EYFS 2021 – new report template, DM 2020 renamed, Bto5 flags and reference material, monitoring screens

[Lauren]

You may have seen over the last few months that we’ve added some features for the early adopters of the new EYFS. Those were:

• New flag sets (under the EYFS 2020 heading).
   
• The Development Matters 2020 Areas of Concern screen
   
• The ELG 2020 EYFSP form.

We have now released some further changes to introduce the Birth to 5 Matters guidance, tweak the Areas of Concern screen, add a new thoroughness screen, and add a new a report template. I’ll go through each of those below.

 

Name changes to new EYFS features

Today we have changed the names of some of the features mentioned above. We wanted to reflect the year the EYFS reforms officially come into use and enable the use of the features with other guidance (for example Birth to 5 Matters).
 

• The flag sets will now be called:

- EYFS 2021 (rather than Development Matters Guidance 2020)

- ELG 2021 (rather than Early Learning Goals 2020)

- CoETL 2021 (rather than CoETL 2020).
 

• The Areas of Concern screen will now be called ‘EYFS 2021 Areas of Concerns’ (rather than DM 2020 Areas of Concerns) and that will be found under EYFS 2021 in the tracking tab (rather than under DM 2020).
   
• The EYFSP form will be called ELG 2021 EYFSP and will be found under ELG 2021 in the tracking tab (rather than ELG 2020).

This won’t impact any data you’ve collected using those features up to now, that will all still be there.

 

New flags and reference material for Birth to 5 Matters

The newly renamed EYFS 2021 flags have expanded to include the additional aspects used in Birth to 5 Matters. They are nested into the original flag set to show which area they relate to. You can access and select them by clicking on the ‘plus’ button next to the original flags.

 

You can select as many EYFS 2021 flags as you like, you’re not limited to only the nested ones or only the top level ones.

Although the names of these flags were chosen based on the Bto5 and DM guidance, if you’re not using either of those but the flags are still relevant to you, you can still use them!
 

We have also added reference material for the Bto5 Matters guidance. You will see full materials for ‘A Unique Child’, ‘Enabling Environments’ and ‘Positive Relationships’ as well as range specific ones for each of those. The reference material is weighted so that the ones we think you’ll be interested in move to the top.

 

If you’ve got any feedback on the weighting or on reference material you’d like to see included please get in touch – customer.service@eyfs.info.

 

Addition of Bto5 flags and visibility of flags in the Area of Concerns screen

Observations and Reflections flagged with EYFS 2021 flags already appear in the Areas of Concern screen. Now, you will also be able to see which specific flags have been selected on each observation and reflection.

 

 

Reference material to appear in Reflections

Up to now, reference material has only appeared on observations, but moving forward you’ll be able to see it in the Reflections section too.

 

New report template

We have a new report template: EYFS 2021.

It is very similar to the existing EYFS report template but it does not have the age band and refinement assessment information, leaving only free text boxes for notes and next steps for each area of learning. The ‘Child’, ‘Details’, ‘CoEL’, ‘Additional Information’, ‘Child Voice’, ‘Relative Contribution’, ‘Signature’, and ‘Media’ sections all remain.

It will automatically appear in your list of available templates as long as you have the ‘EYFS 2021’ flags enabled.  

 

New Monitoring Screen

The final addition to this fairly long list of changes is another new monitoring screen for the EYFS 2021 flags. This one is focused on thoroughness. It shows you how many of each child’s observations and reflection have been flagged with each of the EYFS 2021 flags.   

We strongly support the idea that practitioners do not need to make lots and lots of observations and we do not expect educators to try and reach a certain number in each aspect.

We do still think that having a screen like this will be beneficial to educators. It will allow you to quickly see if you’ve made fewer observations in specific areas. It will allow you the opportunity to investigate why that might be and ensure your curriculum is broad and tailored to your children.
Another example of why this screen might be useful to you is if you see a wide disparity in the amount of observations for certain areas, it might point to a lack of confidence in your staff. This means you may want to explore specific CPD options.