Nursery World - EYFS Guidance: Effective Practice, Part 2

In the second part of his series exploring the revised Development Matters guidance, Dr Julian Grenier looks at the newly included terms ‘curriculum’ and ‘pedagogy’ and explains what they mean in the context of high-quality early years provision

Development Matters aims to support practitioners in planning their curriculum

There are two new and important terms in the 2020 revision of Development Matters: ‘curriculum’ and ‘pedagogy’. Neither word features in the previous version of the document, so it is essential that we explore these terms.

Development Matters (2020) defines the curriculum as ‘what we want children to learn’, and pedagogy as ‘helping children to learn’. These two concepts are very closely related at every stage of education, but never more so than in the early years.

Imagine that I am with a child who is plucking up the courage to climb the steps up the hill in our nursery garden. Climbing and balancing are important skills which we have planned into our curriculum. But children also need help to develop the confidence they require to climb and balance.

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