Early Years Foundation Stage

The EYFS Framework explains how and what your child will be learning to support their healthy development.

Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development.

Children should mostly develop the 3 prime areas first. These are:

Communication and language;

This involves giving the children opportunities to experience a rich language environment, to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves and to speak and listen in a range of situations.

Physical development;

This involves providing opportunities for children to be active and interactive; and to develop their coordination, control and movement. Children must also be helped to understand importance of physical activity, and how to make healthy choices in relation to food.

Personal, social and emotional development.

Involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others, to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups and to have confidence in their own abilities.

These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning.

As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas.

These are:

Literacy

This involves encouraging children to look at books, poems and other writing materials to ignite their interests, it also involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and begin to read and write.

Mathematics;

This is about providing children with opportunities to develop and improve skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems, describing shapes, spaces, and measures.

Understanding the world

This involves guiding children to make sense of the world around them, and their community by giving them opportunities to explore, observe, and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.

Expressive arts and design.

Involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas, and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role play, and design and technology.

These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. The professionals teaching and supporting your child will make sure that the activities are suited to your child’s unique needs. This is a little bit like a curriculum in primary and secondary schools, but it's suitable for very young children, and it's designed to be really flexible so that staff can follow your child's unique needs and interests. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside