****Andrea's Childcare****

 

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a comprehensive framework which sets the standards for learning, development and care of children from birth to 5. It builds on and will replace the existing statutory Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage, the non-statutory Birth to Three Matters framework, and the regulatory frameworks in the National Standards for Under 8s Day Care and Childminding. All registered early years providers and schools will be required to use the EYFS from September 2008.

 

The EYFS is a stage of children’s development from birth to the end of their first (Reception) year in school. The EYFS Framework describes how early years practitioners should work with children and their families to support their development and learning. It describes how your child should be kept safe and cared for and how all concerned can make sure that your child achieves the most that they can in their earliest years of life.

 

The purpose and aims of the EYFS is to ensure that every child is provided with the best possible start in life, with support to fulfil their potential. A child’s experience in their early years has a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right, and it provides the foundation for children to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up.

 

When parents choose to use early years services they want to know that those caring for their children are keeping them safe and helping them to thrive. The EYFS is the framework that provides that assurance.

 

The overarching aim of the EYFS is to help young children achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes of staying safe, being healthy, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution, and achieving economic well-being by:

 

o        setting the standards for the learning, development and care young children should experience when they are attending a setting outside their family home, ensuring that every child makes progress and that no child gets left behind;

o        providing for equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice and ensuring that every child is included and not disadvantaged because of ethnicity, culture or religion, home language, family background, learning difficulties or disabilities, gender or ability;

o        creating the framework for partnership working between parents and professionals, and between all the settings that the child attends;

o        improving quality and consistency in the early years sector through a universal set of standards which apply to all settings, ending the distinction between care and learning in the existing frameworks, and providing the basis for the inspection and regulation regime;

o        laying a secure foundation for future learning through learning and development that is planned around the individual needs and interests of the child, and informed by the use of ongoing observational assessment.

 

The EYFS principles which guide the work of all practitioners are grouped into four distinct but complementary themes:

 

o        A Unique Child

o        Positive Relationships

o        Enabling Environments

o        Learning and Development

 

Effective practice in the EYFS is built on these four guiding themes. They provide a context for the requirements and describe how practitioners should support the development, learning and care of young children. The themes are each broken down into four commitments describing how the principles can be put into practice.

 

o        A Unique Child recognises that every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. The commitments are focused around development; inclusion; safety; and health and well-being.

o        Positive Relationships describes how children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person. The commitments are focused around respect; partnership with parents; supporting learning; and the role of the key person.

o        Enabling Environments explains that the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning. The commitments are focused around observation, assessment and planning; support for every child; the learning environment; and the wider context – transitions, continuity, and multi-agency working.

o        Learning and Development recognises that children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates, and that all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected.

 

This approach ensures that the EYFS meets the overarching aim of improving outcomes and reflects that it is every child’s right to grow up safe; healthy; enjoying and achieving; making a positive contribution; and with economic well-being.