Top Tips for Welcoming New Educators

Top Tips for Welcoming New Educators

We all know what it’s like to learn something new, a new sport, a new recipe – how about new digital documentation software? 

When you have a guide, it can be that much easier! We’ve crafted some handy resources to get your new educators onboard. We also know that each service uses Storypark in unique and dynamic ways. 

When a new educator joins your service, how do you familiarise them with the way you use Storypark and get them up to speed?

Here are some things we recommend, have a read and prepare to give your new team member a smooth welcome to Storypark. 

Account basics

• Does the educator already have a Storypark account? If they do, (whether it’s as a parent or an educator), you can invite them using their existing email address. If they’ve never logged into Storypark before, sending them an invite will prompt them to create an account. If you like educators to have their role shown on Storypark, let them know they can add it to their name, for example, ‘David Teacher’ or ‘Miss Jamila.’
• Add them to rooms. Once they’ve accepted your invite, add their profile to any rooms they are working in. This gives them the ability to post in the room’s community space.
• Notification settings.  If you are using Storypark well, a lot is going on! Let your new educator know how they can manage their notifications from the settings ‘cog’.

• Introduce the educator portfolio. For assessment, appraisal and reflection purposes, each educator’s portfolio can be a great place to store copies of their work. They can also publish story ideas here and ask others for feedback. Let your new educator know how they can make the most of this space.
• Your ICT Policy and Etiquette. Setting expectations is always easier to do in the beginning. Share your ICT Policies and the way you’d like them to comment and interact on Storypark. Here’s our commitment to cyber safety and some helpful resources.

Introduce documentation and planning

• Introduce how your service typically does stories and child notes. If your service uses story types to guide documentation this is a great time to introduce each one and when they should be used.  How do you like to include examples of a child’s progress? Introduce how to add images, videos and audio of experiences, adding in child’s strengths, interests and needs and link to your curriculum.
• Introduce planning templates. It’s likely that you’ve got some unique planning templates at your service that you use a lot. Introduce your new educator(s) to these and how they work. Feel free to also set expectations around when and/or who creates new templates for your service.
• Add them to key plans. If you’ve ticked ‘All educators’ on a plan’s share settings, new educators will automatically be able to see these, no need to do anything. If you haven’t, make sure you add them to any key plans that will help get on board. 

Tell everyone

• Introduce them to your community. Create a short community post at centre level or in a room, to introduce the new educator to your families.
• About page. Add teacher biographies on your About page. Don’t forget to add your newest team member!

Let us help you!

• Encourage new educators to check out one of our free professional development online workshops. They can register for a live one or watch a recorded version at any time. An Introduction to Storypark is a great one to get started with.
• If you prefer reading, the Teacher’s Implementation Plan has step by step instructions to getting any new team members started with Storypark. You also have an extensive library of help articles, including quality practice guides available for reference at any time.
• Some days you might be away, or you’ll be on the floor, let your new educator know that our team is here to help too. We are available by email or chat and love to hear your questions.

To help, we’ve also created a PDF checklist you can download, click the image here:

What do you do to help new educators get started with Storypark?