Understanding the revised Development

MattersDr Julian Grenier

Development Matters 2021–what’s new?

Objectives:

• More support for early communication

• Reducing workload

• Narrowing the gap

Why prioritise communication?

Why communication?

What makes a difference?

• A curriculum progress model

• Checking children have plenty of time to enjoy, practise and repeat so they are secure in their early learning

• Assessment that’s proportionate, and helps children’s learning

What is a curriculum progress model?

• Think about your ‘top-level plan’ for what you want children to know and be able to do

• Decide what level of detail you need – the revised EYFS is all about reducing un-necessary workload

• The early years is about the balance between child-initiation, adult-guided and playful learning, and direct teaching

How is that different?

Some thoughts

• If you have 25 children with two or three ‘next steps’, that’s 50-75 planning objectives

• The evidence on what’s effective in early education and childcare doesn’t support ‘in the moment’ approaches

• The danger of making Development Matters define everything we do

Sequencing?

• Babies

• Toddlers

• Core books and core rhymes

• Different implications in different areas of learning

Getting the balance right

Depth

Implications

• Check that children are secure in their understanding and skills and give them plenty of time for enjoyment and practice

• Don’t put so much emphasis on coverage

Implications• The new Development Matters is deliberately briefer. That

gives you more scope to plan a curriculum that meets the needs of the children and families you are working with

• It’s guidance to support you in developing your curriculum.

• It’s not the curriculum, or everything you want children to do and know

How can we make sure that the Early Years Curriculum is inclusive? So that every child can thrive?

Models of disability

Vs.

Core books- Adapting what we have on offer

- WhatsApp messages to parents, suggesting what they can do at home

- “Live” and linked to children’s interests

Forest school for a child with SEND

Working with other agencies

Thoughts from Laurence

• Laurence works as a customer services professional

• He talks about the importance of inclusion from his early years and throughout his schooling

The curriculum

what we want children to

learn

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3. The curriculum: what we want children to learn 

•  The curriculum is a top-level plan of everything the early years setting wants the 

children to learn.  

•  Planning to help every child to develop their language is vital. 

•  The curriculum needs to be ambitious. Careful sequencing will help children to 

build their learning over time.  

•  Young children’s learning is often driven by their interests. Plans need to be 

flexible.  

•  Babies and young children do not develop in a fixed way. Their development is 

like a spider’s web with many strands, not a straight line. 

•  Depth in early learning is much more important than covering lots of things in a 

superficial way. 

4. Pedagogy: helping children to learn 

•  Children are powerful learners. Every child can make progress in their learning, 

with the right help.  

•  Effective pedagogy is a mix of different approaches. Children learn through play, 

by adults modelling, by observing each other, and through guided learning and 

direct teaching.  

•  Practitioners carefully organise enabling environments for high-quality play. 

Sometimes, they make time and space available for children to invent their own 

play. Sometimes, they join in to sensitively support and extend children’s 

learning.  

•  Children in the early years also learn through group work, when practitioners 

guide their learning.   

•  Older children need more of this guided learning.  

•  A well-planned learning environment, indoors and outside, is an important aspect 

of pedagogy. 

5. Assessment: checking what children have learnt 

•  Assessment is about noticing what children can do and what they know. It is not 

about lots of data and evidence.  

What’s driving what we do?

• We are - we know the children, their families and the community. We’ve decided what sort of resources, provision and routines will work best. We’ve set out the key things which we want children to know and be able to do. We use assessment to help us check the children are learning well and check that our provision is working effectively.

What’s driving what we do?

• Our assessment system is - we constantly monitor and track our children. Where we see a gap in their learning we plan something to fill that gap. We make sure we have all the evidence we need.

  6 

3. The curriculum: what we want children to learn 

•  The curriculum is a top-level plan of everything the early years setting wants the 

children to learn.  

•  Planning to help every child to develop their language is vital. 

•  The curriculum needs to be ambitious. Careful sequencing will help children to 

build their learning over time.  

•  Young children’s learning is often driven by their interests. Plans need to be 

flexible.  

•  Babies and young children do not develop in a fixed way. Their development is 

like a spider’s web with many strands, not a straight line. 

•  Depth in early learning is much more important than covering lots of things in a 

superficial way. 

4. Pedagogy: helping children to learn 

•  Children are powerful learners. Every child can make progress in their learning, 

with the right help.  

•  Effective pedagogy is a mix of different approaches. Children learn through play, 

by adults modelling, by observing each other, and through guided learning and 

direct teaching.  

•  Practitioners carefully organise enabling environments for high-quality play. 

Sometimes, they make time and space available for children to invent their own 

play. Sometimes, they join in to sensitively support and extend children’s 

learning.  

•  Children in the early years also learn through group work, when practitioners 

guide their learning.   

•  Older children need more of this guided learning.  

•  A well-planned learning environment, indoors and outside, is an important aspect 

of pedagogy. 

5. Assessment: checking what children have learnt 

•  Assessment is about noticing what children can do and what they know. It is not 

about lots of data and evidence.  

  7 

•  Effective assessment requires practitioners to understand child development. 

Practitioners also need to be clear about what they want children to know and be 

able to do.  

•  Accurate assessment can highlight whether a child has a special educational 

need and needs extra help.   

•  Before assessing children, it’s a good idea to think about whether the 

assessments will be useful.  

•  Assessment should not take practitioners away from the children for long periods 

of time. 

6. Self-regulation and executive function 

•  Executive function includes the child’s ability to: 

o  hold information in mind 

o  focus their attention  

o  regulate their behaviour 

o  plan what to do next. 

•  These abilities contribute to the child’s growing ability to self-regulate: 

o  focus their thinking 

o  monitor what they are doing and adapt 

o  regulate strong feelings 

o  be patient for what they want 

o  bounce back when things get difficult.  

•  Language development is central to self-regulation: children use language to 

guide their actions and plans. Pretend play gives many opportunities for children 

to focus their thinking, persist and plan ahead.  

7. Partnership with parents  

•  It is important for parents and early years settings to have a strong and respectful 

partnership. This sets the scene for children to thrive in the early years.  

•  This includes listening regularly to parents and giving parents clear information 

about their children’s progress.  

A balanced approach

Proportionate

Works for your setting

Helps you to pick up if children are having difficulties with their development

No ‘one size fits all’

PrinciplesSupports children, their care and learning

Includes the child’s voice and the parent’s voice

Supporting every child and being aware of possible bias

Assessment should serve our curriculum. It shouldn’t drive everything we do.

When they start school:

• children from disadvantaged backgrounds are, on average, 4 months behind their peers.

• children with SEND are, on average, 15 months behind their peers

Improving children’s health: more important now than ever

• What might be the future risks for children in the early years who are already in poor health?

These statistics are from Professor Hassan Vally. They relate to Covid-19 cases in the US and are used to make a general point which is not specific to the UK.

Improving children’s health: more important now than ever

• 22% of children in reception are overweight or obese

• There is a clear link between child poverty and levels of obesity

• There is also a clear link between child poverty and outcomes at the end of the EYFS

• These figures predate the impact of Covid-19 on communities and on child poverty

Source: Public Health England (2020)

Source: Department for Education, EYFSP results in 2019

What does this tell us?

‘Data’ can be misleading, especially when we are driven by targets to ‘move children from one band in Development Matters to the next’ or ‘achieve 75% Good Level of Development’

The Revised Development Matters says 🔽🔽🔽

The importance of feedback

Checkpoints

What about children with SEND?

Reading and reflection point: the problem with assessment using age-bands

Considerations

• What exactly are the barriers to the child’s learning?

• What changes can we make to help the child overcome those barriers?

• How can celebrate each child’s learning?

• To answer these questions, assessments need to be precise

The right tools for the job• The checkpoints can be useful for reflection

• You will need to spend additional time observing the child

• What are their strengths? Interests? What’s difficult?

• Liaise closely with parents

• Involve others, if available, e.g. health visitors

• Use a more detailed assessment tool e.g. Universally Speaking if you’re concerned about a child’s communication

Reading and reflection point

What about Ofsted?

Early adopter feedback

‘You play with your children so much more and collect meaningful and purposeful data’

Early adopter feedback

‘Trusted to make judgements about children and be present in their learning without worrying about the evidence.’

Early adopter feedback

‘Allows you to spend more time having conversations with the children!’

Early adopter feedback

‘Is definitely playing with and spending more quality time with the children’

Early adopter feedback

‘Spending more time with the children, not being overwhelmed with lots of ticklists. Being trusted.’

Early adopter feedback

‘Time with the children, less paperwork and freedom to go with the children in the moment more.’

‘Yes – and understanding that they will get where they need to be because of that, not in spite of it.’

Keep building on your strengths

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!

Leading change

Leading change

Effective professional development gives practitioners a secure grounding in:

Content

• how children develop and learn

• what children need to learn (content)

• how to help children’s learning (pedagogy)

Interactions with children

• how to support children’s emotional wellbeing

• how to listen to children, have conversations with them, and build their language and vocabulary

• how to encourage children’s early learning. This includes supportive, thoughtful and gently challenging interactions

• how to respond appropriately to children’s individual, cultural and developmental needs

Trusting teachers and early years educators

as professionals

Free download at development-matters.org.uk

Early Adopter Facebook group

Foundation Years Website

Foundation Stage Forum

Famly

PACEY: EY Smart

ICAN: supporting children’s communication with the revised Development Matters

Childcare.co.uk: video interview

Blog: Assessment beyond levels in the early years –improving learning for all children

Nursery World: EYFS guidance – the big picture

Time for questions