7 Areas of Learning

Personal, social and emotional development is one of the three prime areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This area supports children in developing a strong, positive sense of themselves, and of others. PSED supports children in learning how to get on with others and make friends, understand and talk about feelings as well as how to effectively manage them.

The key areas are: Making relationships, Self – confidence and self-awareness and Managing feelings and behaviour.

Early Learning Goal

Making relationships – Children play cooperatively, taking turns with others. They take account of one another’s ideas about to how to organise their activities. They show sensitivity to others needs and feelings, and form positive relationships with adults and other children.

Self Confidence and Self-awareness – Children are confident to try new activities., and say why they like some activities more than others. They are confident to speak in a familiar group, will talk about their ideas, and will choose resources they need for their chosen activities. They say when they do or don’t need help.

Managing feelings and behaviour – Children talk about how they and others show feelings, talk about their own and others behaviour, and its consequences, and know that some behaviour is unacceptable. They work as part of a group or class, and understand and follow the rules. They adjust their behaviour to different situations, and take changes of routine in their stride.

Physical development is one of the three prime areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

This area of learning encourages children to be interactive and active in their learning and develop control, coordination and movement. They are supported in understanding the importance of physical activity and how to make informed healthy choices at meal times.

The key areas are: Fine and Gross motor skills, Understanding healthy living and Managing self care.

Early Learning Goal

Moves and Handling – Children to show good control and coordination in large and small movements. They move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space. They handle equipment and tools effectively, including pencils for writing.

Health and Self-care – Children know the importance for good health of physical exercise, and manage a healthy diet, and talk about ways to keep healthy and safe. They manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs successfully, including dressing and going to the toilet independently.

Communication and language is one of the three prime areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Communication and language development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.

The key areas are: Listening and Attention, Understanding and Speaking.

Early Learning Goal

Listens and pays attention – These skills support language learning and include the ability to discriminate sounds and maintain and monitor attention in a shared context.

Understands what is being said – Young children gradually develop the ability to understand words in context, beginning with single words and building on this with phrases and more and more complex sentences.

Communicates with others, develops vocabulary and speech – This allows children to express their feelings, needs and wants, their thoughts and ideas and be able to talk about what has happened and about creative or imaginative events.

Mathematics is one of the four specific areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

Children are provided with opportunities to develop and improve counting skills, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems and to describe shapes, space and measures.

The key areas within Mathematics are: Numbers and Shape Space and Measure.

Early Learning Goal

Numbers – Children count reliably with numbers from one to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single- digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, having and sharing.

Shape, Space and Measure – Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problem. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them.

Writing, along with reading, makes up literacy, and is one of the four specific areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This area Encourages children to link sounds and letters and begin to read and write. Kids Corner Preschool Children have access to a wide range of reading materials such as books, poems and other written materials which is very important in order to ignite their interest in reading and writing.

The key areas within literacy are: Reading and Writing

Early Learning Goal

Reading – Children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

Writing – Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.

Understanding the world is one of the four specific areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This area Involves supporting children in making sense of the world around them and their community by providing opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.

The key areas within Understanding the world are: People and Communities, The World and Technology.

Early Learning Goal

People and Communities – Early Learning Goal: Children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know that other children don’t always enjoy the same things, and are sensitive to this. They know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions.

The World – Children know about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. They talk about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. They make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur, and talk about changes.

Technology – Children recognise that a range of technology is used in places such as homes and schools. They select and use technology for particular purposes.

Expressive arts and design is one of the four specific areas within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Expressive Arts and Design involves supporting children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas, and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

In the EYFS framework, Expressive Arts and Design is made up of two aspects: Exploring and using media and materials and Being Imaginative.

Early Learning Goal

On how children experiment with media and materials, finding out about their properties and modifying and manipulating them. It includes exploring sounds, patterns, movement and different tools and techniques.

On how children’s explorations into the world of pretence, building on their experiences of the real world and transforming them into something new – whether through role play, music, pretend play, block play or small world play or a range of other areas.