Education is a connected system, so what happens in one phase inevitably shapes the next.

Although the early years foundation stage (EYFS) was outside the scope of the government’s curriculum and assessment review, its findings have clear implications for early years.

Today, the latest EYFS profile results were published, showing that while the proportion of children reaching a good level of development has gone up, results remain below the government’s 75 per cent target.

With this in mind, here are four key curriculum review areas worth interrogating:

1. The curriculum still does not benefit all children

The review panel recognised that despite “the hard-won successes and educational improvements of recent decades…it is clear that these have not yet benefited all”.

This certainly holds true for early years.

Since the 2021 EYFS reforms, children eligible for free school meals (FSM) have continued to be underserved, with just 51.3 per cent achieving a good level of development in 2024-25 - slightly lower than last year.

Data from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) shows that there is a learning gap of 4.6 months between children eligible for FSM and their classmates by the end of Reception.

It is notable that this gap more than doubles, on average, during the primary years, reaching 10.3 months by the end of key stage 2. Yet the figures also tell us that nearly half the gap at the end of primary education is already present at the start.

In addition, the EPI notes that there is a learning gap of more than a year between children receiving SEN support in early years and those with no identified special educational need. Even more worryingly, this gap is widening in early years, while it is narrowing later on.

These findings suggest that EYFS is not yet serving all children equally. As schools consider how to respond to the curriculum review, they will need to acknowledge that early years faces many of the same equity challenges as later phases.

2. What does the focus on oracy mean for early years?

One of the review’s most eye-catching recommendations is that the government should introduce “an oracy framework to support practice”.

“Oracy” is not a particularly helpful term for early years. EYFS already emphasises “communication and language” as one of its three prime areas.

However, there is still a great deal of work to do to ensure that children get the foundations they need in this area. The review notes that “in 2024, over a fifth of children did not meet the expected standards in all the early learning goals in communication and language in their EYFS profile”.

Strengthening early language development will lay the foundations for oracy in later years. There is robust research evidence about how to improve progress in communication and language, helpfully summarised in the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) Early Years Evidence Store.

For those children who need additional support, the Nuffield Early Language Intervention helps them to make an additional three months of progress in the Reception year.

The EEF’s evaluation also found that children learning English as an additional language equally benefited from the programme, and pupils eligible for FSM made an average of seven months additional progress, although the authors add that “these results should be interpreted with caution due to the smaller number of pupils”.

For the review’s ambitions on oracy to succeed, we need more investment and a sharper focus in early years.

3. The need to rethink early assessment

The review concludes that “the primary assessment system is broadly working well”.

Yet Reception children are, arguably, assessed more than any other age group, with both the Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) and the EYFS profile.

Given the review’s important focus on oracy, a clear implication for EYFS could be the replacement of the RBA with a robust assessment of each child’s language and communication.

Tools such as LanguageScreen - a 10-minute, evidence-based measure - provide immediate feedback to teachers and identify children who may need extra support.

Unlike the RBA, these tools also generate actionable insights. As the DfE notes in its Help for Early Years Providers resources, “children’s language skills are connected to their overall development”, making language a sound starting point for assessing a child’s progress from the start of school to the end of Year 6.

4. How far do we need to align the stages?

It is regrettable that EYFS was not part of the review’s terms of reference. As a result, the review cycles of EYFS and the wider curriculum continue to remain out of sync.

If EYFS lays the foundation for later learning, it would make sense for its revision to come first or alongside changes to the rest of the curriculum - so that the different phases align.

Similarly, pedagogy was also outside the terms of reference. As a result, the final report does not comment on pedagogical consistency between EYFS and KS1.

This represents a shift from the 2009 Rose Review of the primary curriculum, which did comment explicitly on pedagogy, including calling for “more opportunities for extending and building upon active, play-based learning across the transition to primary education”.

In this respect, we might note how both early years and school sectors have moved on from the 2000s. I suspect that few would now welcome a group of experts dictating pedagogy, which should be owned by the profession.

It’s squarely within the remit of educators in early years to draw on evidence-informed approaches, together with their own professional judgement, to make decisions about pedagogy in early years and KS1.

Julian Grenier is the co-editor of Putting the EYFS Curriculum into Practice (2nd Edition), which is published later this month

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