The idea of subjecting our toddlers to examinations is at once laughable and horrifying, and yet this is exactly what EYFS tracking seems to be about. Fortunately, once you get below the surface of it all, you realise that it is based on observation and your child will, in fact, never feel pressured to achieve a set mark, instead learning through fun games and play time.

EYFS, which stands for Early Year Foundation Stage is designed to assess a child’s readiness for more formal education, with benchmarks in seven areas. These are:

  • Expressive arts and design: building, drawing, painting and colouring-in
  • Physical development: running, walking, dancing, kicking a ball and so on
  • Language and communication: telling anecdotes, asking for needs to be met (toilet, food, drink, etc)
  • Understanding the world: learning about the world around them and why some things happen
  • PSE development (personal, social and emotional): learning how to make friends and be around others, basic moral understanding, how to be independent and how to be confident and happy with themselves
  • Literacy and maths: learning the alphabet and associating the appropriate sounds with each letter, learning basic very mathematical principles

So you can see that while the benchmarks sound alarming, in practise they are simply assessments of activities that your child will be undertaking anyway, and having fun while they do so!

When your child is ready to leave the foundation stage, at about the age of five, their teacher will assess their EYFS learning and make recommendations, if necessary about future assistance and potential learning issues, based upon how well Early Learning Goals (ELGs) have been met.

Any pre-school, kindergarten or child-minding service must use EYFS tracking as standard, and any such establishment not using it is likely to fail their Ofsted inspection and be denied accreditation.

Once the basic principles of EYFS learning are understood, they must be tracked. As children all develop and grow at different rates – some will slowly and steadily improve, while others will remain static for ages before suddenly advancing tremendously – it can be difficult to monitor progress without a comprehensive tracking system that keeps detailed information about milestones met and areas needing improvement.

Tracking the early years is very difficult as just a few months can make a tremendous difference in your child in those first months – and development in one area can seem to be offset by delays in another. This is why Early Years developments must be carefully monitored by those who know what they are looking for, and – perhaps more importantly – who can see the difference in the child’s earning as well as being able to accurately gauge them against their classroom peers, and even their entire year group.

If you are worried about your child or children’s progress through nursery or preschool, you might want to invest in an EYFS Tracker to guide you through their progress. Your preschool or nursery will have detailed records of the time your child spends with them, and they will be able to show you the results and explain what they mean, so that you can be reassured that your little one is developing normally and growing into a happy and healthy child.

This is a collaborative post.