Manchester has a long history of providing quality childcare and nursery education for young children. The Foundation Stage of education is crucial if children are to achieve their potential. Practitioners across the City need to work closely together to provide the highest quality opportunities and experiences that engage and excite children and encourage them to become creative. If we can ensure that solid foundations are established in the early years, we will be preparing Manchester's youngest children for future success.

With the exciting new national developments in early years, we are now in a position to extend this provision even further, developing integrated services for children and their families.

This document provides a framework for curriculum planning, assessment and recording in the Foundation Stage and aims to support practitioners working throughout Manchester in a variety of settings. The materials are specifically designed to facilitate close working links with all partners to ensure high quality provision, progression and continuity throughout the Foundation Stage.

Manchester is committed to raising standards. It is hoped that the thoroughness of planning and assessment procedures promoted in this framework, along with the suggestions for developing quality learning environments will help practitioners to further develop the quality of education and attainment in the Foundation Stage.

All materials have been published on a CD-ROM contained in this file. This has been done to help to ease the workload of practitioners in the Foundation Stage. It enables practitioners to complete effective and efficient planning on the computer, adapting formats to meet the needs of their setting.

The early years of a child's life are so important. Children learn at such speed; they devour learning; they delight in the new, enjoy challenge and experiment endlessly. Let's help them to learn.



Mick Waters
Chief Education Officer

Early Planning Goals (911 KB)
Planning (2.76 MB)
Assessment (236 KB)
Quality Learning Environment (4.72 MB)
Self Evaluation & Audit (177 KB)
Record of Achievement (5.96 MB)

All files (14.7 MB)