What is the EYFS ?????
By Elizabeth Cummings
In education, we often use abbreviations that you just think “Huh?”, the EYFS stands for the Early Years Foundation Stage, this is a curriculum (Somewhat an Early Years Bible if you like) that all Early Years settings, nurseries and schools MUST follow until the end of year 1.
Believe it or not nurseries, playgroups, childminders and schools are all required to follow the same curriculum set by the Department of Education to the end of foundation stage which to you and me is Year 1. This means that your child will be learning the same information even if they do not attend the tradition school meaning that children are able to stay in nursery for a longer period of time, children are lawfully required to attend school until the term after their 5th birthday.
The EYFS is split up into 7 different areas. Area 1 is Personal, social and emotional development, this area looks at making friends, sharing, confidence, playing with others and behaviour. Area 2 is Physical Development, this area basically says what it does on the tin, this is about the physical movements, exercise, climbing, walking but it also looks at drinking, eating independently, washing hands, getting dressed and using the toilet.
Area 3 is Communication and Language, not only do we work on speech but how much children actually understand, do they follow instructions with ease? Can they select an object by name when asked? We look at listening and attention skills and whether they recognise familiar sounds, children will learn new words and begin to put them together in sentences independently.
Area 4 is Literacy, this involves reading and writing but don’t worry we will not be expecting the children to write essays or read novels haha, in Early Years any mark making activity is classed as writing as it is the basis of things yet to come. Reading includes singing songs, repeating phrases, and recognising names and signs.
Area 5 is Mathematics, this includes categorising objects, jigsaw puzzles and posting shapes. It is simple problem solving and also includes time and measuring, understanding concepts and being able to use them in everyday language.
Area 6 is Understanding the World, children explore the natural environment, learn about cultures, believes and religions, they are encouraged to be open minded and show respect for others and all children are taught to feel comfortable with themselves and their own culture as well respect those of others. Children are encouraged to look after each other and always treat each other with kindness. Children learn to care for living things in the environment and learn how things grow. Technology is involved in this area however it is not all about computers, technology can be a range of things, even your child’s pop up toy or wind up car in technology as it has parts that have to work together in order to move.
Area 7 is Expressive Arts and Design, this area encourages children to express their feelings with confidence, they learn to move to music and to make their own, they learn to change the way things sound and explore colour. This area includes construction and building different objects, it explores children imaginations and encourages them to think outside of the box.
As you can see there are a lot of different things for our children to learn and we do this is a fun environment that allows children to explore their own interests, teachers encourage children to push themselves and challenge them to help them to develop. You must remember that children all develop and progress at different stages and some children may take longer than others, little Mary may love circle time however jane may prefer to be outside, Johnny may love art and ,mark making but mark prefers mathematics, these children are all different and will learn different things at different times but together they will help each other to learn new things in new ways, they are encouraged to think for themselves and be individuals.
As parents and teachers, we work together to enhance learning platforms at the setting and at home, by working together we are able to provide better outcomes for our children to enable them to achieve their dreams.
At Kids Around the Clock we aim for our children to ENJOY their time at nursery, to BELIEVE in themselves and to ACHIEVE their goals.