As I cast my eye once again over the new early learning goals (ELGs), one of the key areas that has a significant change is in maths. 

My gut feeling is that sadly some of the new goals are not pitched at an appropriate level for reception children. 

While the assessment goals have always been separate from the EYFS framework, we tend to be able to see a connection with the curriculum that we provide and the relative ELGs skills. However, the new ELGs seem to be disconnected to the guidance detailing how young children actually learn.  

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Early learning goals for maths: what you need to know

What has changed?

Well, to begin with, there is an obvious omission of shape, space and measure, which actually, should hold plenty of value within children’s learning experiences and assessment. In my school we will continue to teach these important aspects.

The new goals are all about numbers and subdivided into two headings of number and numerical patterns. The wording and the focus of the assessment goals themselves seem to represent quite a shift in direction.

There will be a much greater emphasis under the number aspect of a “deeper understanding of number to 10”. I do welcome this focus, although there is a confusing contradiction with another assessment goal relating to children verbally counting beyond 20. It all seems very muddled.

Within numbers, we also have the introduction of the word “subitise” - a concept we are becoming familiar with in EYFS.

Jack Hartman has even created a song about it but, to save you the pain of listening to another Jack Hartman song, the skill of subitising, if you are unfamiliar with it, is the ability to immediately recognise a quantity without counting. I’m noticing that children who have lots of experience of playing with dice seem to master this quite quickly

The goals also say we will need to assess children’s ability to “automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.”

Wow: that does feel quite different. It smacks to me of rote learning, especially with the reference to children mastering the skill without aids. 

Many children will need some form of visual props. As an early years teacher, puppets, rhymes, pictures and stories are some of my most important tools. Yes, it is impressive when the children begin to move beyond visual aids, but it absolutely should not be the standard expectation for all children of this age.

Let’s remember how young children learn maths skills: they need to start with the concrete. We begin with what they know, and are familiar with in practical, play-based scenarios. If we begin to work on abstract concepts too early on, we take a huge risk of disengaging children. 

The goals on “numerical patterns” are going to be the most challenging area. Children do naturally enjoy exploring patterns and indeed use patterns to learn and build on their knowledge but “exploring and representing patterns within numbers” seems to be quite a jump forward.

How the new goals will impact your practice

Currently, we can take most aspects of maths and provide learning opportunities for children across a wide range of play contexts.

Counting and addition, for example, can be incorporated into pretty much any aspect of play. We can be versatile and play isn’t compromised.

What is different about the new goals is that there are some areas that don’t lend themselves quite so easily to child-initiated learning. If we take the goal referencing number bonds, for example, I cannot imagine that “automatic recall without aids” fits so well.

So what can we do? Let’s look at the bigger picture. We should avoid narrowing our curriculum and continue to include all of the rich opportunities we feel are vital to the foundations of learning. Most importantly, we need to start with the child and draw on our knowledge of how they learn best.

Overall, I am interested to see the exemplification materials and to hear feedback from colleagues on this. Sometimes the goals are open to interpretation and I hope that some context and examples will be reassuring.

I hear that across many schools, children, understandably, have not achieved the ELGs this year and that among the early adopter schools, maths has been particularly problematic.

Clearly, then, it is important that any further changes are understood and teachers tackle them in a way that best suits the needs of their class.