Early Steps Preschool

WHAT IS THE EYFS?

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) was originally launched in 2008. It is the statutory framework for all early years providers in England but it is held in high regard worldwide. The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage sets the standards that all early years providers must meet. Early years providers in England, who provide care and learning for children from birth to the end of reception class, must comply with the EYFS Statutory Framework. Ofsted regulate and inspect all early years providers against the safeguarding and welfare requirements, and areas of learning, to determine how well children are kept safe and healthy. From time to time the EYFS is updated and refreshed, and this has previously happened in 2012,2014 and 2017.

WHAT IS CHANGING?

From September 2021 a revised EYFS will come into force. The key messages about the reforms include:

Reducing practitioner workload, and needless paperwork, to allow for quality time and interaction with the children.

Improving the outcomes of all children and addressing / reducing the disadvantage gaps.

The importance of workforce knowledge and professional development to inform assessments. Reflect upon the need to assess development against ‘checklist’, saving formal steps of assessment for when they are necessary.

Making early learning goals clearer and more aligned to the Y1 curriculum.

WHAT DO THE CHANGES MEAN TO ME AS A PARENT / CARER?

The safety of your child and the quality of the education provided will not change. You will not see any changes in terms of the activities and opportunities that we offer to your child. However, you may see that we are not recording as many observations, but we will provide you with a photographic record each week – which will be available to view on Tapestry. Please be assured that we will be continually supporting your child’s development and responding to their interests. We will be using our professional judgement to assess your child’s development and we will discuss with you what areas of development we will be concentrating on. We will always be available to discuss any concerns that you may have. The progress check at age 2 is still a mandatory assessment point and we will share your child’s development and progress with you.

We will continue to provide updates on Facebook, and we will add any files regarding child development or activities that we think may be of interest.

HOW WILL WE ‘TEACH’ YOUR CHILD

We understand that all children have different interests, different ways of learning and different rates of learning. We will use the information that we have on your child to ‘teach’ them the way they wish to learn. There is no one prescribed way of doing things – some children are visual learners – they like to see things; some children are auditory learners – they like to hear things; and others are hands on learners – they like to do things. But all our learning will be based on their interests and through play.

OUR CURRICULUM

There are seven areas of learning and development within the EYFS, and these have not changed. These are:

 Communication and language

Physical development

Personal Social and Emotional development

 Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding the world

Expressive Arts and Design

The PRIME areas of learning form the essential foundations for healthy development and future learning. For children under 3 we concentrate on these areas to give them the best possible start. Once the children have a solid start within the prime areas we will continue to build on these skills and explore more learning opportunities within the SPECIFIC areas.

These seven areas form the basis for the curriculum, and we give careful thought to the environment (both indoors and outdoors) to provide resources, activities and learning opportunities to meet each child’s unique requirements. However, the planning we do for activities is very flexible and responsive to follow the children’s interests and the totally unplanned learning opportunities that may arise throughout the day – such as seeing a spider’s web, snow suddenly falling or seeing wildlife in the outside area.

We will provide opportunities for your child that may be new to them – including growing vegetables, simple cooking, handling minibeasts and reptiles to name but a few.

We will always value parent’s input into the activities and would welcome any parent who has a particular skill, to come and share it with all the children.

Please talk to a member of staff if you have any further questions regarding the Early Years Foundation Stage.