What are the main changes in the updated Development Matters guidance, and what is the reasoning behind these revisions? Dr Julian Grenier explains
The ELGs have been removed from Development Matters to avoid the ‘top-down’ pressure of the goals
The ELGs have been removed from Development Matters to avoid the ‘top-down’ pressure of the goals

Everyone who is reading this article already knows that the earliest years are critical for young children. When we succeed in giving every child the best start, we give them what they need today, and we set them up with every chance of success tomorrow.

The greatest strength of the early years workforce is that we understand and act on this positive view of early childhood. That’s very different from how things were when I trained as a teacher of children aged three to seven. Then, the early years were often spoken about as an unimportant phase in a child’s life and learning. It was the phase before ‘real learning’ began.

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