A New School Year, a New Early Years Framework

As children start heading into their nurseries as the new school year begins, practitioners will now be gearing up to implement the revised Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework. 

As the national standard guidance for professionals working with children aged 0-5, the revised framework will  simplify and streamline the demands made on those providing early years education whilst highlighting the vital role that parents play in their children’s early development.

As part of this, there will be a reduction on the burdens and paperwork which early years settings have found time consuming which will allow practitioners to focus on interacting with children, quality provision and child development more effectively.

The reformed framework takes forward the Government’s changes to the 2008 framework as recommended by Dame Clare Tickell’s independent review in 2011. Building on the good practice of the 2008 framework, the revised framework will see:

• reduced paperwork and bureaucracy on practitioners;
• strengthened partnerships between parents and all professionals for which 4Children have published a Parenting Guide in order to offer clear, informative and accessible guidance to parents;
• a focus on the three prime areas of learning most essential for children’s readiness for future learning and healthy development (personal, social emotional development, communication and language, physical development);
• detail around the four specific areas of learning which build on the prime areas of  Literacy – including reading and writing - Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design;
• the introduction of  a progress check at age two to provide for early intervention as necessary; and
• a simplified assessment at age five, further details of which are due this autumn.

Despite the changes that have been made, many of the existing EYFS resources are as helpful now as to when they were first published. As a result, The Foundation Years website (http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/) is now home for a number of these “historic” resources produced over the last 4 years which many will find a useful reference to support their current practice as well as to inform the implementation of the new framework.

Commenting upon the revised EYFS framework and its current implementation, Anne Longfield OBE, Chief Executive of 4Children said:

From this week, the implementation of the revised EYFS framework will help to free up the burdens of excessive paperwork and bureaucracy associated with the early years workforce. This will help to support the early years sector in driving its own improvement whilst giving children more of the time and attention that they deserve.

As strategic partners of the Department for Education on their Early Years work we have seen how rigorous the consultation with practitioners has been in devising these revisions. We firmly believe that the reviews to the framework will firmly focus on the most important aspects of Early Years provision such as interactions with children.

The quality of early year’s provision can have a real impact on a child’s long term school experience as well as their broader life chances. By placing the deserved emphasis upon professionals capacity and parents involvement, the Early Years Foundation Stage can get children off to the best possible start. With parents engaging with what the new framework will mean for their child(ren) and professionals using new resources to support their existing work we can expect the school year to get off to a flying start for children attending their first nurseries and primary schools.”

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