Today the Department for Education has made some minor updates to its non-statutory curriculum guidance, Development Matters. This guidance aims to help practitioners in England meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework .

The changes reflect feedback from the ‘early adopter’ schools that have been following the revised EYFS over the last academic year.

PACEY members in England should be reassured these minor changes should not require changes to their curriculum planning. The changes include:

• updated links, making minor tweaks to wording for clarification purposes
• updates to the Introduction and Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning sections to ensure the wording is aligned with the aims of the reforms and reflects the most recent research and evidence
• ensuring the document is accessible, inclusive, and easier to navigate which includes a new design, layout and colour coding

Dr Julian Grenier, who developed this guidance, explained:

“Development Matters was originally road-tested with over 200 early years practitioners, who gave extensive feedback. Their input changed the document for the better. Since then, over 3000 schools have been ‘Early Adopters’ of the revised EYFS. They have been overwhelmingly positive about the revised Development Matters, but their experience has highlighted some minor areas for improvement in the document. I would like to thank all those teachers and early years educators for being so generous in giving this time and sharing their expertise.”