Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

The Early Years Foun­da­tion Stage brings together National Stan­dards of care and edu­ca­tion from birth to five. 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:

• Set­ting the stan­dards for learn­ing devel­op­ment and care.
• Pro­vid­ing for equal­ity of opportunity.
• Cre­at­ing the frame­work for part­ner­ship working.
• Improv­ing qual­ity and consistency.
• Lay­ing a secure foun­da­tion for future learning.

The EYFS is under­pinned by four guid­ing themes:

• A Unique Child – recog­nises that every child is a com­pe­tent learner from birth who can be resilient, capa­ble, con­fi­dent and self assured.
• Pos­i­tive Rela­tion­ships – describes how chil­dren learn to be strong and inde­pen­dent from a base of lov­ing and secure rela­tion­ships with par­ents and/​or key person.
• Enabling Envi­ron­ments – explains that the envi­ron­ment plays a key role in sup­port­ing and extend­ing children’s devel­op­ment and learning.
• 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.

The EYFS cov­ers six areas of learn­ing that are key to the devel­op­ment and edu­ca­tion of young children:

• Per­sonal, Social and Emo­tional Development
• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Lan­guage and Literacy
• Prob­lem Solv­ing, Rea­son­ing and Numeracy
• Knowl­edge and Under­stand­ing of the World
• Phys­i­cal Development
• Cre­ative Development.

At Green­fields we use the EYFS as a tool to ensure the pro­vi­sion of a broad and bal­anced cur­ricu­lum for all children.