Paper Example on Early Years Foundation Stage

Introduction

There are 7 main area’s of learning for young children EYFS (early years foundation stage) which has been produced by the government and early years providers for use by all early years providers including childminders. We use these area’s of learning and development when observing, assessing and planning for the children and their individual needs. Its important that we are constantly challenging the children and help them develop and succeed. These 7 area’s of learning are split into 2 parts.

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These are the 3 prime area’s and are for all children but these will be our main focus for all planning and activities for babies and children under 3.

1. Personal, social, and emotional development. This area is covered by teaching children to share and take their turn when playing or taking part in activities. encouraging the children to make friends and interact with each other. To help the children understand their feelings and how to manage them and their behaviour. We want the children to be confident and self assured.
2. Physical development. This area is about encouraging the children’s physical well being teaching them about healthy living and self care, helping them develop fine motor skills with activities.
3. Communication and language. This area is about helping the children with all the different aspects of communication and language such as listening skills, paying attention, communicating with others and understanding what’s being said.

All of these will help with their vocabulary and speech. These are the 4 specific area’s which we mainly use for the older children (over 3’s) but these are also relevant for the younger children.

1. Literacy. This area of learning is about how you the children begin to explore phonics and letter sounds, they start to make marks and learn to write, they start to enjoy books.
2. Mathematics. This area of learning and development covers learning numbers and counting, helping to recognise time, Exploring things like shapes, space , measurements, opposites and capacity. These can all be done threw play and activities.
3. Understanding the world. This area of learning covers things like nature and their surroundings, encouraging the children to talk and differences and similarities in their local community.
4. Art and design. This area is about creativity this could be with dance, song, musical instruments. Encouraging the children to be creative using colour and texture and use their imagination.

Documented Outcomes for Children That Form Part of the Relevant Early Years Frame Work

The EYFS is the structure that all early years care providers follow, its is designed to make sure every child no matter what their family back ground or circumstance has access to a quality early years education.
In order to make sure this happens they have set Early Learning Goals by which a child progress can be measured. Each area of learning will have a series of outcomes and the aim is that each child can meet this by the end of their reception year. These goals are important as they form the foundation of their future education. It is important to understand that not all children will meet the early learning goals for a variety of reasons learning difficulties, specific health problems or it could just be their younger than their peers in the setting. Their are six broad area’s of learning:

1. Personal, social and emotional development
2. Communication, language and literacy
3. Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy
4. Knowledge and understanding of the world
5. Physical development
6. Creative development

How the Documented Outcomes Are Assessed and Recorded

When planning activities in our setting we will take into account each child’s abilities and progress into account and put them into small groups according to this. Our setting Manager/Leader plans our weekly time table so every member of staff knows the planned activities and schedule for each day.
We are also given a lesson plan for each organized activity and its objectives. Every child has a record book were we record their progress it has age related bands as shown below. Each band has its own learning goal. 0-11 Months 8-20 Months 16-26 Months 22-36 Months 30-50 Months 40-60 Months All early learning goals should be achieved by the end of reception year. These bands can often over lap as children will progress at different rates. We have several ways in our setting of observing and recording the children’s progress and achievements depending on the activity and daily schedule.

For an example if it is during free play time when the children can do any activity of their own choice the we will simply observe and make note’s of what we see on post it notes then will up date their record book at a later stage. If it is a planned activity/lesson then we have a record sheet were we record anything we witness and this is then added to their record book as evidence of progress. EYMP2-2. 1 Use different sources to plan work for an individual child or group of children. Part of the EYFS is to plan activities and play opportunities that will allow the children to learn and progress.

It’s important when planning these you use information gained to make them most effective. The information can be obtained from several different sources when planning for an individual child or a group for example * A child interests and preferences this is important as it will get the child engaged in what you want them to do and make it enjoyable for an example we have a little boy in our setting who loves Dinosaurs so we created an activity for him to draw a dinosaur and then encouraged him to tell us all about his drawing did it have big teeth, or a tail etc this was very successful.

Observations and assessments this will help to understand what a child can do and what their needs may be. We can adjust or adapt our planned activities to suit there stage of progress. *Parents and cares roles play an important part in their child’s development so are considered to be our partners and their involvement is vital. The parents can tell us what their children enjoying doing or playing with when there at home. Their feed back on what their child enjoys doing or has learned at nursery helps us know if what we are doing the children enjoy.

Colleagues can play a key part as they may witness a child doing or saying something that you have not but they can then pass that information on. They may be more experienced than yourself or even worked in another setting so have new idea’s of things to do. *In some cases the children maybe being seen by a health visitor or speech and language therapist or even physiotherapist. Their help can be vital when planning activities or play opportunities especially if the child needs help or extra support.

Importance of Engaging With a Child to Support Sustained Shared Thinking

Communication is an important tool when working with children. We can use language as way of building their confidence by giving them praise and positive feedback as well as encouragement. But it can also be used to engage with the children this could be threw play or a planned activity show an interest in what they are doing with enthusiasm threw tone of voice and facial expressions as well as positive body language.
Open communication is a good way of stimulating the children’s imagination it can encourage them to explore new possibilities. You could use opened ended questions here are a few examples What are you doing This will allow you to open up conversation and showing interest in what they are doing will encourage them to explain and communicate with you. What if this will encourage them to explore other options and possibilities. I wonder why” this is a way of getting the children to think about things and wonder how they work or why we do them.