The Early Years Foundation Stage sets out to improve the quality of all childcare provision in England. Michael Freeston explains the details of this new development.

Through Choice for parents, the best start for children: a ten year strategy for childcare, the government is keen to increase both the quantity of childcare available to parents and to improve the quality of all childcare provision. As a key part of these developments, the Childcare Bill currently going through parliament places on the Secretary of State for Education the responsibility to ensure early years providers meet children’s “learning and development” and “welfare” requirements. These requirements are known as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Further information about EYFS is given in the “direction of travel” document, which the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) published in December 2005.

Aims of EYFS

The aims of EYFS are about “improving the life chances of all children, by giving them the opportunity to have the best possible start, regardless of their family circumstances or the setting they attend”.
EYFS will bring together three existing structures that affect early years providers offering services to children from birth to five years of age:

• Birth to Three Matters, which created a framework to support the learning and development of the youngest children.
• The Foundation Stage, which outlines the learning framework for three to five-year olds.
• The National Standards for Under-Eights Daycare and Childminding, which established 14 standards for care and learning for settings.
  

How has the early years sector responded?

EYFS will apply to all registered early years settings in England. This is a change from before. The Birth to Three Matters framework was guidance for practitioners and the Foundation Stage applied only to settings receiving the Nursery Education Grant for three- to five-years olds. Now, EYFS will apply to all registered providers of early years services in England (other than in schools), whether they are full daycare, sessional care settings or childminders.

The early years sector warmly approved of the Birth to Three Matters framework and the Foundation Stage, and generally supports bringing these two structures together. Indeed, parents and providers have often argued that having two distinct systems failed to recognise the seamless movement of children through the ages and stages of development. As such, the statements in the direction of travel document that care and learning are the same are welcome. The sector also approves of the document’s statement that care cannot be considered to be of good quality unless it provides opportunities for children to learn or that learning cannot be considered to be of good quality unless it is provided in a safe, secure and inclusive environment.

Challenges

Bringing together different systems has set challenges, in particular in the use of language in the new framework. For example, EYFS is to be an “outcomes-based approach”, which means it sets out what children should be able to do by a certain age. While such “early learning goals” may have been appropriate for three- to five-year olds within the Foundation Stage, they were never used for very young children in Birth to Three Matters, which outlined instead “aspects of learning”. The government is keen not to be charged with establishing a “national curriculum for babies” so the way the outcomes are worded and the ways in which children are to be assessed against them is a very sensitive issue.

The Alliance’s approach

The direction of travel document outlines a series of principles and/or standards that will underpin early years practice. It is these that allow for the emerging framework to be thought of alongside the Alliance’s approach to children’s care and learning, which is as follows:

• We believe that children learn through play. That is, through direct experiences that involve exploration and discovery that are child-centred and where provision for learning builds on what children already know and can do through a balance between adult and child-led activities.
• We believe that parents are children’s first and most enduring educators. At no stage in life is this more apparent than in the early years. The younger the child, the more crucial the role of the child’s parents and wider family.
• We have developed an approach to learning that sees the child not as an isolated unit, but as integral to a social context of family and wider community networks. As a result of this relationship, the early years setting is also a central part of the community’s fabric.
  

The importance of play

EYFS proposes to continue making well-planned play central to children’s development and learning, ensuring that learning is both challenging and fun. Therefore, at the core of EYFS will be an approach that is “both ‘teaching’ and providing freely chosen yet potentially instructive play activities”.

It is this somewhat complicated phrase that has led some readers of the direction of travel document to conclude that EYFS aims to prepare children for Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum when they c reach school, rather than provide a framework that truly reflects their development needs at all stages of their early life.

The role of parents and the community

Similar concerns have been raised about the limited references to the role of parents within EYFS principles. The direction of travel document acknowledges that a relationship with a key person at home and in the settings is essential to young children’s wellbeing and that practitioners must build positive relationships with parents in order to work effectively with them and their children. However, EYFS has no statements as to how this is to be done or what the framework will need to achieve it.

Child development does not begin when a child comes to a setting. It begins in the womb and is shaped from birth within families. Any framework that seeks to establish an understanding among practitioners about the development and learning of children under five – but most particularly under three – cannot be meaningful without recognition that babies and very young children begin to develop and learn at home; with their parents, their family and in their communities. For no other age group is it more important that practitioners build partnerships with parents and understand the nature of the experiences the child has already had. It is from this point that the setting can work with the parents to develop a care and learning environment that recognises and reflects the levels of knowledge and understanding the child has already gained.

EYFS does not say much about the role of early years settings as integral parts of the community fabric. As such, it misses an opportunity to acknowledge the way in which provision can be empowering for all involved. With this omission, it fails to reflect other government priorities to extend community-based structures and engage children, young people and families in local activities and organisations.

Consultation

All of these issues can be explored through the consultation exercises that the government has undertaken on EYFS. I strongly encourage parents and early years providers to contribute to this consultation because in our experience, officials and ministers are willing to listen to constructive comments, resulting in an improved end product.

Implementing the framework

EYFS is not due to be implemented by providers until September 2008. While this may seem a generous lead-in time, it is important to acknowledge the range of tasks that need to be carried out to establish this new framework. Not only does the framework need to be drafted, consulted upon, revised and finalised, but materials also have to be developed to support early years practitioners to implement the framework. In addition, staff who work in the sector will need training and Ofsted will need to take into account the new framework to carry out inspections.

This is a daunting task, but one that needs to be carried out carefully and sensitively in a way that involves parents and the sector. Otherwise, this most radical of developments in the history of early years provision in England will fail to include the most important people involved in children’s care and development to ensure the desired improvement in the outcomes for our children.