Advice about planning in the Early Years Foundation Stage remains one of the most common searches on our editorial database. The EYFS guidance has rightly placed an emphasis on planning around the individual child and children's interests, but what is hard for some practitioners to grasp is what this look likes 'on the ground'.
Help is at hand in this week's four-page special feature, 'Follow me!' by Di Chilvers, now an EYFS regional adviser (pages 18-21). It explains what happened when one Sheffield nursery let children's interests lead the curriculum planning. The huge benefits that flowed from this way of working are clear to see and will go a long way to removing practitioner concerns about planning around the individual child and what child-initiated learning really means in practice.
The Sheffield project was funded by the CWDC's Practitioner-Led Research Programme and is just one of the ways in which the organisation is trying to raise standards across the early years sector. In news (page 3), we look at CWDC plans to incorporate nannies into its workforce strategies. Our analysis (pages 10-11) sets out its plans to revise the list of 'full and relevant' qualifications for staff working in the EYFS, and in our centre pages we have a special CWDC section on Early Years Professional Status.
The better qualified the practitioners, the more they will 'see' children's learning, the more confident they will become in giving children control over their learning and the more committed and able they will be to allow children to fulfil their potential.
