In providing a quality curriculum, it is important to recognise that the EYFS does not represent the totality of the learning experience of the child. Hedges and Cooper (2014) question whether the EYFS itself is a guarantee of holistic experience and outcomes for all children.
Between this framework for consistent provision and the day-to-day activities of the learner lie a range of curricular models, which may reflect different educational philosophies, cultural expectations and pedagogical models.
We can see the curriculum as an ‘enactment’ or ‘translation’ of different intentions on the part of different stakeholders, some of whom will have competing ideas about what ‘matters’ in early education. The curriculum may become an uncomfortable ‘hybrid’ (trying to address competing aims and purposes) or a ‘site of struggle’ (Soler and Miller, 2003).
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