In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) there are seven ‘Areas of Learning’ and each area has its own ‘Early Learning Goals’. Every child works towards achieving these goals throughout their reception year. The following areas highlight the Early Learning Goals that every reception age child is expected to achieve by June. June is when every child’s 'grade' for each Early Learning Goal has to be recorded as ‘emerging’, ‘expected’ or ‘exceeding’ and the information has to be sent by the school to our Local Authority (Essex).

The national average grade for each Early Learning Goal is ‘expected'. However, every child progresses differently and has different needs. We work with the children and their parents/carers to ensure that every child achieves their full potential.

The seven Areas of Learning and the Early Learning Goals.

1. Communication and Language

·         Listening and attention: children listen carefully to other at all times and reply to their comments and questions. They can listen to stories, accurately anticipate what happens next and respond to what they hear with appropriate comments, questions or actions. 

·         Understanding: children follow instructions involving several ideas or actions. They can answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences and in response to stories or events.

·         Speaking: children express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs. They use past, present and future forms accurately (such as today, yesterday, before, after) when talking about events that have happened or are to happen in the future. They can connect ideas or events and explain them in detail.

2. Physical development

·         Moving and handling: children show good control and co-ordination in large (throwing, catching, climbing) and small (using scissors, holding a pencil) movements. They move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space. They handle equipment and tools safely and use them correctly.

·         Health and self-care: children know the importance for good health of physical exercise, and a healthy diet, and talk about ways to keep healthy and safe. They can go to the toilet, wash their hands and dress/undress independently.

 3. Personal, social and emotional development

·         Self-confidence and self-awareness: children are confident to try new activities, and say why they like some activities more than others. They are confident to speak in a familiar group, will talk about their ideas, and will choose the resources they need for their chosen activities. They can say when they do or don’t need help from others.

·         Managing feelings and behaviour: children talk about how they and others show feelings, talk about their own and others’ behaviour, and its consequences, and know that some behaviour is unacceptable. They work as part of a group or class, and understand and follow the rules. They adjust their behaviour to different situations, and take changes of routine in their stride.

·         Making relationships: children play co-operatively, taking turns with others. They listen to one another’s ideas about how to organise their activity. They are sensitive to the needs of others and form good relationships with adults and other children.

4. Literacy

·         Reading: children read and understand simple sentences. They use letter sound knowledge to read words accurately. They also read some common irregular words such as the, said, was and of. They can answer questions about what they have read.

·         Writing: children use their letter sound knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds (eg, bootifl – beautiful). They also write some irregular common words such as the, said, was and of. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others, and some words are spelt correctly.

5. Mathematics

·         Numbers: children count reliably with numbers from 1 to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number.

·         Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

·         Shape, space and measures: children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore the characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them (eg, flat and solid shape, and using words such as corner, side to describe the shapes correctly).

6. Understanding the world

·         People and communities: children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know that other children don’t always enjoy the same things, and are sensitive to this. They know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions.

·         The world: children know about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. They talk about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. They make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur, and talk about changes.

·         Technology: children recognise that a range of technology is used in places such as homes and schools. They select and use technology for particular purposes (eg, selecting to use a remote control or  certain program on a computer)

7. Expressive arts and design

·         Exploring and using media and materials: children sing songs, make music and dance, and experiment with ways of changing them. They safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function (eg, mixing colours to make our own paint and creating a face from pasta or vegetables)

·         Being imaginative: children use what they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about uses and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through design and technology, art, music, dance, role-play and stories. (eg, creating our own supermarket or garage to role lay in, using different construction kits to build our own castles or using recycled materials to create different aliens.