End of Year Tips

End of Year Teacher Tips
Updated:  November 2020

Wow, it’s getting to the end of the year already, congratulations on all of your hard work! 

We really hope you and your families are enjoying using Storypark at your service. To continue to make things as easy as possible for you throughout the holiday season, we’ve put together some handy tips and information.

Children leaving the centre?

To archive a child who is no longer enrolled at your service, just go to the main Children page, find their profile tile and click the drop-down arrow at the top right. From there you will see an option to Archive Child. When you do this, they will immediately be taken off the main Children page. Instead, their name will appear on the Archived tab of the Children page. Their tile will remain there indefinitely unless an admin parent deletes the child’s profile entirely from Storypark. If this happens, the centre admin will be sent an email to inform them. You will then have 7 days to export a copy of the child’s portfolio.

How do we keep the records of archived children?

You can export a child’s portfolio anytime, either when they are still active at your centre or after they have been archived. This allows you to keep a file of all their Stories and Child Notes.

Once a child is archived, they are removed from your service, so you can no longer access their stories or profile within Storypark. Exporting their files means you can still access this information externally. This means you can now use that space on your centre’s billing plan, for a new child.

What about staff changes?

If you have staff who are leaving, they can be removed from your services Storypark account easily. Simply go to the main Teachers page, clicking the drop-down arrow on their profile tile and selecting Remove.

Pro tip: If any of your staff are leaving, they should share their plans with at least one admin at the centre to ensure they can still be accessed, edited and shared after the author is no longer at the centre. They should also publish any draft Stories before being removed.

As for new staff, just send an invite to their email address to welcome them on board. It is important to set up new educators with their own individual email address. This allows them to have their own account and portfolio. Giving new staff access to a previous staff member’s account would mean the previous staff member would lose access to their own portfolio. This is also not in line with best practice due to privacy.

Will we lose stories or content?

Stories and Child Notes are part of a child’s profile so you will no longer have access to these after removing a child, other than through their exported portfolio.

Plans stay at the centre. However, if any ‘archived’ children are tagged or their child stories/notes linked in, the names will disappear and links will become greyed out. 

If an educator wishes to keep any of the stories they have written as an example of their work, they can simply duplicate the story and change who is selected in the story from a child’s name to their own teacher portfolio. The duplicated story then stays in their account, under My Portfolio, even if the child is removed or the educator leaves the centre.

How do we change rooms for children and educators?

You can change a room for any child or educator, just click edit next to the room name and tick who you want to be included in that room. Click here for more about Changing Rooms.

What do family or guardians need to do?

As long as a family member has accepted your invitation to their child’s profile, they will have free access to it for as long as they want. They can continue to add their own content and invite others to the child’s profile, even after that child’s profile has been archived. They can also export a copy of their child’s profile if they’d like a digital copy of all their child’s Stories and Child Notes.

Useful ideas for end of year Community Posts

Depending on how your centre operates over the holiday season, here are some ideas of community posts you could share with your families:

– Encourage families to share moments and photos of their holidays or celebrations

– Share the dates and times the centre will open 

– Ask parents to let you know when their child will be returning in the new year

– Share ideas and YouTube videos of activities they can do with their child over the break

– Introduce new staff to your learning community and let families know about any staffing changes

– Going to the beach or bush during the holidays? Suggest families and children collect natural resources for the centre

– Farewell children going off to school

Taking time off for a holiday?

If you are having some much deserved time off, you may want to turn off your Storypark notifications during your break. You can select which posts you do or don’t want to receive notifications for in your Notification Settings. Just remember to turn them back on when you return. 

Do you have any end of year tips that work well in your centre? Feel free to share them in the comments below!