The principles are just one part of a package which will be sent to settings over the coming weeks. It comprises:
* Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, setting out a provider's legal responsibilities and the learning, development and welfare requirements
* a poster entitled 'The Early Years Foundation Stage Principles', showing the four main themes into which the principles are grouped: - A unique child
- Positive relationships
- Enabling environments
- Learning and development
* Principles into Practice cards, providing advice on effective practice under the four main themes and principles
* Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage, providing general guidance on implementing the framework, giving cross-references to the guidance cards, and including extensive grids covering the six areas of learning from birth to the end of the Foundation Stage
* a CD including all the written documents in the package and video footage of effective practice.
Children's minister Beverley Hughes said at the launch of the final package that it 'has been changed quite profoundly and for the better through an extensive process of consultation with a whole range of practitioners. The document we've got now is, I think, a tremendously good document that will speak very well to practitioners across the piece.'
Also present was Bernadette Duffy, head of the Thomas Coram Centre, who said, 'What has changed fundamentally is that the document now starts with four principles, so it starts with what we believe is important for young children.'
But such reassurances have failed to convince many within the sector who fear that practitioners will struggle to implement what they see as a disjointed and, in some cases, overlapping set of guidance.
Early years consultant and former national director of the Foundation Stage, Lesley Staggs said, 'I love the principles and the poster, but understanding how to link them to the two documents and put the principles into practice is going to be quite a big job for some people.
'I have huge reservations about splitting the statutory framework and guidance. It leaves the way open for people to focus on the statutory framework at the expense of understanding the type of practice that is both effective and appropriate for children from birth to five.'
The developmental grids for the six areas of learning attracted much criticism in the initial consultation document, and the fact that 90 pages of grids remain has left many fearful that weaker practitioners will simply use them as ticklists and relegate the Principles into Practice cards to the back of their cupboard.
Julian Grenier, head of Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre in London, said, 'The new EYFS includes some good principles and approaches, and makes a real attempt to consider the "whole child". But I don't see the point of setting out milestones like this without making it very clear that the link between ages and stages in the EYFS is weak.'
Early years consultant Helen Bromley fears the starting point for some practitioners will be the 'Development matters' column in the grids, rather than 'Effective practice', which she said 'promotes a tendency to test whether children know something or not, rather than consider how to teach and foster skills and dispositions.'
Ms Duffy said, 'There was a tendency for people to tick off the stepping stones, but I would be horrified if people sat ticking children off against the grids. If you start from there you end up with a very narrow curriculum that doesn't meet children's needs.'
But what the sector needs to eliminate such poor practice is more training, not more guidance, said Julian Grenier. 'I think there is a general mistake here, of trying to improve things through issuing ever more guidance and regulation. What we need is more engagement of practitioners on the ground, more discussion, debate and training. I can't think of any other country that is trying to regulate the lives of young children so thoroughly as this.'
Ms Staggs said she feels that training must extend far beyond the practitioners if the new framework is going to escape the ticklist approach. 'It will require real in-depth quality of training for everyone - by that I mean for leaders and managers, including school heads and governors, local authority staff and Ofsted inspectors, as well as practitioners.'
Having trialled the Principles into Practice cards with practitioners in the London borough of Camden, Ms Duffy is confident that with good training and a focus on the Principles, bad practice can be avoided. 'You can't remember all the guidance, but what you can keep in your head are the four principles and the commitments that go under them, and that you can internalise.' The Camden practitioners, she said, 'really grabbed on to the principles because it kept them focused on what matters.'
It is hoped the rest of the sector will do the same.
More information The statutory framework can be viewed at www.standards.dfes.gov.uk.