The Early Years Foundation Stage

Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.  In your child's reception year, we aim to prepare the children for the rest of their school career through relevant and play based activities. Children will have a range of experiences and opportunities to gain skills and develop through both adult-guided and child-initiated activities.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS) sets out the learning and development stages for children as they grow from birth to five years.

Children develop more rapidly during the first five years of their lives than at any other time. For those working in the early years (whether as a childminder or in a nursery, pre-school, or reception class in school), the Early Years Foundation Stage framework outlines what practitioners need to do to support your child. 

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) has its own stand-alone curriculum for Pre-School and Reception children in primary settings.  From September 2021 the EYFS curriculum is changing for all settings in England. 

The EYFS curriculum is split into Prime and Specific areas.  The prime areas are important because they lay the foundations for children’s success in all other areas of learning and of life.  The specific areas provide the range of experiences and opportunities for children to broaden their knowledge and skills:

The Prime Areas of learning are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development;
• Communication and Language;
• Physical Development.

The Specific Areas of learning are:

• Literacy;
• Mathematics;
• Understanding the World;
• Expressive Arts and Design.

At the end of the Reception year, pupils are benchmarked against the Early Learning Goals for each area. 

From September 2021 attainment will be described as either: emerging (working below the expected level) or expected (working at the expected level) and these are reported to parents in the end-of-year written report.  This will be a change from previous years as, under the new framework, exceeding (working above the expected level) will be removed.

You can read more about the 'Early Years Foundation Stage' by reading the new framework for September 2021 in the link below.