If first reactions to something new are, indeed, the most telling, then I think two of the initial responses to Dame Clare Tickell's review of the EYFS are worth emphasising. First, the sector gave the review a swift and positive response. There is practically no criticism of the review to be found - only the smallest quibbles. Second, there is a profound gap between how the EYFS is understood by the early years sector and by the media.
This gap is most easily summed up by noting that even the quality press - the Times Educational Supplement, the Guardian and the Telegraph, for example - referred to the EYFS as the 'nappy curriculum'. They implied that it is a largely inappropriate curriculum for babies and toddlers. But the sector told Dame Clare, among the unprecedented 3,300 submissions to her review, that we generally like the EYFS and think it has made practice for young children more, not less, developmentally appropriate.
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