Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)


Introduction

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5. This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning and success. Your child’s early years’ experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.

Nurseries, pre-schools, reception classes and childminders registered to deliver the EYFS must follow a legal document called the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.


EYFS Framework

The EYFS Framework exists to support all professionals working in Early Year Foundation Stage to help your child, and has been developed with a number of early years’ experts and parents. In 2012 the framework was revised to make it clearer and easier to use, with more focus on the things that matter most and has a greater emphasis on the role of parents in helping your child develop. It sets out:

  • The legal welfare requirements that everyone registered to look after children must follow to keep your child safe and promote their welfare.
  • The seven areas of learning and development which guide professionals’ engagement with your child’s play and activities as they learn new skills and knowledge.
  • Assessments that will tell you about your child’s progress through the EYFS.
  • Expected levels that your child should reach at age 5, usually the end of the reception year; these expectations are called the ‘Early Learning Goals (ELGs)’.

There is also guidance for the professionals supporting your child on planning the learning activities, and observing and assessing what and how your child is learning and developing.


 

What does it Mean for Me as a Parent?


Ensuring my child’s safety

Much thought has been given to making sure that your child is as safe as possible. Within the EYFS there is a set of welfare standards that everyone must follow. These include the numbers of staff required in a nursery, how many children a childminder can look after, and things like administering medicines and carrying out risk assessments.


Quality

You can find out about the quality of your child’s nursery or childminder in relation to the EYFS Framework by checking what the Government’s official inspection body for early years, Ofsted, has to say about it. You can find this information at www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report..


Understanding the child’s learning

The EYFS Framework explains how and what a child will be learning to support their healthy development. A child will learn skills, acquire new knowledge and demonstrate their understanding through seven areas of learning and development.

The prime areas begin to develop quickly in response to relationships and experiences, and run through and support learning in all other areas. The prime areas continue to be fundamental throughout the EYFS.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Communication and Language

Physical Development

The specific areas include essential skills and knowledge. They grow out of the prime areas, and provide important contexts for learning.

Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

These seven areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. The key person will make sure that the activities are suited to the child’s unique needs.

The ways in which the child engages with other people and their environment – playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically – underpin learning and development across all areas and support the child to remain an effective and motivated learner.


How Can I Help with my Child’s Learning?

All the fun activities that you do with your child at home are important in supporting their learning and development, and have a long-lasting effect on your child’s learning as they progress through school. Your child’s nursery will be able to provide ideas specifically to support your child’s development, for example:

  • Sing and tell nursery rhymes
  • Cook/bake together
  • Explore the park at different times of the year – go off the beaten track
  • Share a book
  • Talk to your child about what they are doing
  • Follow your child’s interests and join in with their play

How Can I Find Out How my Child is Getting on?

It is important that you and the professionals caring for your child work together. You need to feel comfortable about exchanging information and discussing things that will benefit your child. These conversations will be with your child’s ‘key person’, this is the person who:

  • Is your main point of contact within the setting
  • Helps your child to become settled, happy and safe
  • Is responsible for your child’s care, development and learning
  • Takes a careful note of your child’s progress, sharing this with you and giving ideas as to how to help your child at home

You should be able to get information about your child’s development at any time and the EYFS requires early years’ practitioners to review children’s progress and share a summary with parents at two points:

  • In the prime areas between the ages of 24 and 36 months (The Two Year Progress Check)
  • At the end of the EYFS when your child is 5 years (EYFS Profile)                                                Learning Journeys

The learning journey (sometimes referred to as learning journals) is a collection of different documents collected by early years’ practitioners that provide a picture of a child’s development under the seven areas of learning. It consists of photos, art-work, mark-making, etc., and is interspersed with observations made by practitioners including notes of relevant conversations or comments made by the child. Practitioners link any observations to the EYFS learning areas, aspects and statements. The aim is to build a unique picture of what each child knows, feels and can do as well as his/her interests and learning style. This picture is then used to pinpoint learning priorities and plan relevant and motivating learning experiences i.e. identify next steps and activities.

The learning journey should not be the sole preserve of the child’s key person. It should involve contributions from a variety of adults who have contact with the child, including their family.

Where Can I Go for Further Information?

The most important place to find out more is your child’s nursery – do ask as many questions as you need to. Providers really do welcome speaking with you.

You can find the Early Years Foundation Stage at www.foundationyears.org.uk. The foundation year’s website also includes a range of resources and contacts.


Introduction to eyLog

eyLog - Early Years Log - is the most comprehensive tablet PC and web-based solution for nurseries and childcare providers to transform the process of recording observations, assessing a child’s progress and planning activities for the child.

eyLog significantly reduces the time spent on capturing/maintaining observations and managing the learning journey of a child manually; enabling practitioners to focus more on providing the best early years education to children - an ultimate aim of both nurseries and parents.


Benefits for Your Child and the Nursery

eyLog enables you to understand your child's development on a more regular and real-time basis. Nurseries can share a child’s learning journey with you, increasing your involvement in the activities at the nursery. You receive a unique login on the system and are notified automatically by e-mail as soon as a new observation is published to your child’s learning journey or when any reports are shared with you by the nursery.

eyLog helps move away from the restrictions of a paper based learning journey by incorporating rich media (photos, videos and audios!). It helps you as a parent to have an immersive experience of what the child is doing in the nursery and the context in which your child is engaging in various activities, encouraging their overall growth and development.

eyLog makes it possible for you to contribute observations from home too! Be it something your child does for the first time or during a holiday/vacation, making the learning journey even more comprehensive and enabling ‘parents as partners in learning and development’ of a child in their early years.

The child’s online learning journey can be obtained on request from the nursery in the same rich HTML format on a DVD/USB or as a printed book for you to keep as a lifelong memory when the child moves on to another nursery or school.


Security in eyLog

Security is of key concern in a nursery environment and eyLog takes its security measures very seriously.  eyLog offers fully locked-down secure tablet devices to ensure they are not misused in any manner - Facebook, e-mails, etc., are all disabled on these specially configured high-security tablets. Each user has a separate user-ID and password and using a role-based access mechanism, a user is permitted to see only the information that is relevant for them.

eyLog uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt all communication between the server and the tablets. All data is stored on secure Cloud-based servers in data centres located here in UK. All data is regularly backed-up onto redundant systems.

Please also refer to our ‘FAQ’ section below for more details related to security.


Your Parent Portal

Logging into eyLog

eyLog provides both a web-based Parental Portal and a dedicated Parent App through which you can view your child’s information from the nursery from wherever you are located.

Once your child’s nursery has registered your details on their system you will be sent an activation email. Click on the link in the email to set your password and confirm your child’s date of birth to activate your account.


You can install the eyLog Parent App form the App Store or Play Store on your device. The app will open on the login screen, enter your username (email address) and password to login.



From your Web Parent Portal:

There is no installation required on your PC/Mac, all that is needed is a web browser e.g., Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer.  We recommend using Google Chrome (www.google.co.uk/chrome) as it is a fast browser and works well with most web applications.

Your child’s nursery has a unique login page


Your Child/Children

Once logged in, you will see the children that you have been provided access to by the nursery. In case you have more than one child in the same nursery, then all your children should be shown on the screen below (subject to access being provided by the nursery).


Learning Journey

The Learning Journey is the electronic journal created by the nursery capturing the various activities achieved by the child during their time there. It shows the observations added by the nursery in reverse chronological order.

The title of each observation recorded by the nursery indicates the date, time and the person who observed it. An observation may also have photos, video clips and audio clips associated with it – all of which are accessible by clicking on the image/media icon. For additional details, click ‘Read More’ to open the observation details screen and scroll through the observation tabs.

 The assessment section underneath the observation tabs shows the details of the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) assessment(s) added to the observation, while the assessment level indicates how your child is progressing within a learning aspect. These are added by the nursery practitioners and may not be visible to you depending on the nursery settings.



From your Web Parent Portal:

From the home screen, click on the respective child to view the child’s Learning Journey. You can also filter the Learning Journey to view specific observations using the fields at the top and clicking ‘View’.  Or to download the Learning Journey or an individual observation as a PDF click on the relevant ‘Download’ button.



Adding Comments

As a parent, you can also comment on an observation which will then be visible to the staff at the nursery. You will receive an email notification to your registered email address as soon as a comment (or a response to your comment) is added to an observation.



Adding an Observation from Home 

A learning journey should be a holistic view of your child’s progress and can be if you, as parents, also contribute to it through observations at home. Using eyLog, you can add your own observations of your child easily at any time through your Parent Portal, which will then be reviewed by the nursery practitioners.

Tap on the ‘+’ at the top of any screen in the eyLog Parent App. The ‘New Observation’ screen allows you to upload photos and provide a description of an activity you have observed your child doing at home. To add photos, click on one of the media icons at the bottom of the screen to take a photo/video or add from the device gallery.

In the Observation box you can write a description of the activity the child has been observed doing and any other information you feel is relevant to their learning progress.



Once you have completed your observation, click ‘Done’ at the top of the screen. Your observation will then be sent to your child’s key person who will be able to see it from the nursery.


From your Web Parent Portal:

From the Learning Journey screen, click on the ‘Add Observation’ button at the top to create your observation. You can then choose from your saved photos on your computer, to add multiple photos, hold Ctrl to select all required images. 

Note: Adding videos is not currently supported via the eyLog web-based Parent Portal.

Once completed, click ‘Save’ to save the observation and send it to the nursery.


Note: Saving an observation does not automatically make it part of the learning journey. The nursery practitioners will review your observation and update it with additional details such as analysis, and framework assessments. Your observation will be available on your child’s learning journey only after the practitioner has reviewed and submitted the observation to the learning journey.   

 

Your Child’s Daily Diary

The eyLog daily diary feature enables nurseries to record key information about your child’s day at the nursery - what your child ate, when your child slept, bottles, nappy changes and toileting. This can be shared with you daily along with the child’s register, a summary of the day’s observations and any additional notes. 

Viewing a Published Daily Diary

Once you have collected your child from the nursery the practitioners will publish their daily diary which will then be available to view from your Parent Portal.

Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the eyLog Parent App and select ‘Daily Diary’. Click on the date at the top of the screen to use the calendar to view previous daily diaries published by the nursery.

The daily diary entry for the selected day will open with the relevant tabs for information about what your child ate, when your child slept, bottles, nappy changes and toileting along with any photos from their day.

Adding Notes to a Daily Diary

The daily diary can also be used as a two-way communication between parents and the nursery and as such can be started by you, as the parent.

Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the eyLog Parent App and select ‘Daily Diary’. Click on the date at the top of the screen to use the calendar to open the relevant date and write your message in the ‘Notes from Parents’ section.



Once you click ‘Submit’ your note will be sent to your child’s key person who will be able to see it when they open your child’s daily diary from the nursery.


From your Web Parent Portal:

From the home screen, click on the ‘Daily Diary’ tab at the top, this will open the daily diary tracker. The tracker shows all the entries that the nursery has shared with you, to open a published daily diary click on the ‘✓’.

To add a note to a daily diary, click on the ‘+’ under the relevant day. This will open the daily diary for that day showing only the ‘Notes from Parents’ section. If needed, you can change the date by clicking in the ‘Select Date’ box and choosing the relevant day from the calendar.

Once completed, click ‘Save’ to send your note to the nursery practitioners.


Your Child’s Reports

Intermittently throughout your child’s time at nursery the practitioners may create a Two Year Check report, summative report or transition report of your child’s current progress and their next steps. You can view these reports via your parent portal at any time and add your own comments.

Viewing a Report       

 Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the eyLog Parent App and select ‘Summative Reports’. Here you will see a list of any reports that have been submitted to you by the nursery. Where the status is ‘Pending parent review’ the report is awaiting your comments. To open the report, click on the name of the report. The practitioners will have filled in their comments in the different sections for you to read through.



Once you have read the report, scroll down to the bottom and click on the ‘Edit’ button in the ‘Parent(s)/Carer(s) Comment’ section. Enter your comments, then click ‘Save’. Once you have added your comments, tick the parent acknowledgement and click ‘Submit’. The report will then be submitted back to the nursery and will show in your summative reports list as completed for you to view again at any time.


From your Web Parent Portal:

From the Learning Journey screen, click on the ‘Reports’ tab to view the list of reports for your child.


Your Child’s Accident Sheets

Intermittently, accidents and incidents will happen at your child’s nursery and practitioners must record the details on an accident/incident sheet. You can view these sheets via your web parent portal or from the eyLog Parent app at any time.


Viewing an Accident Sheet

 Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the eyLog Parent App and select ‘Accident/Incident Sheet’. Here you will see a list of any accident/incident sheets that have been submitted to you by the nursery. Where the status is ‘Pending parent review’ the report is awaiting your review. To open the accident/incident sheet, click on your child’s name in the list. The practitioners will have filled in the details of the accident/incident in the different sections for you to read through.



Once you have read the report, scroll down to the bottom and click on the ‘Edit’ button in the ‘Parent(s)/Carer(s) Comment’ section. Enter your comments, then click ‘Save’. Once you have added your comments, tick the parent acknowledgement and click ‘Submit’. The report will then be submitted back to the nursery and will show in your summative reports list as completed for you to view again at any time.


From your Web Parent Portal:

From the Learning Journey screen, click on the ‘Reports’ tab to view the list of reports for your child.


 

Your Child’s Accident Sheets

Intermittently, accidents and incidents will happen at your child’s nursery and practitioners must record the details on an accident/incident sheet. You can view these sheets via your web parent portal or from the eyLog Parent app at any time.

Viewing an Accident Sheet

Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the eyLog Parent App and select ‘Accident/Incident Sheet’. Here you will see a list of any accident/incident sheets that have been submitted to you by the nursery. Where the status is ‘Pending parent review’ the report is awaiting your review. To open the accident/incident sheet, click on your child’s name in the list. The practitioners will have filled in the details of the accident/incident in the different sections for you to read through.

           

Once you have read the report, complete the accident/incident sheet by acknowledging that you have read the report and pressing the ‘Submit’ button. The report will then be submitted back to the nursery and will show in your accident/incident sheets list as completed for you to view again at any time.


 From your Web Parent Portal:

From the Learning Journey screen, click on the ‘Accidents/incidents’ tab to view the list of accident sheets for your child.


Your Messages

One of the features of eyLog is an integrated messaging system between yourself, as the parent, and the managers of your child’s nursery. Managers can send out important information that they feel is relevant to you and your child via your Parent Portal and vice versa.

 

Receiving Messages

If you have received a new message through eyLog you will firstly receive a notification via email and on your eyLog Parent App.

Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the eyLog Parent App and select ‘Messages’. In the list, any unread messages will be highlighted in green and can be opened by clicking on the message subject.



From here you can read your message, then either click the bin icon in the top right corner to erase the message or click on the arrow icon to reply. 

Note: The message will continue to be available in your inbox if you do not choose to delete it.

 

Composing Messages

To send a new message to the nursery, from the message list click on the ‘+’ icon in the top right corner. Type your message into the ‘Enter message’ box and click the ‘arrow ’ at the top of the screen to send it to the nursery manager.


From your Web Parent Portal:

From the home screen, click on the ‘Messages’ tab at the top to open your eyLog inbox. If you have any new messages this will be displayed by a red bubble with the number of unread messages. Onvce you open the list; unread messages will be listed in bold.

From the web, basic features such as choosing font style and size, bold/italics/underlining/highlighting, coloured text, bulleted and numbered items are also available to you. You can also choose to ‘Save’ the message to come back to later if required.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

My child's nursery is using eyLog. How can I as a parent login to eyLog to view my child's learning journey?

Check with your child’s nursery to see if they are sharing the learning journey with the parents. Most nurseries do! The nursery should register you as the child’s parent on the system. Once that is done, you will automatically be sent an activation e-mail. In case you haven’t received this email, please also check your Spam folder as some mail servers may accidentally mark our system mails as spam. 

On the web, please do make sure that you log-in using the correct URL that would have been displayed after activating your account. It will be something like: (nurseryname).eylog.co.uk.

I have forgotten my password. How do I re-set it?

On the log-in screen on both the web and the eyLog Parent App, there is a ‘Forgot Password’ button. Click on this and enter your e-mail address. If you are registered on the system, the system will send you a mail with a link to reset the password. Click on the link and follow the instructions to reset your password.

Can both I and my partner get access to eyLog as parents?

Yes. More than one person can be registered as a parent/carer for a child and all of them would have access to their own Parent Portal using their own user-ID and password. Whenever anything is published for the child, a notification will be sent to all the registered parents.

I have two children that go to the same nursery. Will I need two logins?

No. If you are registered as a parent for both the children then once you login to eyLog you will be able to view both children’s information.

Why are the observations that I have added as a parent not immediately visible in my child's learning journey?

Observations added by parents need to be reviewed by the nursery staff before they become part of the child’s learning journey. Check with your child’s key person at the nursery in case your observations haven’t been reviewed after a few days.

Where is my child’s data stored?

The data captured through the eyLog tablets at the nursery as well as the data provided through the web-interfaces are all stored on secure “cloud” servers located in UK. Very minimal information is stored on the tablets. 

How is the data transferred from the tablet to your servers and to the parents? How is this protected?  

All communication between the tablets/servers/browsers is through HTTPS and encrypted using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). You will see the green bar in the browser indicating HTTPS (encrypted) communication. 

Who is your cloud server service provider? 

eyworks apps are backed by AWS Cloud Infrastructure. We host customer data in the London Data Center distributed across multiple Availability Zones. Our Infrastructure is built over multiple availability zones and is designed in line with Amazon’s “Well Architected” Security principles to ensure that we achieve maximum security and performance from their environment. This is backed up by Amazon’s 99.99% uptime service level agreements to ensure that the platform is highly available. 

Will the details of the children (name/photo) appear on Google's search results?  

No. The names of children/practitioner, etc., are all stored in secure databases which are not accessible to any search engine. All access to nursery data is protected by user-IDs and passwords preventing any search engine from crawling them. 

What happens to the eylog data of children that have left the nursery?

When a child leaves the nursery, you have the option to make their profile inactive. 


Once a child profile is made inactive, it is moved to the inactive child list and becomes read-only meaning you cannot add any new content such as observations or daily diaries. 60 days after the profile is made inactive it will be automatically deleted.


Anytime before the profile is deleted, you (and the parents depending on your system settings) can download the entire learning journey, accident sheets, medicine forms, etc to keep a back up if required. 


We also offer special, paid formats of the learning journey such as Printed Books in eylog memories!


*Please note: This is for eylog profile data only. eymanage profiles are retained indefinitely unless you specifically request us to delete them. This is done so as to maintain the historical financial data which is required for some nurseries for reporting & legal purposes.

What happens to backups when they are no longer required?  

There are a fixed number of previous backups saved at any given point in time and the older ones are over-written as new back-ups are created. Access to these back-ups is available only to the core eyLog team.