The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a statutory requirement, and is followed at all Tots Teachers Preschools and will be continued when your child joins a Reception Class at your chosen primary school. This sets out:

  

• 7 areas of learning and development which shape the provision in our Early Years settings

• Assessments that will tell us about your child’s developmental progress through the Early Years

• The EYFS profile - Expected levels that your child should reach at the end of the reception year; these expectations are called the Early Learning Goals (ELGs).

• The characteristics of effective learning are: playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’; active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements; and creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

• The legal welfare requirements that everyone registered to look after children must follow to keep your child safe and promote their welfare

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How children learn in the Early Years

The EYFS Framework explains how and what your child will be learning to support their development. The children will learn new skills, acquire knowledge and demonstrate their understanding across 7 areas of learning. The first three areas are the ‘prime areas’ because they lay the foundations for children’s success in all areas of learning and of life.

 

These are:

• Communication and language

• Physical development

• Personal, social and emotional development.

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As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas:

• Literacy

• Mathematics

• Understanding the world and

• Expressive arts and design

 

Our teachers and practitioners will consider the individual needs, interests, and the stages of development of each child and use this information to plan appropriate, challenging and enjoyable learning opportunities for them in all of the areas of their learning and development.

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We use the Every Child Matters document to support this. 

 

How can I support my child’s learning journey?

There are many simple ways to support your child, one of which is to talk to them at every opportunity. Children need to hear the spoken word in order to learn our complex language. 

 

Other ways to support your child are:

 

Talk about maths when you’re shopping - quantity, size, money, direction and shapes are all waiting to be explored in a supermarket! 

 

Read stories together - sharing a story is an excellent way to build your child’s imagination and language, plus it’s a great excuse to snuggle up with a book! 

 

Cook with your child - this will help develop practical skills such as cutting and pouring as well as teach your child valuable life skills such as how to follow instructions and how to cook! A cooking activity can be linked to maths and English development as well as developing the child’s fine motor skills.

 

Help your child to learn how to dress and undress themselves. This does take time and patience, but the work you put into this will soon pay off. 

 

Take advantage of the wide range of weather we enjoy in England - teach your child the names of our weathers: rain, mist, fog, snow, sunshine … just talking about the weather will increase your child’s vocabulary. It’s a great way to learn about appropriately dressing for different weathers, too: wrapping up to keep warm, covering up to prevent sunburn, waterproofs and wellies for puddle-jumping! Lots of science can also come from exploring weather: shadows, rainbows and ice are all of great interest to children so they’re great natural learning opportunities.

 

Explore outside - time in the garden, at the park, or simply being out for a walk exposes children to life outside! Traffic can be used to learn about road safety, numbers, speed, shape, colours and even pollution. Trees can be a great way to learn about size, leaf shapes, colour, naming parts of the tree such as the trunk, branches, twigs, leaves - even roots! Planting in the garden is an excellent way for children to learn about the life cycle of plants. Simply splashing in puddles is lots of fun, too! Digging in soil or squelching in mud seems to captivate the interest of most children. 

 

Sing nursery rhymes - this is an excellent way to build on children’s language skills. It’s also fun to change the words to make the rhymes even sillier! Baa Baa Black Sheep could be Baa Baa Pink Sheep, we can sing quietly, sing as loud as you can, sing very slowly, or super speedily - the possibilities are endless! Maybe you can even make up your own silly songs. 

 

Just remember that everything we do in our daily lives could be an enjoyable learning opportunity for children, and needn’t cost a penny! 

 

You’re welcome to speak to your child’s Key Person for more ideas.’