The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) for parents and carers

Why do I need to know about the EYFS?

• The EYFS will be the stage your child is in when they attend a setting or a childminder's home between birth and the age of five. It is also the stage that they are in until the end of the Reception year at school.
• Children do best when parents and professionals work together.
• It is important to remember that you know more about your own child than anyone else. Practitioners should be asking you about your child and sharing infomation with you about your child's progress.
• Understanding what your child is doing when they are with others will help you to notice how well they are developing and learning.
• The part you play in their learning and in the choices you make will make a difference to their future.

What is the EYFS?

• The EYFS is a stage of children's development from birth to the end of their first (Reception) year in school.
• The EYFS framework describes how early years practitioners should work with children and their family's to surport their learning and development.
• It describes how your child should be kept safe and cared for and how all concerned can make sure that you child achieves the most that they can in their earliest years of life.
• It is based on four principles.

What are the EYFS principles?

Theme: Unique child
Principle: Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident, and self-assured.

Theme: Positive relationships
Principle: Children learn to be strong and independant from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.

Theme: Enabling Envoirnments
Principle: The envoirnment plays a key roll in supporting and extending children's development and learning.

Theme: Learning and Development
Principle: Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of learning and development are equally important and interconnected

Each prinicple applies to all children from birth. Each prinicple is supported by four commitments that describe how the principle can be put into practice. They are all explained and explored in more depth on principles into practices cards and the CD-ROM. The principles under pin all that practitioners are required to do.

Why are the years from birth to five so special?

The years from birth to five see the greatest growth and learning for all children.

• Good health;
• To be happy;
• To feel safe;
• To be successful.

Early learning is the key to your childs future and familys make the greatest difference at this stage.

What can parents and carers do?

Parents and carers are their children's first teachers. When they are with you learning can happen at any time and anywhere, for example through:

• Being generous with praise and cuddles;
• Playing games, singing nursery rhymes;
• Reading things together;
• Talking about what you can see in the park of the streets;
• Counting the stairs as you go up and down.

What we call playing is really the way children learn. With toys and their imaginations they practise all the skills theyll need as they grow up. The more they play, the more they learn and the best thing about it is that they love it.

Playing with You

Young children find it hard to play alone. They need attention from someone who can play with them. Gradually theyll learn to entertain themselves for some of the time, but first they need to learn how to do that. Fortunately, children learn from everything thats going on around them, and everything they do. When youre washing up, your toddler can stand next to you on a chair and wash the saucepan lids; when you cook, make sure your baby can see and talk to you as you work. The times when theyre not learning much are the times when theyre bored. Thats as true for babies as of older children.
 
So what really matters?

Find a lot of different things for your child to look at, think about, and do.

Make what youre doing fun and interesting for your child, so you can get it done.

Make some time to give all your attention to what your child wants to do.

Talk about anything and everything, even about the washing-up or what to put on the shopping list, so that you share as much as possible.

Find a place and time when your child can learn how to use his or her body by running, jumping and climbing. This is especially important if you dont have much room at home.

Find other people who can spend time with your child at those times when you really do need to attend to something else.

Toy safety

It is best to buy toys that carry the British Standard Kitemark or the Lion mark, or CE mark, as these conform to safety standards.

Take care if you buy toys from car boot sales, market stalls or second hand toys as these may not conform to safety standards and could be dangerous.

Take safety measures such as Not suitable for a child under 36 months seriously (03 sign). This sign warns that a toy is unsuitable for a child under three because of small parts.

Check that the toy has no sharp edges that could hurt your child, or small parts that your child could put in his or her mouth and choke on.

Toys for children with special needs

Toys for children with special needs should match his or her mental age and ability. They should be brightly coloured and offer sound and action. If a toy made for a younger child, is used by an older child, the strength of the toy should be taken into account.

Children who have a visual impairment will need toys with different textures to explore with their hands and mouth. A child who has a hearing impairment will need toys to stimulate language.

Making time

Some things do have to happen at certain times, and your child does slowly have to learn about that. But when youre with your child try not to work to a strict timetable. Your child is unlikely to fit in with it and then youll both get frustrated. A lot of things can be pushed around to suit the mood of you and your child. Theres no rule that says the washing-up has to be done before you go to the playground, especially if the suns shining and your childs bursting with energy.

Keep your child fit

Children want to use their bodies to crawl, walk, run, jump and climb. The more opportunity you can give them, the happier theyll be, and youll probably find that they sleep better and are more cheerful and easy going when theyve had the opportunity to run off some energy. At the same time youll be helping their muscle development and general fitness and, if they start to see outdoor activities and sports as a part of their lives, youll be laying down the habits that will keep them fitter as adults. Make time for your children to exercise.

Allow your baby to lie and kick his or her legs.

Make your floor a safe place for a crawler to move around.

Make time for your toddler to walk with you rather than using the buggy.

Take toddlers and young children to the park to try climbing and swinging or just so that they have a safe space to run.

Find out whats on for parents and babies at the local leisure centre.

Take your baby swimming. There is no need to wait until your child has had his or her immunisations.

Structured Learning

When children play theyre learning what they want. Often these will also be the things you want them to learn, but for some things they may need extra encouragement, like using the potty (toilet training), washing or dressing themselves, learning what not to touch, and where its not safe to run. Its worth thinking about how you do it.

- Wait until you think your child is ready. Forcing something too soon usually ends in failure. You get cross and upset, your child gets cross and upset, and the whole thing becomes impossible. If it doesnt work out, leave it for a few weeks and try again.

- Try not to make it seem too important. Your child may learn to eat with a spoon because its fun, but still want to be fed when he or she is tired, or may enjoy the first few times on the potty because youre so pleased, and then get bored with the idea. In time he or she will see that it is worth while learning to be more grown-up and independent.

- Keep it safe. If your child is under three years old he or she cant really understand why not to touch your stereo or pull flowers off your pot plants, so keep things you dont want touched well out of the way and youll both be less frustrated. Time enough to learn about not touching when your child can understand why.

- Be encouraging. Your happiness is your childs best reward for good behaviour. If you give your child a big smile, a cuddle or praise when he or she does something right your child is much more likely to try doing it again. Giving your child attention and praise for doing something right works much better than telling him or her off for doing something wrong.

- Dont ask for perfection or for instant success. Its safest to expect everything to take much longer than you'd hoped.

- Set an example. Whatever it may look like, your child does want to be like you and do what you do. So seeing you wash in the bath, brush your teeth or use the toilet does help.

- Avoid fuss and confrontation. Once something gets blown up, it can take longer and be much more difficult for everybody to calm down.

- Be firm. Children need you to decide some things for them, and need you to stick to your decisions. They need some firm guidelines. So try not to waver. You might start something like potty training, decide your child isnt ready, and give up for a while. Thats fine. But a child who is in nappies one day, out the next and back in them the next, is bound to get confused.

- Be consistent. For the same reason, its important that everybody involved in looking after your child is teaching more or less the same things in more or less the same way. If you and your partner, or you and your childminder, do things very differently, your child wont learn so easily and may well play you off against each other.

- Do whats right for your child, for you and for the way you live. It doesnt matter what the child next door can or cant do. Dont compete and dont ask your child to compete.

No parent is perfect, and some children seem to find these lessons particularly difficult to learn. See dealing with difficult behaviour.

To discuss our Nursery and Pre School provisions in more detail please contact us on:
Tel: 0208 941 7175
Email: fay@thehamptonsdaynursery.co.uk