The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5. This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. From when your child is born up until the age of 5, their early years experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.

Little Rainbow Nursery offers a range of activities that are both adult and child led. Through these we aim to encourage children to learn and develop at their own pace. There is guidance for the early years practitioners supporting your child on planning learning activities, and observing and assessing what and how your child is learning and developing. Using these enables each key person to tailor the curriculum to your child’s needs and interests.

The EYFS is divided into 7 areas of learning and development which guide professionals’ engagement with your child’s play and activities as they learn new skills and knowledge. Regular assessments will tell you about your child’s progress through the EYFS. These are logged in each child’s development folder.

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

Personal, social and emotional development;
This concentrates on the development of your child’s confidence, attitudes and independence. This will teach your child about acceptable behaviour, self-control and a sense of belonging and of feeling good about themselves.

Communication and language; and
Children are encouraged to communicate through talking, listening and thinking using their vocabulary. Through reading, storytelling, singing, etc. the children can learn about the importance of communication and the ability to link to sounds and letters. We also use visual timetables and British Sign Language to aid children’s understanding.

Physical development.
This involves the improving of skills of co-ordination, manipulation and movement. They will develop gross and fine motor skills, the ability to use a range of tools and equipment, awareness of space, ability to use the body creatively and imaginatively together with basic hygiene, self help skills and how to keep the body healthy and fit.

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;
•  Mathematics;
•  Understanding the world; and
•  Expressive arts and design.

These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. The early years practitioners working with 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.

We encourage parents to actively support their child’s learning at nursery. All the fun activities that you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development, and have a really long lasting effect on your child’s learning as they progress through school. We appreciate parental feedback on the activities we do with the children and like to hear about their interests and development at home.

If you would like further information, you can find the Early Years Foundation Stage which includes the early learning goals at:

http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf

The foundation years website also includes a range of resources and contacts that may be useful to you.