From September, all schools in England will be reporting their early years performance against a whole new set of criteria.

The key change is structural.  The Age Ranges and key checkpoints have changed, as shown in this image.

As a result, the Development Matters content (i.e. the list of ‘can do’ statements) has also changed. The revised content was used during the 2020 pilot of the new scheme and this has not been modified since the pilot review.  So it is probably safe to assume that this is what the DfE want you to use in the coming years (although, in theory, the content detail is up to you).

With typical woolly thinking, the DfE encourages school ‘not to use the new scheme as a checklist’, but then includes ‘Observation Checkpoints, a Reception Age Baseline and a set of ELGs, which is clearly a checklist. So make of that what you will.

The new scheme – in a couple of different layouts, is available in Earwig from now. If you would like to check out both versions, in detail, just head on over to the Earwig Framework Library and put ‘EYFS’ into the search box.

If you use Earwig, contact Mark at Customer Services to get your new scheme switched on and to discus the transition from the old one.

If you are not yet an Earwig customer, now is the perfect time to make the leap. We can help you to archive your old scheme data and get you and your staff trained up to use Earwig and make teaching evidence and pupil assessment, as well as tracking, reports and analytics, a breeze! Just contact us to arrange a free online demonstration.

(Want to know what other SEN schools think of Earwig? Check out EdTech Impact)