Early Years Foundation Stage

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a term defined in Section 39 of the British government's Childcare Act 2006. The EYFS comprises a set of Welfare Requirements and a set of Learning and Development Requirements, which must be followed by providers of care for children below 5 years old - the age of compulsory education in the United Kingdom. The Welfare and Learning and Development requirements are not specified in the Act but in separate Orders

The legislation is due to take effect from September 2008. The Welfare requirements apply to the whole of the UK, but the Learning and Development requirements apply only in England.

All childcare providers, including childminders, nurseries, kindergartens and pre-school classes, are obliged to register under the Childcare Act in order to operate legally. To become and remain registered they must comply with the Welfare requirements, and with the L&D requirements for settings in England (except where exempted).

The Learning and Development requirements (applicable in England only) are unusual in principle in imposing compulsory educational targets
 * 1) for children below the age of compulsory education, and
 * 2) on providers outside the state system and not receiving state funding.

Learning and Development requirements controversy
The L&D targets are controversial in not being generally accepted by experts in child development and education as being appropriate for this age group. They include literacy requirements that 5 year olds should: There are similar levels of requirements for numeracy.
 * readily use written language in their play and learning
 * use phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words
 * show an understanding of how information can be found in non-fiction texts to answer questions about where, who, why and how
 * begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation

There is a body of professional opinion that attempting to push under-5s into early literacy is ineffective or even counterproductive, possibly even producing reading difficulties in some children through the experience of early failure , and other problems including ADHD. It is reported that schools in Scandinavian and other countries, and Steiner schools , where children start school at 6 or 7 years old, produce better academic results.

Apart from the question of whether the L&D targets are appropriate for the age group, there is controversy over the prescriptive nature of the curriculum, burdensome nature of the assessments of children they demand and stress inflicted upon young children by the curriculum and assessment (as with SATs to which older children are subjected).

Exemptions
The Childcare Act makes provision for exemptions from the Learning and development requirements for
 * 1) settings, under section 46(1)
 * 2) children individually, under section 46(2)

The circumstances under which exemptions may be granted are to be stipulated in the Early Years Foundation Stage (Exemptions from Learning and Development Requirements) Order, which as of 20th June 2008 had not yet been laid before Parliament.

Consultation
The Department for Children, Schools and Families conducted a consultation on the EYFS Learning and Development Exemptions, between 1st March and 24th May 2007. Respondents were invited to give their views on the circumstances accepted as possible grounds for exemption and the process by which exemptions could be obtained.

The proposed circumstances were:

The DCSF response to the consultation considered the first and third circumstances only:

"Flexibility" of EYFS
In the consultation document, response form and their consultation response the DCSF asserts that "the EYFS is sufficiently flexible to accommodate a range of early years approaches".

Campaigns against EYFS
Despite the government's claims for the benefits and flexibility of the EYFS many educators and childcare experts have expressed concern about the impact of the EYFS and called for changes to it.

OpenEYE
The OpenEYE campaign gives as reason for its formation:

The campaign was launched on 30th November 2007 with an open letter published in the Times Educational Supplement. Signatories included Tim Brighouse, Margaret Edgington, Dr Richard House, Dr Penelope Leach and Sue Palmer. The letter and petition express concern at the "harm likely to be done to young children due to the framework’s contestable assumptions and unintended consequences" and calls for an "independent review of the compulsory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) policy framework, and [reduction of] the status of its learning and development requirements to ‘professional guidelines’". An Early Day Motion - No. 1031 - expresses similar claims and calls.

Save Steiner Schools
Steiner-Waldorf schools, kindergartens and representatives have been particularly concerned about the impact of the EYFS and have been campaigning against it. A group of parents of children at Wynstones Steiner-Waldorf school's kindergarten set up the Save Steiner Schools campaign "to provide a focus for campaigning to stop the UK government forcing all Steiner Waldorf and other kindergartens and nurseries to implement the Early Years Foundation Stage requirements."

The Steiner-Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF) has also been lobbying the DCSF, and latterly co-ordinating a campaign of parents at Steiner kindergartens and schools writing to their MPs about the issue.