Context and principles for early years provisions.
The Early Years Foundation Stage was brought into force in September 2008 by orders and regulations which come under section 39 of the Childcare Act 2006. All of the early years providers are required to use the EYFS to ensure a flexible approach to children’s care, learning and development that enables young children to achieve the five Every Child Matters (ECM) outcomes. These 5 outcomes are staying safe, being healthy, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic wellbeing. The EYFS is used in many different settings and some of these are schools, nurseries, pre-schools, playgroups, after school clubs, breakfast clubs and child minders.
This statutory framework sets out legal requirements to relate to the learning and development of children and the legal requirements relating to welfare. There are early learning goals which are the educational programmes and the assessment arrangements. The welfare requirements are given legal force by regulations made under section 39 of the Childcare Act 2006. Together the order, the regulations and the statutory framework documents make up the legal basis of the EYFS. Each individual child is supported by the EYFS because it is there to support the needs and interests of each individual child.
There are six areas covered by the early learning goals and educational programmes. They are equally important and depend on each other to support the rounded approach to child development. All these areas much be delivered through planned, purposeful play with a balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities.
These six areas are; * Personal, Social and Emotional Development. * Communication, Language and Literacy. * Problem-solving, Reasoning and Numeracy. * Knowledge and Understanding of the World. * Physical Development. * Creative Development. *
The EYFS has partnerships with parents and