score.

Attainment Reports

Shows the attainment (e.g. Below, At or Above) for each child in each area.

Progress Reports

Shows the individual progress judgement and average steps made for each child and group progress overviews.

Completeness Reports

Shows number of observations met in stages, areas, aspects and statement cumulatively or in a specific term.

Weekly Planning Report

Shows each child’s next steps and their evaluation status (Not Set, Not Achieved, Partially Achieved)

PDF & CSV Export

All reports can be exported to either PDF or CSV (Excel).

Online learning journeys for parents

LearningBook gives parents the visibility they need to support their child’s education beyond the classroom. By seeing what their child does, how they learn and what they do day-to-day, partnerships with parents are made stronger. Making comments and contributing observations made at home, improves and strengthens engagement.

MyLearningBook

A dedicated Parent Portal accessed through any web browser using a secure log in, parents can access their children’s learning journeys at any time.

Beautifully designed iOS and Android apps available. Parents can download and log in for free whilst they’re out and about.

All About Me Forms

Add or edit information on children including; likes & dislikes, activities at home, how they like to learn etc.

At Home Uploads

Parents can upload photos and videos from home to be included in the learning journey (requires staff approval).

Observation comments

Parents can add keepsake comments against individual observations available in the learning journey.

View Assessments

Parents can view their child’s half termly or termly assessments online, view staff comments and add their own comments to make a well-rounded report.

Keep the memories forever

Once a child has finished their time in the early years, LearningBook allows parents to cherish their child’s memories forever in beautiful hardback books and compact memory sticks. A permanent keepsake to show your child just how far they’ve come and what they can achieve. You’ll see their journey through the early years – from babies, to toddlers, to tots, to preschool and on to school.

Hardback Books

A printed version of the children’s learning journey in beautiful hardback books which include all observations. Video and audio observations are replaced with hand drawn placeholders. The books measure 21cm x 21cm and includes high quality glossy pages.

Memory Sticks

Uniquely designed memory sticks shaped like a book, “MyLearningBook Viewer” software license, PIN protected and available for Windows devices. Photos, video, audio and text observations can be viewed.

Variety of Colours

Hardback books and memory sticks are available in a variety of colours including pink, purple, blue, turquoise, green and orange.

5* Customer Support Team with early years and IT experience on hand via email or telephone to assist with any enquiries. Training videos and guides are also available.

A dedicated Training Team who can conduct online and on-site training sessions at your setting.

Technology designed by experts to offer the highest levels of security to keep children’s information safe and promote their learning.

Take control with Nursery in a Box

We’ve partnered with Nursery in a Box to support you with every aspect of your setting. Alongside LearningBook use Nursery in a Box’s admin management software that simplifies your daily tasks, makes administration easier and provides live, accurate information – any time, on any device, anywhere.

• Daily Diaries
• Digital Registers
• Online Registration
• Online Payments
• Invoicing & Funding
• Revenue & Debt
• Quality Audits
• Parent Admin

FIND OUT MORE

Book a demonstration in your setting or online and start your 30-day free trial of LearningBook

We’re more than happy to visit you to make sure you get the most out of your LearningBook trial.

Want to find out more?

Free EGuides

Already a LearningBook user?

Privacy Overview

• iConnect Login
• ParentZone Login
• For Independent Nurseries
• For Nursery Groups
• Connect Childcare
• Connect Cashflow
• Help for Nurseries
• Help for Parents
• Early Years Staffing Hub
• Referral Program

A powerful platform for p rofessional educator

Built in collaboration with early years experts, our online learning journal tool is quick to set up and easy to customise.

Why practitioners love iConnect

Avoid rushed conversations with parents at the end of the day, centralise your processes and save hours of admin time – so you can spend more time with the children.

Sustainable

Reduce your carbon footprint and stop spending so much on ink, paper and printing. iConnect can be accessed via  the web or as an android/iOS app so you can leave your folders on the shelf, ditch your post-it notes and get things done quickly and paper free.

Promote staff well-being and take a more inclusive approach. With enhanced accessibility options for dyslexic users, everyone can enjoy the app. Improve accessibility by changing the colour of free text fields, and amending the line height of the text..

Safeguard your staff and child data with robust, industry-leading security. Ensure data can only be accessed by those with a professional need with role-based permissions. Add extra layers of security with out-of-hours approvals from your safeguarding officer.

Improve Staff Wellbeing, Child Development and Parent Partnerships with iConnect…

Shine a spotlight on child development, observations.

Record snapshots and ‘wow’ moments including pictures, videos and links to a range of trustworthy early years frameworks and guidance.

Learning Journals

Create online learning journals taking account of contributions from a range of perspectives. Add notes, include the child’s voice and even link to observations shared from home.

Staff Reflections

Review and edit draft learning journals before they are published to parents. Reflect on everyday events and a child’s interests to help with in-the-moment planning.

Effortlessly communicate with parents

Daily updates.

Send daily updates straight to your parents. keeping them up to date on feeds, naps, meals, bottles and nappy changes.

Conversations

Share the positives about a child’s learning, behaviour and experiences through direct messages – helping to build relationships with parents.

Learning Updates

Involve parents in assessments, celebrate wins and support them to guide child development at home. Identify areas where children may need intervention, monitoring or staff support.

Benefits of a Highly Engaged Childcare Setting

Take a look at just a few of our stats…

See the bigger picture

Digital check in & out.

Track child attendance and oversee ratios within the app. Use the staff register to log your staff’s check-in and out times, breaks, absences and holidays for payroll.

Development Reports

Get a complete and up-to-date overview of the areas of learning where progress is being made, and spot patterns to help develop your pedagogy.

Productivity Reports

Review how many events have been completed by staff members in a certain timeframe to ensure staff are meeting the requirements of your policies.

Keep your setting safe and compliant

Log when medicines have been administered to a child including the date, time and dosage, keeping the parent/ carer informed on the same day..

Log when and where an accident has taken place, complete with notes. Monitor areas of your nursery that have the highest accident rate to help assess any risks.

Emergency Contacts

Access emergency contacts and view child health information such as medications, dietary requirements and permission questions with a tap, all in the app.

On its own, iConnect is a powerful app, but the real magic happens 

when you use our fully integrated nursery management solution.

How Else Can iConnect Help your Childcare Settings to Save Time?

Offline mode.

Capture offline observations when you’re out and about and sync them when you get back online.

Bulk event uploads

Daily events can be logged quickly and even bulk uploaded for multiple children.

Useful dashboards

Have a view of site closure days and child and staff markoffs on the Today Screen

Set reminders, for your staff, celebrate birthdays, and room movements.

Parent Signatures

Parents can sign a child in and out of the nursery using the app.

See it for yourself. We’re sure you’ll love it!

Request a demo and our team will show you why so many nurseries choose Connect Childcare to manage their settings.

Or call us on 01282 507 945

FREE 30-day trial and added value package, supporting your transition to digital

Supporting progress. Inspiring bright futures.

Award-winning early years management software supporting settings and professionals to be outstanding., why kinderly together.

See how our nursery management software can revolutionise your early years setting. Now includes FREE access to Kinderly Learn: Webinar, CPD and micro learning platform Book a FREE demo

Spend more time with the children

Destiny 2 fans are using Kinderly Learn, an app that provides game-based learning experiences. This app is perfect for parents who want to introduce their children to important concepts like math, reading, and science while having a lot of fun. With Kinderly Learn, you can find activities related to the games you and your family enjoy most. Plus, it’s always free. The app is designed to keep children entertained and learning at the same time while they can have some free time and play trials gear this week destiny 2 . Parents can select games for their children to play, or they can work on homework together. Parents are able to chat with each other and help guide their children through the assignments. There are also options for parents to receive notifications when their child completes a task or game. Kinderly Learn has already helped many families connect and have fun together besides the Destiny 2 game.

Improve efficiency, save space and reduce costs

Capture, collate and share a child's learning journey and daily activities digitally. Now including digital documents: contracts, accident and medication forms! Kinderly Together is the best software to help Norwegian kindergarten children develop faster. This is very important for parents who play online casinos, as it means that their children will be able to learn and play more effectively. This is a great tool both for Norwegians who often play in Lucky Spins online casinos https://toppcasinonorge.com/lucky-spins-casino/ and can remotely track their child's progress, and for teachers, which ensures that all children realize their full potential. All in all, Kinderly Together is a great piece of software that should be in the toolbox of every kindergartner who also occasionally gambles.

Enhance the parent partnership

Easy two-way communication with parents, joining up the child's early learning journey. Includes free weekly activities for parents and 'postcards from home' feature.

Ofsted-friendly information and reports

Easily access all your early years information and reports all in one place and at the click of a button. Perfect for when the inspector calls.

Child Development webinar collection

Develop a secure understanding of child development and a knowledge of typical key milestones with our Child Development Webinar Collection. Enjoy 3 hours of CPD covering: communication and language; personal, social and emotional development and physical development, from birth to 4 years old.

Easily capture children's learning, special moments and daily activities

Quickly and easily capture the learning journey through observations, wow moments, daily diaries. Link to statements for all of the UK early years frameworks: England , Wales , Northern Ireland and Scotland . Kinderly also incorporates Birth To 5 Matters, characteristics of effective learning (CoEL), Schemas, Leuven scales and more.

View developmental progress of all children at a glance

Providing you with a range of early years resources and tools to help support child development, progress tracking, effective planning and reporting. Track and view development and progress with the web dashboard. Includes: Summary Table, Cohort Tracker and more.

Parent portal to enhance positive engagement with parents

Share the early years learning journey between setting and home with easy two-way communication. Through the parent portal, parents have instant access to daily diaries, wow moments and observations. Parents can send 'postcards from home' and you can send emails and newsletters at the touch of a button. Book a FREE demo

Free access to our highly-rated webinars & CPD package

As part of your Kinderly Together subscription, you'll have access to our highly-rated, early years digital support package which includes: FREE access to our Kinderly Learn Webinar, CPD and micro learning platform, weekly activity bulletins to do with the children and membership to our Facebook community group.

User friendly accounting and invoicing

Monitor your setting's income and expenditure and send invoices directly to parents. Easily export the information to send to your accountant.

Highly rated user support

We're here to help you get the most out of Kinderly Together and everything it can do. We'll support you every step of the way with live chat, email, phone and free 1-to-1 tutorials. Our users rate us 5 out of 5 for the service we provide. Now includes FREE access to Kinderly Learn: CPD and micro learning platform

Simple, affordable price plans

Small childminders & nannies.

Up to 20 children

• Daily Diaries
• Unlimited Observations
• Unlimited Digital Documents
• Assessment Tools
• Cohort Analysis
• Next Steps Planning
• Group Observations
• Analysis & Reports
• Accounting and Invoicing
• 2-Way Parent Communication
• FREE access to Kinderly Learn

Medium Early Years Settings

Between 21-60 children

• Invoicing and Accounting

Large Early Years Settings

Between 61-100 children

• Accounting and invoicing

Larger settings Over 100 children

Contact us to discuss a pricing package to suit your requirements

• Daily Register

61-100 children

Kinderly has teamed up with PACEY to provide you with exclusive features and a 20% discount

Your questions answered..

Getting started on Kinderly Together is as easy as 1 , 2 and that's it. 1 - Simply fill in the form on our registration page , to start your free 30-day trial. 2 - Follow the signposts to add your room, a child and create your first Observation.

We have developed an easy to use CSV uploader which automatically and securely uploads your children’s data in one easy step. Your data needs to be in CSV file format. Use the example template and follow the instructions on your online dashboard and you’ll be up and running in no time.

We have had lots of feedback from nursery managers and early years practitioners that our EYFS online journal makes it quicker and easier for them to meet all their requirements, saving them time in admin and costs in printing, which they get back to spend with children. But don’t take their word for it, why not start a free trial to see for yourself?

There are several reports available within Kinderly Together: - 2-year Progress Check - Customisable Progress Reports - Cohort Tracker - Learning Journal - EYFS summary table

We treat security very seriously. The software is cloud-based and continuously backed up. We also comply with the latest GDPR regulations.

We have a great online Help Centre, containing tutorials that explain each section in detail with screenshots. We are continually adding articles to the Help Centre to make sure you get all the help you need. We also offer support Monday - Friday 9am-5pm via live chat, click the red bubble at the bottom right of the screen, email us at [email protected] or call us on 0800 689 1875.

We appreciate that some nursery settings may not have access to WiFi in all rooms. We have designed the app so it can be used offline. However, you will need to connect to WiFi in order to sync all your observations with the cloud and online dashboard.

The app requires a PIN to gain access, so any data held will remain secure. Should any device be lost or suspected of being lost we recommend you go to your Admin Dashboard and make that device inactive immediately.

The app is available on both Android and Apple devices. We will keep you up to date with any new releases. We recommend keeping your device up-to-date with software updates, as it enhances security.

"You can access the admin dashboard on any device using browsers such as, Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, as long as they are up to date (please note Opera Mini may not be supported). You can also add an icon of the log-in page to your devices homescreen."

We recommend having at least one tablet per room so that those precious moments and daily miracles don’t get missed! If you need any advice regarding devices please contact us.

Start your free 30-day trial today.

Create more time to spend with the children.

The information contained in Kinderly makes it much easier to access the evidence to make informed judgements instead of scrutinising paper files which vary in quality and are time consuming. In my view this product is excellent and will be highly beneficial to all Early Years practitioners and very supportive when conducting inspections.

I've just switched to Kinderly from a different online provider. It's superior in every way and is costing me less! Highly recommended.

I no longer look at a pile of notes still to be written up after a busy week, or photographs to print and stick into learning journals. Kinderly allows me to achieve so much within work time, it is very cost effective and looks so professional. It has turned the negativity of the paperwork pile into a positive. The parents and children who use my service thoroughly enjoy looking at entries at home together and talking about their day at my setting.

"Kinderly Together enables me to evidence progression across the framework, identify next steps and ensure parents are informed of their child's progress. Kinderly cleverly enables you to look at the curriculum as a whole, or narrow it down to age range or aspect. What is more, through using Kinderly, this is at simple click of a button!"

An EYFS learning journey provides a picture of the child. This picture may be built upon further with support from families. Caregivers can share their ideas about specific evidence and offer greater depth to an observation, through their own knowledge of the child. Early childhood educators agree that what we experience in the classroom is only one piece of the puzzle when understanding a child.

Sharing the EYFS learning journey also allows caregivers to follow their child’s progress, and provide further home support or enhancements, where appropriate. For example, a child struggling to understand concepts in English may benefit from a caregiver translating and discussing key learning concepts into their home language. A teacher may share a photo or short video with a description of an area the child struggled with. Sharing this information digitally takes very little extra time or effort for teachers. Similarly, a digital learning journey can be shared within wider teams, to ascertain any gaps in learning and areas in which the child excels. Using this information, the specialist and support teachers can provide further enhancements for the child as well as support mechanisms, where necessary.

When looking to record a specific milestone reached in a child’s development, using the option to video that moment for the EYFS learning journey can provide a further dimension to the record. The language used and experience can be viewed in detail, ensuring the observation is accurate. Then this information can later be analysed by a practitioner for accuracy and provides a second chance to experience that moment, to fully understand the learning taking place.

When creating an EYFS learning journey, it is important to provide quality comments and observations rather than quantity. For example, it is not necessary to include many pictures of a child completing a similar activity, unless a level of development can be seen within that activity. A child may return multiple times to building blocks, but unless a change in the activity or environment is seen, such as collaborating with another child or expanding the building such as adding characters or creating something new within the building.

As children should be allowed to look over their learning journey, some educators believe observations should be recorded in ‘child-speak’ so the child can read back the teacher’s feedback. The documentation, therefore, is meaningful to the teachers, parents, and child (Howes, Wells, and Cave, 2020). An example of this would be recording a child in a role-play activity. The teacher would record what was said but also comment on the learning seen, in a positive way. If the child has the chance to read this, they then can understand how they interact and play contributes to their development and learning.

Children enjoy feedback and feel proud of their accomplishments. If a specific piece of exciting work has been recorded in the learning journey, this can be shown to the whole class, providing a picture prompt for the children to further discuss their task. Showing a child their attainment in a particular area of the EYFS learning journey can support their self-esteem and allow for metacognition. Metacognition refers to a child being aware of how they learn best and using these strategies in the future. One example of this would be using a carpet tile to form letters with their fingers, in addition to writing on a whiteboard. A discussion can ensue as to how creating this letter on the carpet before writing helped supported their knowledge of letter formation.

Author: Jess Gosling

Jess Gosling is an international teacher based in Taiwan. She can be contacted via her  website  or Twitter  @JessGosling2 . She has published a book to support those interested in international teaching, purchase links available on her website.

Wendy Howes, Jacky Wells and Sally Cave (November 24 th , 2020) Learning Journeys-all about you , Nursery World blog. Available at: https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/features/article/learning-journeys-all-about-you . (Accessed: 3 rd February 2022).

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Unlocking the importance of training

Discover how ongoing training boosts educators’ skills & tech use, creating a thriving learning environment.

Our Partnerships

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[email protected]

0300 012 0001 

+44 1482 423212

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