In this tutorial we’re going to look at setting a baseline with the Cherry Garden framework on Tapestry. A baseline is a snapshot of where a child is across the Cherry Garden areas over a period you choose — Tapestry works the scores out for you from the observations you make during that window, and you can assess statements yourself wherever you’d like a different judgement. Once you’re happy with it, the baseline can be locked and exported to PDF.

You’ll need the Cherry Garden framework switched on before the baseline screens appear — our Using the Cherry Garden Framework tutorial covers enabling it and recording Cherry Garden assessments in observations.

If you use Cherry Garden Bridging, it has an identical Baseline screen of its own under its tab on the Monitoring page.

Getting there

Click Planning & Monitoring in the menu on the left of your screen, then select Monitoring from the panel that opens.

The Tapestry side menu with the Planning & Monitoring panel open, showing the Monitoring option
Planning & Monitoring › Monitoring in the side menu.

On the Monitoring page, select the Cherry Garden tab, then click Individual View under Baseline in the Snapshots column.

The Monitoring page on its Cherry Garden tab, with the Baseline snapshot's Individual View button in the Snapshots column
Individual View under Baseline on the Cherry Garden tab.

The Cherry Garden Baseline page will ask you to select a child. Choose the child you’re assessing from the Child dropdown, then pick the Area of learning you’d like to look at first.

The Cherry Garden Baseline page with its Child and Area dropdowns, and the Please select a child message beneath
Select a Child and an Area to open the baseline.

The Status box

At the top of the baseline you’ll find the Status box, where you set the window the baseline covers.

By default the Start date is the date of the first Cherry Garden assessment entered for the child (or today, if there isn’t one yet) and the End date is six weeks later — you can change both.

Any Cherry Garden assessments made as part of observations between the two dates will contribute to the calculated scores.

Click Save Changes after adjusting the dates — a red reminder appears under the dates until you do.

The baseline Status box with the Locked checkbox, Start date and End date fields, and the Save Changes button
The Status box — set the window, then Save Changes.

The dates and the Locked setting are per child, not per area — whatever you set here applies to all of the areas of the child’s baseline.

A baseline also can’t span two academic years, so Tapestry will cap an end date that would cross into the next year.

Reading the grid

Below the Status box, the area’s statements are laid out in a grid: each column is a branch, and the statements are colour-coded by aspect using the key at the top. The grid is wider than the screen, so scroll horizontally to see the later branches.

As observations are made within the baseline window, coloured bars appear above the statements they assess, showing the refinement the child has reached.Where more than one observation covers the same statement, the bar shows the average of their refinements and is labelled (average).

A pencil icon on a bar means that statement has been assessed manually — we’ll come to that shortly.

The baseline grid for Communication, Language and Literacy, with the aspect colour key at the top, branch columns, a Developing (average) bar on one statement and a pencil icon on a manually assessed statement
The baseline grid — a calculated (average) bar, and a pencil marking a manual assessment.

Checking the evidence

To see where a calculated score has come from, click its bar. A Snapshot Details window opens listing the observations that contributed — here the two observations’ refinements have been averaged to give the score on the grid. Clicking an observation’s title takes you to the observation itself.

The Snapshot Details window for a statement, listing two contributing observations with the area, aspect, branch, statement and refinement recorded by each
Snapshot Details — the observations behind a calculated score.

Assessing a statement yourself

You don’t have to rely on the calculated scores. To assess a statement directly, click the blue tick at the foot of its column section and choose a refinement from the list that appears.

The refinement list open on a baseline statement after clicking its blue tick, showing the Emerging, Developing and Secure options
Click the blue tick and choose a refinement.

The statement takes your chosen refinement and a pencil icon appears to show it’s now a manual assessment — observations made later won’t change it. Any criteria the statement carries are all ticked automatically, so untick the ones that don’t apply.

If you change your mind, the blue tick becomes a cross — click it to hand the statement back to Tapestry’s calculated score. Remember to click Save Changes when you’re done.

A manually assessed baseline statement showing the Secure refinement with a pencil icon, its criteria automatically ticked, and the cross control for reverting to the calculated score
A manual assessment — pencil, auto-ticked criteria, and the cross to revert.

Assessing a whole branch

To assess a whole branch in one go, click the branch heading at the top of its column and pick a refinement. Every statement in that branch, across all of the area’s aspects, takes that refinement as a manual assessment — each marked with the pencil icon. Click Save Changes to keep them.

The refinement list open from the Branch 1 column heading on the baseline grid, showing Emerging, Developing and Secure
Click a branch heading to assess every statement in the branch.

Locking the baseline

When you’re happy with the scores, tick Locked in the Status box and click Save Changes. The baseline freezes: the calculated scores are written down and shown with padlocks, the dates grey out, and nothing can be edited until the baseline is unlocked again.

A locked baseline, with the Snapshot locked date and time shown in the Status box, greyed-out dates, and padlock icons on the calculated scores in the grid
A locked baseline — padlocks on the scores, and the lock date in the Status box.

Once a baseline is locked, only managers can unlock it or make changes — other staff will see the padlocked scores but no editing controls.

Unlocking

To unlock, untick Locked. Tapestry asks what to do with the assessments that are currently locked:

  • Keep assessments as overrides — every score keeps its locked value and becomes a manual assessment, pencil icons and all.
  • Use Tapestry’s latest estimates — your manual assessments stay as they are, and the rest are recalculated from the observations, picking up anything recorded since the lock.

Choose an option and click Save Changes.

The Status box while unlocking, asking what to do with the locked assessments, with the Keep assessments as overrides and Use Tapestry's latest estimates options
Unlocking — choose what happens to the locked scores.

Exporting to PDF

You can export the baseline at any point — locked or not, and as many times as you like. Click the PDF button that sits just above the grid on the right hand side, next to the colour key (you can see it in the grid screenshot earlier).

Each export covers the area you’re viewing, so repeat it per area if you’d like the full picture. Adjust the title and font if you wish, then click Download PDF.

The text below is simply to show an example of what each font looks like. 

The Export Baseline window with a pre-filled title, a choice of fonts, and the Download PDF button
Export Baseline — name the PDF, pick a font, and download.

And that’s it! You now know how to open a child’s Cherry Garden baseline, set its window, read the calculated scores and the evidence behind them, make your own assessments statement by statement or branch by branch, lock everything down, and export it all to PDF.

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