The children in the Early Years are the foundation of our school.
So, it is ultimately the foundation of their whole learning journey. As a senior leader,
I really wanted to understand early years more
so than I ever have, with it being so new.
The benefits of the reformed EYFS have been substantial,
much more than we initially
thought we would see,
both in terms of outcomes and in terms of practice.
For staff, it has meant a change in the way we plan our curriculum and the associated assessment
processes we have. For pupils, helped us to support the lowest twenty percent of pupils
more effectively, so that they make progress and gain better knowledge in terms of outcomes.
So, one of the other ways that we’ve supported the Early Years team is not necessarily asking
for formal data, but doing it more through conversations because they know those children
so well now. And it’s amazing when you speak to the Early Years leader
and teachers and the teaching assistants, because they know the children so well,
they can really highlight the core areas where development is needed,
which will help us map out support for moving those children further through school.
We’ve seen great benefits to the reforms this year. We’ve really enjoyed being an early-adopter school.
One of the main points that really has
helped us this year has been the reduction
in teacher workload. This has actually given us much more time to focus on the children,
what they need, our assessments are more accurate because we are less involved
in producing data for data sake, and paper evidence.
It has enabled us to stop, think and really evaluate
our curriculum, our assessment processes
and also the workload. And this has benefited staff’s wellbeing, as well as the children.
In the beginning, we didn’t realise how much of an impact it would have on pupils
and how much it would help us to make a difference to the community we serve.
They’ve loved the opportunity to put down the post-it notes, or put down the iPad
and interact and get to know children at a much deeper level, and support them as a result.
So, I spent a lot of time with our Early Years leader, so that I understood it as well
as she does. And therefore, from that, lots of professional discussions with the rest of the team
as well. We’ve really looked into best practice, courses that perhaps people can go on, whether
that’s to do with interactions with children, and actually when you’re spending that quality time
with them, what are you looking out for? Just to make sure we’re all on the same page. It’s really
helped me as a head of a school to understand the journey that these children go on, their roots,
where they start. And historically, I think there’s this “they’re playing”, but now you’re
actually watching them play and you’re seeing the interactions with the adults with them, and you
know deep down, I understand the full journey now of what they’re doing now and why. So, you get to
know your Early Years team, have those discussions and enjoy it. That’s why we’re all here.
What we initially experienced was challenging, but we’re now a year down the line and see that
teachers are able to interact more effectively, a lot more interaction between them and pupils.
We’ve seen a significant increase in the quality of the language our pupils use. Our outcomes have
always been strong and our curriculum has been effective, but it has just gone up another level
this year. We now have confidence that when we have children who come in and struggle, we
know that we can help them acquire vocabulary and the ability to communicate much more effectively.