1. Early Years Foundation Stage
By Sarah Coombs

2. Early Years Foundation Stage is defined in Section 39 of the British
Government’s Childcare Act 2006
This is effective from September 2008
Six areas of Learning and Development
requirements
• Personal, social and emotional development
• Communication, language and literacy
• Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy
• Knowledge and understanding of the world
• Physical development
• Creative development
Nine areas of Welfare requirements
• Welfare of the child concerned
• Arrangements for safeguarding the children
concerned
• Suitability of persons to care for or in regular
contact with the children
• Qualifications and training
• Suitability of the premises and equipment
• The manner in which the EYFS is organised
• Procedures for dealing with complaints
• Keeping of records
• Provision of information

3. Simplified framework March 2012 -
implemented in September 2012
• It focuses on supporting children
• Reduced the number of goals from 69 to 17
• Concentrate on:
– 3 prime areas
• Communication and language
• Physical
• Personal, social and emotional
– 4 specific areas
• Literacy
• Maths
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design
– 3 Learning characteristics
• Playing and exploring
• Active learning
• Creative and thinking critically
• Introduced a progress check at age 2
– this can assist in additional support before child has started school
• Better understanding between staff and parents due to clearer language

4. EYFS Profile
Carried out in the final term in which the child reaches age 5
• An assessment of the child's
progress to inform the parents
of their development and
characteristics of their learning
• Support the changeover from
EYFS into Key Stage 1
• To help Key Stage 1 teachers
create a suitable curriculum to
support the continuing learning
of the child

5. What does it mean for parents?
• The Framework describes how
your child will be learning
• Staff will ensure the activities
are suitable to your child’s
unique needs
• Activities done at home are
important for development
• Communicate with “key worker”
to make them aware of what
your child is capable of at home

6. Practitioner duties
• Consider the individual needs, interests and each stage of
development
• Plan an enjoyable and challenging experience for each child
• Any concerns about development discussed with the parents
• Link families to any extra support or help for educational needs
and/or disabilities
• Consider children of different ethnic backgrounds
– Link role play, cooking and visits to their cultural experiences
• Support children who don’t use English as their 1st
language
– Interact with home language whilst pushing their English
• Relationship with parent is crucial to gain knowledge of the child
– Regular parents evenings

7. Admin duties
• Ensure policies are up to date to reflect the framework
• Ensure displays are kept tidy and refreshed
– Enhances learning and shows parents and children what
activities they are involved in
• Assist in putting together the child’s learning journey
• Minute taking of staff meetings to ensure everyone is
aware of the mutual goals

8. Ideas
• Communication and language
– Nursery rhymes and songs
– Interactive stories
– Signing activities
• Physical
– Singing and dancing
– Cooking
• Personal, social and emotional
– Send birthday cards
• Maths
– Counting games
• Understanding the world
– Grow plants / cress
– Role play
– Cultural holidays eg, Hanukkah
• Expressive Arts
– Messy play