Research School Network: Getting it right from the start Part 2: Supporting you to consider the early years foundation stage curriculum

The argument for ​‘getting it right from the start’ is fairly well versed across the education community with a general agreement that the early years foundation stage is crucial to children’s long term success.

In the first blog of the series Jane asks us to consider ​‘coherence and cohesion’ and asks really valid questions such as ​‘Do you have thoughtful conversations with colleagues about the curriculum map for pupils? Is it horizontally and vertically mapped through the school?’. If we set that into the EYFS, running from birth to age 5 where children will be at home as well as possibly in multiple settings both within those 5 years but sometimes within each week, mapping a coherent and cohesive curriculum in the same way is really challenging. How do we plan for a systematic approach to supporting children develop core knowledge and skills? I am a huge advocate of partnership working but even the most effective partnerships will struggle to do this for all their children to the same level of consistency that you could expect once children are attending the same school on a daily basis.

Equally, and appropriately, the EYFS is set up to be much more responsive to children’s age and stage rather than what school year they will be grouped into in due course. So what can we do about coherence and cohesion in the early years curriculum? A lot lays on the shoulders of a highly trained and skilful workforce; and training and development of staff are key themes running across the strands of the EEF’s Early Years toolkit.

Consider these questions for your own setting;

What investment is made into workforce development to ensure that practitioners are knowledgeable in early childhood development and appropriate strategies to support children’s learning?

How well do practitioners know each child as an individual, their interests and dislikes, their knowledge and their skills? How do they use this to inform what learning they facilitate with a balance between adult and child initiated opportunities?

What investment is made into developing strong and supportive relationships between the setting and the home learning environment to support a strong curriculum? How are staff trained on how to work with parents and carers?

There is clear and consistent evidence that suggests children’s communication and language skills at age 5 are really important for future success and, for many of our disadvantaged children in particular, the attainment gap has already opened at age 5 and is persistently hard to close. However the curriculum is structured in EYFS, a central theme to this must be developing good communicators who have a strongly developing vocabulary. The EEF’s Guidance Report ​‘Preparing for Literacy’ takes the main recommendations from extensive evidence reviews to translate what is worth spending time and effort doing to help to achieve this in your setting.

To pick up on another part of Jane’s blog around pedagogy and in particular the current buzz words of ​‘metacognition and self-regulation’: when we get past the jargon and unpick what ​‘it’ is what I suggest we actually uncover is something that has been a fundamental cornerstone of effective early years practice for years. Just sometimes we do ​‘get it right from the start’ and we could encourage schools to do a lot worse things than look to EYFS colleagues for models of good practice of promoting and encouraging independent learning.

To find out more about evidence informed approaches to early years practice, visit the EEF’s Early Year’s toolkit https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/early-years-toolkit/
or get in touch with us at Huntington Research School to find out how we might support you https://researchschool.org.uk/huntington/

You might also want to book onto our course starting next week to support you in Early Years Literacy https://researchschool.org.uk/…

Rob Newton is the Primary school and mathematics research lead at Huntington Research School and most recently Acting Headteacher of a community infant and nursery school.