Owning your Early Years curriculum

The curriculum is a multi-layered, child-centred framework

The concept of curriculum in Early Years is framed not as a rigid programme but as a multi-layered structure built from families, environments, and the unique child at its centre. Your curriculum already exists in what your Early Years educators do daily, and reclaiming it means grounding it in real children's needs rather than top-down prescription.

Cultural capital and family knowledge

Understanding what children and families bring to Early Years settings is the essential first layer of any curriculum, directly shaping how learning is designed and delivered. Early Years practitioners are urged to avoid assumptions and instead build learning and development experiences on each child's genuine knowledge, interests, and home experiences.

Physical and emotional environments as curriculum

The physical and emotional environments are identified as inseparable components of curriculum design, each sending messages to children about what is valued and enabling or inhibiting areas of learning. Early learning and frontal lobe development happen through emotionally secure, enabling environments and are foundational to later academic learning.

Child-led inquiry and the knowledgeable, listening adult

Children's own questions and interests are highlighted as powerful curriculum drivers, with educators needing to remain open and responsive rather than delivering fixed content. Setting the bar too low or ignoring children's curiosity undermines how children learn and the depth that a curriculum can achieve.

Curriculum documentation and Ofsted

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) does not prescribe a specific way settings should document their curriculum. However, if it helps you as a setting, you can create a document articulating what children will be able to do upon leaving a setting and how you'll get them there. The emphasis is on broad, open-ended outcomes rather than narrow, capped targets.