Foundation Stage

All three and four year old children are entitled to six terms or free, part-time early education from the start of the term following their third birthday. All settings in receipt of Government funding to deliver free early years education are required to deliver the Foundation Stage curriculum.

The philosophy underpinning the Foundation Stage curriculum is that learning should be carefully planned and structured, with an emphasis on activities that are fun, relevant and motivating for each child. Practitioners delivering the Foundation Stage curriculum therefore support children’s learning through planned play and extending and developing children’s spontaneous play.

The Foundation Stage Curriculum is organised into the following six areas of learning:

• Personal, social and emotional development
• Communication, language and literacy
• Mathematical development
• The development of knowledge and understanding of the world
• Physical development and
• Creative development.

The Foundation Stage as part of the National Curriculum and the introduction of the Birth to Three Matters framework reinforces the Government's commitment to support the early stages of learning and development.

Expert Support

Ruth Pimentel, the current National Director of the Foundation Stage, ensures that the profile of children’s learning and development is raised and supported across the range of audiences and stakeholders.

Ruth’s role is to co-ordinate regional expert support and significantly raise the status of this crucial stage of learning. Regional advisers have been appointed to work along with her, and will work with local authority colleagues and focus on the support, training and professional development provided to improve the quality of learning and teaching in Foundation Stage settings.

Amendments to the curriculum guidance to the Foundation Stage

Minor changes have been made to the Foundation Stage curriculum following Sir Jim Rose’s independent review of the teaching of early reading, published in 2006.

The review recommended that “for most children, high quality, systematic phonic work should start by the age of five, taking full account of professional judgements of children’s developing abilities and the need to embed this work within a broad and rich curriculum.”

Following the review, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) sought the views of a broad range of stakeholders and received positive support for the changes. In terms of the Curriculum guidance for the foundation stage, the change relates to the rewording of an Early Learning Goal, ‘linking sounds and letters’ and so pages 60 and 61 of the guidance document have been reprinted and are being supplied with all new orders of the of the curriculum guidance from September 2007. A revised version of the guidance and the amended pages can be downloaded from the links below.

Schools and settings will have a legal obligation to follow the amended curriculum from the start of the school year 2007-8 but for this year only. All current materials will be replaced by documentation relating to the new Early Years Foundation Stage which comes into effect from September 2008.

Publications

• Planning for learning in the Foundation Stage
• Guidance on developing early writing in reception classes
• Curriculum guidance for the Foundation Stage (including amendments issued in September 2007)
• Amended pages of the curriculum guidance for the Foundation Stage (issued September 2007)

Frequently Asked Questions

You can read more about the Foundation Stage in a series of frequently asked questions on the QCA website.

Contact the EYFS Central Team for more information.