Leadership - In with the new EYFS

The main priority for the new term is, of course, the implementation of the new EYFS. On initial inspection, all the elements of the old EYFS are there, although some Early Learning Goals may have moved into a different area of learning, or been combined with similar objectives. So what exactly is the difference, and what do we need to do?

Our first port of call was, as a leadership team, to attend a training session outlining the changes and learn how to navigate the new document. This highlighted how much more challenging the area of learning for mathematics will be. For example, there is now a requirement for the children to be confident with numbers up to 20 in order to achieve this early learning goal.

The shift in emphasis on how children learn rather than what they learn is an encouraging addition to the document. It will give us the freedom to ensure that the children are able to play and explore, learn actively, and be able to create and think critically as a central part of our teaching.

Having learned to navigate the document, we then discussed how this might impact on our teaching, learning and planning. We concluded that we just need to adjust our emphasis to give higher priority to the three prime areas until the children are confident and competent enough to move to a more equal shift with the four specific areas.

So what next? We will be planning some training sessions for early in the autumn term to familiarise staff with the new terms and expectations. We will then be able to review our planning and what we are expecting the children to learn and be taught. Finally, we will be looking at ways to track their learning. It is reassuring to know that all we really need to do is continue, and build on, the good practice that we already achieve.

This is Leisa Towle's last column in the current series.