Looking for a Tapestry alternative?
Tapestry is loved for EYFS observations and learning journals. If you want that plus invoicing, staff rotas, live ratios and the rest of running your setting in one place, Taylormade Care brings it together.
Tapestry is an excellent learning-journal and observation tool, and rightly popular. Since the 2021 EYFS reforms the sector, Tapestry included, agrees that observations should be light-touch: a photo and a line or two, not a folder. We agree. But a journal-only tool still leaves invoicing, registers, rotas and compliance somewhere else, and it rarely tells you what the observations add up to across a room. Taylormade Care covers the whole day in one system, and turns a few light observations into something a manager can act on.
Why settings choose Taylormade Care
Light-touch observations, done in seconds
A photo and two sentences, tagged to the EYFS areas, with an optional AI polish for the wording. Nothing in the framework asks for more, and nothing in the app makes you write more.
Observations that add up across the room
Tick the Development Matters statements a moment shows and the progress view pulls the evidence together by room, key person or age band, showing attainment by area and where nothing has been assessed yet. The same note that went to a parent helps you spot a child who needs support early.
The learning journal and the progress check
Track milestones, draft the 2-year progress check from what you have already noticed, and export a learning journal as a PDF.
Plus the business side
Invoices, funded hours, contracts and parent updates by secure link — the money and admin an observation tool leaves you to handle elsewhere.
Staff rota and live EYFS ratios
Build the rota, assign staff to rooms and check EYFS ratios and qualification mix live — something dedicated observation tools don't do.
Compliance in one place
Accident, incident and medication logs, policies, risk assessments and fire drills — all date-stamped and inspection-ready.
One flat price
£9.50 or £30 a month for the whole setting, with no per-child fees.
If all you need is observations and a learning journal, Tapestry does that one job beautifully, and it lets parents add their own observations from home, which Taylormade Care does not do. Taylormade Care is for settings that want light-touch observations, a view across the whole room, and everything else in one place.
Common questions
Does Taylormade Care do EYFS observations like Tapestry?
Yes — photo observations tagged to the EYFS areas, milestone tracking, the 2-year progress check and a PDF learning journal.
Observations are not required any more, so why pay for software to record them?
Because a handful of observations per child still does four jobs: it tells you who the child is, it keeps that knowledge when a key person is off or a child moves rooms, it is the best conversation you will have with a parent, and it is the raw material for the progress check and for spotting a child who needs support. The software's job is to make each one take thirty seconds and to show you what they add up to across the room. Our guide to whether observations are still important in the early years goes into this.
What does it add beyond observations?
Invoicing and funding, contracts, registers, a staff rota with live EYFS ratios, the Single Central Record, kitchen and food-safety records, and parent updates by secure link — all in one login.
Can children's records come across?
Yes — get in touch and we'll help you set up your children and start fresh records quickly. Your data always stays yours.