The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the statutory framework that sets standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to five in England. It defines seven areas of learning, three prime areas and four specific areas, three characteristics of effective teaching and learning, and seventeen early learning goals that children are assessed against at the end of the reception year, alongside safeguarding and welfare requirements for settings.
Outside England, the EYFS has become the basis of many international and British-curriculum early-years programmes, including in Vietnam. That raises questions for teachers and school leaders: what is statutory in England but optional elsewhere, what the framework does and does not prescribe about teaching, and how it can sit alongside a national programme. This article answers those questions.
Where the EYFS came from
The EYFS was introduced in England in September 2008, under the Childcare Act 2006, bringing together earlier frameworks for different age groups into a single framework from birth to five. It applies to all registered early-years providers in England, including nurseries, preschools, childminders and the reception classes of schools, which children usually join in the year they turn five.
The framework has been revised several times. A review led by Dame Clare Tickell in 2011 led to a revised framework in 2012 that introduced the distinction between prime and specific areas and reduced the number of early learning goals. A significant reform took effect in September 2021, rewriting the early learning goals, reducing paperwork and placing more weight on professional judgement and on children’s communication and language. Further updates have followed, so practitioners should always check the current version published by the Department for Education.
Alongside the statutory framework sit non-statutory guidance documents. Development Matters, published by the government and revised for the 2021 reforms, and Birth to 5 Matters, produced by a coalition of sector organisations, both offer guidance on children’s development and how to support it. Schools are free to use either, or neither.
The seven areas of learning
The EYFS divides learning into three prime areas, considered particularly important for igniting curiosity and building relationships, and four specific areas through which the prime areas are strengthened and applied.
| Type | Area | What it covers, broadly |
|---|---|---|
| Prime | Communication and language | Listening, attention, understanding, speaking; rich back-and-forth conversation |
| Prime | Personal, social and emotional development | Self-regulation, managing self, building relationships |
| Prime | Physical development | Gross and fine motor skills, health and self-care |
| Specific | Literacy | Comprehension, word reading, writing |
| Specific | Mathematics | Number, numerical patterns |
| Specific | Understanding the world | Past and present, people and communities, the natural world |
| Specific | Expressive arts and design | Creating with materials, being imaginative and expressive |
The prime areas are the focus for the youngest children, with the specific areas growing in importance as children approach reception. The framework expects practitioners to plan for all seven, but it does not prescribe activities, timetables or teaching methods. That openness is easy to overlook, and it is why EYFS settings can look very different from one another.
The characteristics of effective teaching and learning
Playing and exploring. Children investigate and experience things, and are willing to have a go. This characteristic describes engagement: finding out, playing with what they know, and being willing to take a risk with something new.
Active learning. Children concentrate, keep trying when they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements. It describes motivation: being involved, persisting, and gaining satisfaction from meeting one’s own goals.
Creating and thinking critically. Children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things. It describes thinking: having ideas, making connections, and choosing ways to do things.
How they appear in planning. The framework asks practitioners to reflect on these characteristics when planning, so a good plan says not only what children will encounter but how the environment and adult interaction will invite exploration, persistence and original ideas. Observation notes that mention the characteristics help the team see whether that invitation is working.
Reading the three characteristics together
The three characteristics are not separate lessons to be ticked off. They describe how a single episode of play unfolds. A child who notices that water runs faster down a steep gutter is playing and exploring; when she keeps adjusting the angle after the water spills over the side, she is showing active learning; when she decides to add a second gutter to slow the water down, she is creating and thinking critically. Practitioners who observe with all three in mind tend to notice much more in a few minutes of play than those who look only for progress toward a specific goal.
For teams, a useful habit is to describe each observation in terms of at least one characteristic as well as an area of learning. Over time this builds a shared language for talking about how children learn, which is especially valuable in mixed teams of teachers trained in different systems.
Why the characteristics matter more than they seem
Teachers new to the EYFS often focus on the seven areas and the early learning goals, because those look like content. The characteristics of effective teaching and learning describe how children learn rather than what, and they are arguably the more important part of the framework for daily practice. A child who is curious, persistent and willing to try new ideas will make progress across all seven areas; a child who has learned to wait for instructions will struggle even with well-planned content.
In practice this means that a strong EYFS setting gives children long periods of play with open-ended resources, a mix of adult-guided and child-initiated activity, and adults who interact in ways that extend thinking. The framework itself says that each area must be implemented through planned, purposeful play and a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activity, with a gradual shift toward more adult-led activity as children prepare for year one.
This balance is where much professional debate happens. Some practitioners argue for a strongly child-led model in the early years, while others, especially in reception, emphasise direct teaching of early reading through systematic phonics, which is a strong expectation in English schools. A school using the EYFS abroad has to decide where it sits on that spectrum, and explain its choice to families and teachers.
The early learning goals and the EYFS profile
At the end of the reception year, practitioners in England complete the EYFS profile for each child, judging whether the child is meeting the expected level for each of the seventeen early learning goals, or not yet reaching it. The goals sit under the seven areas: for example, listening, attention and understanding and speaking under communication and language; self-regulation, managing self and building relationships under personal, social and emotional development.
Since the 2021 reforms the profile is meant to be based mainly on the teacher’s knowledge of the child, built through everyday interaction, rather than on extensive evidence collection. There is no longer a category for exceeding the goals. Information from the profile is shared with families and with the year one teacher, and national data are collected in England.
Two points are often misunderstood abroad. First, the goals describe expectations at the end of reception, around age five; they are not targets for younger children and should not be turned into checklists for three-year-olds. Second, the profile is a summary judgement for transition, not a score. Children are not ranked against one another, and settings that use the EYFS outside England have no obligation to complete the profile in the English format.
What it means when a school abroad follows the EYFS
Outside England the EYFS has no legal force. Schools that describe themselves as following it have chosen to use its structure: the seven areas, the characteristics of effective learning and, often, the early learning goals as an end-of-stage reference. Some international schools are inspected by organisations that check standards against English expectations, while others simply use the framework as a curriculum guide.
For families and teachers this means that a British curriculum label can describe a wide range of practice. One school may run a play-based programme with rich outdoor time and careful observation; another may use the area names while running mostly worksheet-based lessons. The label does not reveal which. The useful questions are the same as for any approach: how much of the day is play, how adults interact with children, how progress is observed and shared, and how early literacy is taught.
In Vietnam, preschools that use the EYFS must still operate within national regulations for early childhood education, including the Ministry of Education and Training’s preschool programme where it applies to the school’s licence. Many bilingual schools map the two, showing how EYFS areas correspond to the national programme’s five development areas of physical, cognitive, language, social-emotional and aesthetic development. The correspondence is close in spirit, which makes such mapping a practical rather than a theoretical task.
What other curricula can borrow from the EYFS
Even a school that does not follow the EYFS can learn from it. The prime and specific distinction is a useful way to explain to families why communication, emotional development and physical skills come first in the early years, and why academic content builds on them. The characteristics of effective learning provide a clear vocabulary for describing dispositions, which many curricula mention but few define so precisely.
The 2021 emphasis on reducing evidence-gathering in favour of professional knowledge is also worth noting for any team weighed down by documentation demands. Observation should support teaching, not replace it. The Global Nexus framework, for example, organises development around six dimensions, language, emotion, life skills, independence, creativity and thinking, within the Vietnamese national programme; teams familiar with the EYFS will recognise many of the same priorities expressed in a different structure.
Finally, the EYFS treats welfare, safeguarding and learning as one framework rather than separate documents. That integration is a reminder that care routines such as eating, sleeping, toileting and handwashing are part of early education, not interruptions to it. Many curricula say this; the EYFS writes it into the structure, which makes it harder to forget when timetables become crowded.
Common misreadings of the EYFS in international settings
Because the EYFS is widely used outside its home system, it is also widely misread. The most common misreading is treating the early learning goals as a syllabus for every age. Teachers of three-year-olds are sometimes asked to show evidence against goals designed for the end of reception, which pushes them toward formal activities that the framework itself does not require. The goals are an end point; the route to them, especially for younger children, runs through play, conversation and care.
A second misreading is equating the EYFS with phonics worksheets. Systematic phonics is a strong expectation in English reception classes, but the framework places communication and language among the prime areas and stresses rich conversation, stories and songs. A setting that teaches letter sounds daily but rarely holds extended conversations with children has the priorities backwards.
A third is assuming that evidence must be exhaustive. Before 2021 many English settings collected large quantities of photographs and notes for every child; the reforms explicitly moved away from this. International schools that still demand dozens of observations per child per week are following a practice the framework has abandoned.
A fourth concerns language. The EYFS was written for a mainly English-speaking system, with guidance on supporting children who speak other languages at home. In bilingual schools in Vietnam, the home language is often Vietnamese and English is the additional language. Treating Vietnamese as a resource for communication and thinking, rather than something to switch off at the classroom door, is consistent with the framework’s guidance on supporting home languages.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Is the EYFS a curriculum or a framework?
It is a statutory framework. It sets the areas of learning, the expected outcomes at the end of reception and the welfare requirements, but it does not prescribe a timetable, specific activities or a single teaching method. Settings design their own curriculum within it, which is why EYFS classrooms can look quite different from one another.
What age does the EYFS cover?
It covers children from birth to five in England, ending at the end of the reception year, which children usually complete in the school year in which they turn five. Year one, which follows reception, is part of the national curriculum for primary schools rather than the EYFS.
How many early learning goals are there?
Since the 2021 reforms there are seventeen early learning goals spread across the seven areas of learning. At the end of reception, practitioners in England judge whether each child is meeting the expected level for each goal or not yet reaching it, based mainly on their professional knowledge of the child.
Do schools outside England have to follow the EYFS exactly?
No. The EYFS has legal force only in England. International schools that adopt it choose how closely to follow it, and many adapt it to local law, language and culture. In Vietnam, schools also operate within national regulations for early childhood education and often map the EYFS onto the national programme.
What is the difference between Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters?
Both are non-statutory guidance documents that support the EYFS. Development Matters is published by the Department for Education, while Birth to 5 Matters was produced by a coalition of early-years sector organisations. They describe typical development and ways to support it, and settings may use either, combine them or use neither.
Does the EYFS require children to read by the end of reception?
The literacy early learning goals describe expectations such as reading simple sentences and writing recognisable letters by the end of reception. These are expectations for the end of the stage, not requirements for every child, and many children reach them at different times. The profile records whether a child is meeting the expected level, without scores or rankings.