Playwork and the
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
The Early Years Foundation Stage is now a statutory requirement for all schools and Early Years
providers working with children from birth to the end of the academic year in which a child has their fifth birthday.
But of course this will only have an effect in playwork settings where children could be four or five years' old.
Where children in a playwork setting do fall within this age-range, it is very unlikely that that
setting will be the primary care setting for the child, and will not therefore be subject to the same requirements
as, for instance, a school or nursery. It is the child's primary setting (the place where the child spends the
majority of their time between 8am-6pm) which needs to complete the EYFS assessment scales. Ofsted have recently
published a factsheet which describes how playwork settings can meet the EYFS by demonstrating how they are
working to the Playwork Principles.
So the message is clear - if a playwork setting is working to the Playwork Principles, it should
be able to meet EYFS requirements through its daily practice, so playworkers need to be confident in their practice
and to develop ways of demonstrating how they put the Playwork Principles into practice in their settings.
The following links take you to Playwords articles give examples of how this can be done;
 Extract from Playwords Issue 35 Summer 2008 - SkillsActive -
EYFS and Playwork
Extract from Playwords Issue 37 Winter 2008 - Helen Easby -
Meeting the EYFS requirements for the learning environment through play
Extract from Playwords Issue 37 Winter 2008 - Shelly Newstead -
Playwork Principles and how to use them to meet EYFS requirements
Extract from Playwords Issue 38 Spring 2009 - Rebekah Jackson, Cheshire County Council -
Let the children play - how to get your head around the new EYFS Framework!
For more information about our training course on the Playwork
Principles please use this link: Playwork -
Principles into Practice.
Latest updates
The election has been called and so government work is now at a standstill. There appears
to be no news from either PlayEngland or SkillsActive. The chances of any DCSF guidance therefore seem slim.
Is this affecting your work or have you got any thoughts about this? If so, contact us.
Play England issued a tender for the submission of case studies with the deadline for tenders
being 3rd February with case studies to be completed by 1st March. With these deadlines it seems unlikely that any
draft guidance will be available any time soon.
Originally planned to be published by Christmas, the DCSF guidance has been delayed whilst
Play England and SkillsActive draw up a draft version. A Steering Group will meet in February to comment on this
draft and it is hoped that the final version of the guidance will be published by the end of March. If you would
like to know more, please contact us
and we'll keep you up to date.
Ofsted confirms good playwork practice meets EYFS requirements
Ofsted have released a factsheet which confirms that playworkers who are already providing play
according to the Playwork Principles should not have to change their existing good practice in order to meet the EYFS
requirements: 'In a play setting, playworkers should be planning for play by providing the best environment possible;
they should not be planning the play itself.' The factsheet emphasises the importance of 'freely chosen, self directed
play' and goes on to stress that 'there is no legal requirement for playworkers to plan and assess children's
progress across all six areas of learning.'
Download the Common Threads Press Release here.
The Ofsted factsheet can be found here.
An EYFS and Playwork guidance workshop was held on 11th September at DCSF to explore putting
together new guidance for playworkers on how to meet the Early Years Foundation Stage. Comments sent to Common
Threads were taken to this meeting and passed on to DCSF. The meeting was very positive with playwork people
reporting similar concerns to build a consistent picture of the difficulties being faced by playworkers across
England. There was a clear message that early years practice and playwork practice were different and this needed
to be recognised in inspections. Various ways of doing this were discussed and further discussions are now taking
place with a view to putting together some guidance for playworkers as to how to meet the EYFS through good playwork
practice.
A meeting was held at PlayEngland at the end of July to discuss playwork and the Early Years
Foundation Stage. A paper written by Shelly Newstead on the differences between playwork and early years practice
and how the Playwork Principles could be used to inspect playwork practice under EYFS was sent to DCSF officials
who attended that meeting - if you would like a copy of this paper please email us.
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