EYFS aims to help early years providers who offer education and care for children aged from 0 to 5, to reach the high standards of learning, development and care required to pass an Ofsted inspection.

1、Statutory standard

Curriculum standard

EYFS requires early years providers to include 7 areas of learning, irrespective of teaching methods used. They are：

Prime areas: communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development

Specific areas: literacy, mathematics, understanding the world, and expressive arts and design

Management Standard

EYFS instructs early years providers on management standards:

Child protection: safety and suitability of premises, staff qualifications, environment and equipment safety

Staff management: staff to child ratios, Key Person approach

Children’s health: medicines, food and drink, accident and injury, managing behaviour

 2、Assessment Requirement

EYFS requires practitioners to assess children aged 2-5 through monitoring and observation

Progress check at age 2

Early years providers should make a written summary on children’s development in the prime areas at age 2-3. This summary should include aspects where children have developed well and less well, highlight areas where future development might be difficult, and outline effective strategies for the future.

Assessment of children aged 5

Assessment at the end of the EYFS — the Early Years Foundation Stage Profiles. As children embark on their final semester at 5 years old, practitioners need to assess children on each learning outcome, highlighting progress and development in each area. The profile should show children’s characteristics during learning.

3、Learning outcomes

Early years learning outcomes lie at the heart of EYFS. The learning outcomes detail standard milestones in development children will attain at ages 0-11 months, 8-20 months, 16-26 months, 22-36 months, 30-50 months and 40-60 months. These descriptors enable practitioners to monitor progress and improve teaching.

Core ideas: EYFS always takes children’s development as the core idea. Initially, practitioners observe children. They watch children, take notes and describe what they’ve seen. Then, they record and assess children, and finally they make plans. Plans are supposed to involve experiences, opportunities, environment, resources and the roles practitioners play in children’s lives.

EYFS is flexible because it can encompass rules for different curriculums and educational theories. All systems and institutions can have their own course patterns according to their educational ideas, such as Forest Teaching, Montessori or Reggio Emilia. EYFS can support all of those pedagogies and can provide guidance so that practitioners will be clear about how best to develop children in their care and in their educational establishments.