Development Matters

Development Matters 2021

At Mount Street Primary School and Nursery we use the non-statutory guidance of Development Matters to help us develop an effective early years curriculum, building on the strengths and meeting the needs of the children we work with. 

The Early Years curriculum consists of everything we want children to experience, learn and be able to do. This guidance sets out the pathways of children’s development in broad ages and stages. The actual learning of young children is not so neat and orderly therefore we also carry out accurate and proportionate assessment to make informed decisions about what a child needs to learn and be able to do next. We use our professional knowledge to help children make progress without needing to record lots of next steps. Depth in learning matters much more than moving from one band to the next or trying to cover everything. For example, it is important to give a child many opportunities to deepen their understanding of numbers to 5. There is no value in rushing to 10.