All children from our Little Lions to K2 (2.6 to 5 years old), who attend the Harrow Early Years Centre, follow the UK's Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, or the EYFS. 

Effective learning and teaching in the EYFS curriculum is built on four guiding themes:

A Unique Child - recognises that every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
The commitments are focused around development; inclusion; safety; and health and well-being.

Positive Relationships - describes how children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person. The commitments are focused around respect; partnership with parents; supporting learning; and the role of the key person.

Enabling Environments - explains that the physical environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's developmentand

 learning. The commitments are focused around observation, assessment and planning; support for every child; the learning environment; and the wider context–transitions, continuity, and multi-agency working.

Learning and Development - recognises that children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates, and that all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected.

Play underpins the delivery of the EYFS curriculum and all learning and development of young children. It is through play that children develop intellectually, creatively, physically, socially and emotionally.

The EYFS curriculum identifies what children should achieve across six areas of learning and development. Our teachers follow a development pathway for individual children to gain knowledge, skills and understanding in each area. The areas 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.

Achievement and progress across these six areas of learning is monitored and recorded through ongoing assessment and takes the form of the EYFS Progress record which is started in Pre-K and built on during K1 and K2. The record tracks your child's progress as they work towards achieving the early learning goals. Teachers use observational assessment to gauge a child's level of development and understanding. The record is a picture of what a child has achieved, knows and can do. The record contains comments on your child's progress in the areas of learning and development, photographs of your child at work and play in the school environment, and pieces of work. This form of assessment not only keeps you up to date with your child's progress, but also informs the teacher's planning and ensures that each child's learning experiences are based on individual needs. The EYFS progress record is shared with parents termly at Parent consultations.