In this tutorial we’re going to explore the Cherry Garden Orchard — a child-friendly picture of your child’s progress against the Cherry Garden Branch Maps framework. Your child has their own orchard: an illustrated landscape where their learning grows as flowers and trees, and every petal and leaf is backed by the real observations behind it.
You’ll only see the Orchard if your child’s setting assesses against the Cherry Garden framework on Tapestry and has chosen to make it visible to relatives. If you can’t find it, please ask your child’s setting.
If you’d like to get to know the Branch Maps themselves, you can view and download them from the bottom of our Cherry Garden information page.
The Orchard is a browser feature, so you’ll need to be logged in to Tapestry at tapestryjournal.com rather than using the app.
Getting there
Once you’re logged in, click Children’s Profiles in the menu on the left. (If you’re linked to just one child, the menu shows their name instead – for example, Abby’s Profile – and clicking it takes you straight to their profile.)
If you have more than one child, a list of the children you’re linked to slides out — click the child’s name whose Orchard you would like to explore.
Your child’s profile page opens. In the Quick Links panel on the right, click Cherry Garden Orchard.
The orchard opens with a quick guide to getting around — have a read, then click Let’s explore! to head in.
Exploring the orchard
The orchard is a rolling landscape with four signposts, one for each area of learning your child is assessed in: Personal, Social and Emotional Development; Communication, Language and Literacy; Mathematics; and Physical Development.
Click a signpost to focus on that area.
What grows in each area depends on where your child is working. Within the earlier branches of the framework (Branches 1–4) each strand of the area is a potted flower; once your child moves into the later branches (5–10) the area has grown a cherry tree, with a main branch for each strand.
Click a branch to take a closer look at that strand.
Zoomed in on a strand, every leaf on a tree – or every petal on a flower – is a statement from the framework that your child has been assessed against. Petals grow longer as your child becomes more secure in a statement, and deepen in colour as more evidence is gathered, so you can see the flower fill out over time.
Looking at the evidence
Click any petal or leaf and the evidence behind it opens.
This includes the observations that assessed that statement, with their photos and notes and a View in Tapestry link through to each one — or a short note if the assessment was made as part of your child’s baseline.
Simply click Close when you’re done.
The BACK button in the bottom corner steps you out one level at a time — strand to tree, tree to orchard — and the ? button replays the welcome guide.
And do remember the camera button: at any point it saves a photo of whatever you’re looking at, so you can keep a snapshot of your child’s orchard to look back on as it grows.
And that’s it! You’ve opened your child’s orchard from their profile, explored the areas, trees and flowers, and seen the observations behind the petals and leaves — a lovely way to follow your child’s Cherry Garden journey.