A third of leaders have told the Department for Education that it was “too early to tell” whether the government’s early years reforms would have a positive impact on children’s transition into Year 1, a new report has revealed.
The DfE has today published a research report on the impact of reform to the early years foundation stage framework that was introduced in 2021.
At the time, the DfE said the changes aimed to improve outcomes for children at the age of 5, particularly in early language and literacy, and to reduce workload such as unnecessary paperwork.
Here are five key findings from today’s research report into the impact of the changes.
1. Many staff think it’s ‘too early to say’ if reforms will help
The report says that a third of leaders in Reception and in school-based settings said that it was too early to say whether the reforms would help pupils move up into Year 1.
It found that a slightly higher proportion of Reception staff (38 per cent) thought the reforms would have a positive impact. Just 6 per cent said they thought the reforms would have a negative impact and 21 per cent said they would have little or no impact.
The DfE report says the majority of leaders and staff from all settings reported that the reforms had or will have a positive impact on children’s learning and development.
Just over one-third of leaders from Reception and school-based settings thought that the reforms were likely to have a positive impact on children’s transition from Reception to Year 1, but a similar proportion thought it was too early to tell.
2. Majority of providers have changed curriculum approach
Almost all leaders (98 per cent) in Reception and school-based settings reported that they had reviewed their curriculum/learning and development approach as a result of the reforms.
This was followed by actually making changes to their curriculum/learning and development approach (94 per cent in Reception and school-based settings).
More than four in five of these leaders had put less focus on observation and tracking and more focus on spending time with children (89 per cent in school-based settings and 88 per cent in Reception settings).
The second most common curriculum change was a greater focus on communication and language, which was followed by the majority of school-based settings (81 per cent) and over two-thirds of leaders in Reception (76 per cent).
3. Improved teaching and more time with children
Most school-based and Reception settings reported that teaching had improved as a result of the 2021 EYFS reforms.
This was largely due to less time spent working on assessment paperwork, allowing most staff (86 per cent of school-based leaders and 84 per cent of Reception leaders) to spend more time with children as a result.
Parent-staff communications were also said to have improved as a result of staff spending less time on paperwork.
Reducing “unnecessary assessment paperwork for practitioners and teachers” was an original aim of the government’s EYFS reforms.
However, some respondents reported that they were still spending time filling out assessment paperwork “because the school or leadership team felt that assessment paperwork was still needed to monitor the children’s progress effectively”.
4. More work needed to meet needs of children with SEND
An area of concern raised was whether the reforms catered sufficiently for children with SEND, or other additional needs such as English as an additional language (EAL).
Less than half of school-based leaders (46 per cent) and Reception leaders (45 per cent) believed that children with SEND were benefiting from the reforms.
Some leaders felt that the early learning goals (ELGs) needed to be less specific. This was particularly challenging for children with SEND, who were consistently not making the required progress when examined against the ELGs.
The report also found that some participants did not agree that a broad approach to assessments, as set out in the EYFS reforms, worked well for children with SEND.
This is because it is “too difficult to plot the progression of children with SEND” against the new framework, the report says
Some also noted that the transition into key stage 1 can still be difficult for some children, who need more support after EYFS.
5. Mixed response to local authority moderation ending
One part of the EYFS reforms introduced in 2021 was the removal of local authority statutory moderation. Before 2021, councils had to externally moderate assessments against the early years foundation stage profile in 25 per cent of settings in their areas.
More than half of council respondents to DfE research believe this change had a negative impact on the consistency of EYFS data - and more than a quarter saw a reduction in contact with early years teachers as a result.
But some early years respondents reported that the removal of the statutory moderation reduced stress and pressure on staff. This was the case for 18 per cent of school-based leaders and 16 per cent of Reception leaders.
More than one in five early years providers said that scrapping the LA statutory moderation had no impact on schools (21 per cent of Reception settings and 24 per cent of school-based settings).
