Nursery World - Welsh Foundation Phase practice varies widely

A review of the Foundation Phase, the curriculum for Welsh primary children, reveals a large variation in practice across settings and areas of learning.

The Government-funded research, a series of reports into the effectiveness of the curriculum on children’s learning, highlights variances in the number of child observations being made by staff, the use of outdoor learning and child-initiated play.

The Welsh Foundation Phase was introduced in 2011 for children aged three to seven and has an emphasis on ‘learning by doing’.

According to Cardiff University, which interviewed and surveyed practitioners and teachers in nurseries and schools in Wales, staff in funded, non-maintained settings were found to be observing children less frequently than staff in schools.

Most commonly, the older the year group, the less often Foundation Phase pedagogies, such as child choice, physical activity, outdoor learning and continuous provision, were seen.

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