Planning for Children in The Early Years Foundation Stage

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Good planning is key to ensuring that children’s learning is effective and that they make good progress towards the early learning goals.

While this section is about planning, you need to look at the Islington Guidance on’Assessment, record keeping and evaluating achievement’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage. These important aspects of early years practice are interlinked: effective planning is dependent on effective observation and assessment and vice versa.

Principles and Guidelines for Planning in the Early Years Foundation Stage

In line with the revised EYFS Framework in 2012 then 2014, we amended our planning documentation. We have produced notes on how to use these formats and provided some completed examples. We recognise that you may wish to adapt the formats so have re-produced them here in RTF format. If you need further support on using the planning formats, contact the Early Years Foundation Stage team.

Pages within this section are:

  • Long Term Planning
  • Medium Term Planning
  • Short Term Planning

Long Term Planning

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Long Term Planning for Children in the EYFS

The Early Years Foundation Stage (2014), the core statutory framework for children from birth to the end of their reception year, should inform all planning.

As part of long-term planning, practitioners need to be fully aware of how the daily routines and the organisation of the inside and outside environment offer children opportunities for development and learning across the prime areas of learning and development (personal, social and emotional development,communicationandlanguage, and physical development) and the specific areasof learning and development (mathematical development,understanding of the world,expressive arts and design,and literacy).This can be called your “continuous provision” and accounts for a significant part of your planning.

We recommend that all schools and settings compile a long-term planning folder that contains an analysis of your continuous provision - the routines, the areas of the environment and activities or experiences that children enjoy on a regular or ‘continuous’ basis.

All EYFS staff should be involved in this process as it will help them to know how to support children’s development and learning and enable them to explain the importance of routines and the environment, when required.

Suggested below are a number of workshop areas both inside and outside, and regular activities that you may consider, but adapt this list to suit your own setting’s organisation:

  • construction and block area
  • graphics area
  • sand and water area
  • small world area
  • discovery or science area
  • book area
  • music and sound-making area
  • home corner and role-play area
  • creative workshop area
  • malleable and tactile area
  • digging and planting area (mud kitchen)
  • large physical apparatus (climbing frame/ A-frames etc)
  • small physical equipment (balls, hoops/ bikes etc.)
  • shopping and cooking activities

Provision for children from birth to three needs to be organised slightly differently. A Nurturing Environment for children up to three (Islington EYFS team, 2007) will support staff in thinking through what the youngest children are learning from their continuous provision. For example:

  • Sensory exploration including treasure baskets or heuristic play
  • Creative and imaginative play
  • sand and water play
  • dancing and physical activities including transporting
  • writing and mark-making opportunities
  • home corner/ doll play (domestic play)
  • malleable/ messy play
  • books/props/puppets
  • singing and music
  • sorting play including filling/emptying
  • outdoor experiences and visits

The following routines can also be considered:

  • The start of the session including registration/ “handover” time for babies from parents/carers to keyworkers snack and meal times
  • handwashing and toilet/ nappy-changing routines
  • tidy-up time
  • story, singing and circle times
  • The end of the session/ “handover” from keyworker to parent/carer

Recommended publications

A Place to Learn: Developing a stimulating learning environment & provision sheets produced by Lewisham Early Years Advice and Resource Network (020 8695 9806)

A Nurturing Environment for children up to three, Islington Early Years Islington Early Years Foundation Stage team, amended August 2008

Medium Term Planning

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Medium Term Planning for all Children in the EYFS

  • This should be skeletal and flexible in order to respond to children’s changing needs and interests.
  • Medium-term planning should reflect settling-in, the seasons and time of year, the major festivals and celebrations, favourite stories, the interests of the children in your class/group; it also informs displays.
  • The learning environment - your continuous provision - will change to reflect the medium-term focus and children’s interests.

For children from birth to 3

  • Medium term planning may include some of the above such as planned visits, birthdays or celebrations that are meaningful to them but planning for this age group needs to be more immediate and responsive to their faster pace of development.
  • Topics are not an appropriate way of planning for children under three. Planning needs to focus heavily on the Prime Areas of Learning - personal, social and emotional development (PSED),communication andlanguage (C&L)and physical development (PD).

For children 3-5

  • All EYFS practitioners should evaluate what children have learned in the previous terms and plan together on a termly basis to ensure coherence and a rich and balanced curriculum across this phase of children’s learning.
  • The medium term plan should show a balance across all7 areas of learning, but may focus more specifically on the prime areas (PSED, C&L and PD) within an area of learning
  • If you plan from topics for this age group, the topics should relate to the particular interests of the children in your class or group. You should avoid having a cycle of topics that you revisit regularly, regardless of the needs and interests of your current cohort of children.
  • The initial 6 weeks of the Autumn term should be planned settling-in periods which teach and enable children to use the environment autonomously and induct them into the routines of the setting. This period will provide an underpinning structure for the children’s learning and development.

Short Term (Weekly) Planning

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Introduction

In line with the EYFS Statutory Framework, the areas of learning have been organised into the prime areas of learning and development (PSED, C&L and PD) and the specific areas of learning and development (Lit, MD, UVW and EAD). "Practitioners working with the youngest children are expected to focus strongly on the three prime areas, which are the basis for successful learning in the other four specific areas. The three prime areas reflect the key skills and capacities all children need to develop and learn effectively, and become ready for school. It is expected that the balance will shift towards a more equal focus on all areas of learning as children grow in confidence and ability within the three prime areas." Statutory Framework for Early Years Foundation Stage - Department for Education 2014.

1. Short Term Planning

Short term planning brings together planning for individual children based on assessments of their development and learning with your medium-term plan. You must have a regular, weekly planning meeting, involving all the practitioners working on a day-to-day basis with the children for each group or class of children, whatever their age or group/class size.

Always bring the observation records of the “observed” children to the planning meeting and use these as a starting point for your weekly planning to identify and plan for individual children’s interests, learning and developmental needs.

2. Planning Should Show the Deployment of the Adults in the Setting

As a guide, over the course of the week their time needs to be spent as follows:

  • 2/5 supporting child-initiated play and learning
  • 2/5 leading adult-guided activities (including opportunities for adult focused play and learning, group and circle times for children aged 3-5)
  • 1/5 observing children

Ensure that your planning demonstrates that if one adult is leading an adult-guided activity, the other is supporting children’s play or observing.

3. Child-Initiated Play

You cannot plan a learning intention for a child-initiated activity but through observations and adult support of children’s play, you will be able to assess the learning that takes place. Brief notes, which remind you to follow up children’s self-initiated play can be noted on your planning sheet.

You will then be able to consider appropriate resources that can be added to your continuous provision in order that children can revisit ideas that have been introduced in adult-initiated activities and/or extend their learning.

4. Adult-Guided / Focus Activities

Practitioners need to consider how to differentiate an adult-guided activity, adapting resources, expectations and language in order to take into account the varying ages and stages of development of children in a group.

Planned learning intentions should be broad and flexible in order that practitioners can pick up on the child’s own learning agenda.
Planned activities need to provide children with lots of opportunities for speaking and listening.

Plan a range of activities across different curriculum areas that have the same broad learning intention, in order that children can encounter this learning or revisit it in different contexts.

Ensure that what is planned is motivating, enjoyable and meaningful: planning must promote a positive disposition to learn in each child.

5. Whole Class Sessions for Children Aged 3-5

Children aged 3-4 should have a maximum of 1-2 whole-class sessions in one day and they should not last for longer than 10 minutes.

Children in reception classes should have a maximum of 2-3 whole class sessions in one day (including assemblies) and they should not last for longer that 10—15 minutes.

There is no expectation that EYFS children attend assembly on a daily basis. It is recommended that reception children may attend a special assembly once a week.

Children need extended periods of time to play and pursue their interests so you need to plan whole-class sessions for times of day, which do not interrupt activities, experiences and learning that are already taking place.

Children can concentrate for longer in small group activities, where they are more involved.

6. Provision Planners

Provision Planners are there to support you in ensuring you havean enabling environment.They allow youto think about the resources you need in your areasof continuous provision. There are 2 downloadabledocuments to choose from below.They are not meant to be filled out a week in advance, but ideally on a daily basis where you can filter in children's interestsor extend a child's interest through resourcing.

7. Plans are working documents

They are created at the beginning of the week but are amended and annotated as the week progresses.