Editor’s view - Have Your Say

The Government has launched its consultation on the revised EYFS, and the sector has until 31 January to respond. Early years organisations have been urging practitioners to have their say, and so do I.

The new goals might seem a long way off – they will be introduced voluntarily in schools in 2020 and across the sector in 2021 – and the outcome of the General Election might scupper current plans. But, who knows what the election result will be, so it is important to speak out now about what may be the shape of early education for years to come.

It is a frustratingly difficult document to respond to, as it includes only long lists of the educational programmes and goals and offers little in way of comparison. To help, we have gathered together the pilot version of the EYFS and the Government’s latest proposals for comparison (see news, page 8 for a link).

What is interesting – and I think for many, surprising – are the latest changes to both the educational programmes and goals. Some revisions are unwelcome. However, some sentences, phrases, even single words, have been inserted to make the document more developmentally appropriate and more reflective of early years pedagogy.

For example, Communication and Language now takes far greater account of conversations and ‘sensitive questioning’ in early language development. And inserting ‘sense’ into the educational programme for Understanding the World changes the tone (‘The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and senseof the world around them’).

These changes should have been a case of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts of a clear, informed and well-thought-out vision for early learning and the future of the EYFS. Instead, many are a belated attempt to remove some of the most inappropriate proposals in a document, whose earliest drafts were written by non-early years experts and drew little on sector expertise.

There is clearly greater input from early years experts in this version, but not enough, and ultimately, this is another version of goals that are still largely developmentally inappropriate, fail to reflect the interconnected nature of early learning and are driven by a school agenda

In this issue

Consultant, trainer and author Penny Tassoni continues her ‘Around the nursery’ series in response to Ofsted’s new ‘Quality of education’ judgement. On pages 16-18, she explains how to plan and resource role play that is both challenging and appropriate to children’s ages and stages in the EYFS.

Claire Martin, a nursery teacher at the British International School of Boston, sets out the vital importance of good gross and fine motor skills to a child’s holistic development, and explains how she is promoting greater levels of physical activity among the children in her care. See pages 28-29.

Jo Dabir-Alai is lead practitioner at Grove House Nursery School and Children’s Centre, Southall. In part two of her series on deepening children’s thinking, she explains how the setting changed its layout and approach to resourcing to give children a greater sense of ownership (pages 23-25).