Childcare and Education
Child/Staff Ratios
The child/staff ratios are set by the governing body Ofsted, who are responsible for the registration and inspection of the centre. The manager will always work with the team and supply agencies to ensure these ratios are met at all times.
Staff holiday and sickness absence is monitored closely to ensure these requirements are met.
One member of staff:
- For every three children under two
- For every four children aged between two and three years
- For every eight children over the age of three
Education
The Early Years Foundation Stage
What is the Early Years Foundation Stage?
- The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a stage of children’s development from birth to the end of their first (Reception) year in school
- The EYFS Framework describes how early years practitioners should work with children and their families to support their development and learning
- It describes how your child should be kept safe and cared for and how all concerned can make sure that your child achieves the most that they can in their earliest years of life
The overarching aim of the EYFS is to help young children achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes of: Staying Safe, Being Healthy, Enjoying and Achieving, Making a Positive Contribution and Achieving Economic Well-being by:
Setting the standards for the learning, development and care young children should experience when they are attending a setting outside their family home, ensuring that every child makes progress and that no child gets left behind.
Providing for equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice and ensuring that every child is included and not disadvantaged because of their ethnicity, culture or religion, home language, family background, learning difficulties or disabilities, gender or ability.
Creating the framework for partnership working between parents and professionals and between all the settings that the child attends.
Improving quality and consistency in the early years sector through a universal set of standards which apply to all settings, ending distinction between care and learning in the existing frameworks, and providing the basis for the inspection and regulation regime.
Laying a secure foundation for future learning through learning and development that is planned around the individual needs and interests of the child, and informed by the use of ongoing observational assessment.
The six areas of learning and development are:
- Personal, social and emotional development
- Communication, language and literacy
- Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy
- Knowledge and understanding of the world
- Physical development
- Creative development
None of these areas of Leaning and Development can be delivered in isolation from the others. They are all equally important and depend on each other to support a rounded approach to child development. All the areas will be delivered through planned, purposeful play with a balance of adult led and child-initiated activities.
The Early Years Foundation Stage is based on four important principles...
What are the EYFS principles?
Theme: A Unique Child
Principle: Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
Theme: Positive Relationships
Principle: Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.
Theme: Enabling Environments
Principle: The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning.
Theme: Learning and Development
Principle: Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of Learning and Development are equally important and interconnected.
Each principle applies to all children from birth. Each principle is supported by four commitments that describe how the principle can be put into practice.
