How are the EYFS & KS1 steps designed?
The EYFS & KS1 steps move from broad to deep. It starts with broad areas of teaching – strands – down through more specific classroom goals and finishes at precise, granular action steps. We’ve designed our EYFS & KS1 steps to be thorough: the curriculum covers a great many of the key areas of effective classroom teaching, no matter what subject you are teaching. We’ve also designed it to be extremely adaptable: you should be easily able to customise it to fit your school context. Before we can do this, it’s important to understand exactly how we’ve structured our EYFS & KS1 steps.
What is a strand?
The EYFS & KS1 steps are built from six central strands. Each strand is built around a universal teaching problem: a classroom challenge that exists for all teachers – no matter what subject they are teaching - and is intrinsic to the process of teaching. Every teacher spends their entire career addressing these problems, and as such they are the most appropriate foundation for any coaching sequence. They aid in accurate coaching diagnosis. The six strands are as follows:
Create culture - has the teacher built the necessary routines, environment and behaviour for learning?
Secure attention - has the teacher got the children’s attention?
Optimise communication - is the teacher presenting ideas in a way that is manageable for children?
Drive thought - is the teacher pushing children to think hard about ideas?
Gather and give feedback - is the teacher assessing learning and responding appropriately?
Phonics - is the teacher supporting children to read and write?
Important note: The sixth strand - Phonics - is specifically tailored to the explicit teaching of reading and writing, integral in EYFS & KS1 classrooms. It functions differently in the sense that - unlike the first five strands - it can be selected by leaders, coaches and teachers whenever is suitable, rather than forming part of the diagnostic chain described below.
The first five strands identify universal teaching problems that help to support coaching diagnosis when organised into a diagnostic chain:
Culture → Attention → Communication → Thought → Feedback
If coaches identify multiple learning problems in a teacher’s practice, they should focus on the problem that is closest to the beginning of the diagnostic chain. In other words, if there are problems with attention, communication and thought, it may be optimal for coaches to help teachers solve the attention problems first. It is important to note that this isn’t an iron law – teachers and coaches should feel very free to use their best judgement – but simply a useful rule of thumb for effective diagnosis.
Within each strand of the EYFS & KS1 steps are a set of more specific classroom goals.
What is a goal?
Each strand contains a series of classroom goals. A classroom goal is a more specific area of teaching, but could still be the focus of coaching for a sustained period of time.
An example of a goal within the ‘Create culture’ strand is to ‘Establish an entry routine’. It may take a teacher multiple weeks of coaching to be finished working on this goal.
Within classroom goals are granular and precise action steps.
What is an action step?
Each goal within the EYFS & KS1 steps contains multiple action steps. Each step is an action that a teacher can take to achieve a classroom goal. All the steps on Steplab are:
Precise and granular.
Focused on teacher actions, rather than simply on improving what they think or know.
Underpinned by evidence or a shared consensus of impact.
A coach and teacher may be working within the ‘Create culture’ strand and focusing on the goal of ‘Establishing an entry routine’. Within this, there are multiple steps that they could choose to work on. These steps often build in difficulty. Some examples of these steps are:
Create an independent starter: Create a task that children can complete quietly and calmly as they enter, without any help
Set clear entry expectations: Remind children of your expectations when entering the classroom: "First hang up your coat, then put away your bag, then go to your activity."
Manage classroom entry: Stand at the threshold of the classroom so you can see both inside and outside the classroom, control the flow of children, and monitor them during entry
Each step comes with some additional support for high quality coaching including a success criteria to enable effective modelling and rehearsal, and a rehearsal task that powers an effective feedback conversation.
Step
Manage classroom entry: Stand at the threshold of the classroom so you can see both inside and outside the classroom, control the flow of children, and monitor them during entry
Success criteria
Control entry: manage the flow of children to ensure they enter slowly and calmly; children should enter a few at a time or slowly enough that they can be carefully monitored as they set to work
Express warmth: use a bright, open face and tone to welcome children to the class
Scan: regularly check both the inside and outside of the classroom
Rehearsal task
Plan to rehearse
Select an upcoming lesson and open the class list
Go to the classroom and choose a position at the threshold where you can see inside and outside the room
Plan how you will control the flow of children as they enter and monitor behaviour ▪ Review against criteria
Rehearse (multiple rounds + feedback)
Establish the context. For example, children are lining up outside your classroom. You are standing at the threshold greeting children and monitoring their entry into the room
Rehearse this moment in the lesson. Feedback and refine using the criteria until mastered
Add complexity. For example, children enter in a way that does not meet expectations, or a child does not sit in the seat allocated to them in the seating plan
Many of the EYFS & KS1 steps are accompanied by a model video to support impactful modelling.
What is a model video?
A video of exemplary practice that demonstrates the use of the step in action. They can help the teacher to visualise what they are working towards and are best used alongside the success criteria to help deconstruct its component parts and identify the specific areas of practice that resulted in success.
Where can I watch model videos?
Library: model videos are attached to the step they represent. Choose a goal and step and then click “Explore this step” to view the model video representing the chosen step.
Learning content: you can locate and view all EYFS & KS1 model videos by heading to Manage → Content → Learning content → Global content → EYFS & KS1 steps. Model videos have been placed in folders according to the strand, goal and step they represent.
EYFS & KS1 steps
Now that you understand the structure, let’s take a deeper look at what is included within the EYFS & KS1 steps.
Below you can see the six strand headings, with the goals within each of those strands sitting beneath as bullet points. Alongside the goal name, is a summary of the action steps covered within the goal. Finally, if model videos exist for this particular goal, we’ll add 📹.
Create culture
Has the teacher built the necessary routines, environment and behaviour for learning?
Organise learning spaces: Ensuring that learning spaces are accessible and that appropriate learning resources, with clear expectations for use are in place for the children’s learning. 📹
Establish an entry routine: Managing the children's entry into the classroom; ensuring good behaviour at the start of lessons; ensuring children begin learning as quickly as possible. 📹
Establish routines: Ensuring classroom routines are efficient and well-organised so that no learning time is lost. 📹
Embed routines: Ensuring classroom routines are repeated and well-rehearsed for maximum efficiency. 📹
Motivate children to learn: Motivating children through explaining the value of learning and effort; setting and maintaining productive classroom norms; enabling children to be and feel successful. 📹
Reinforce positive behaviours: Communicating clear classroom expectations; building a positive classroom culture through recognising success; celebrating children’s efforts and high-quality work. 📹
Respond to negative behaviours: Effectively addressing non-compliance; moving from subtle and non-invasive methods through to correcting and sanctioning children; resetting classes and getting children back on track. 📹
Secure attention
Has the teacher got the children's attention?
Use an active listening routine: Ensuring the children’s attention is focused on the teacher through building effective routines for achieving and maintaining silence; responding to children not meeting expectations. 📹
Give clear directions: Gathering attention and giving clear, precise and focused instructions; checking that children understand instructions; ensuring a purposeful and focused start to learning activities. 📹
Build a sense of pace: Creating a sense of pace and urgency throughout lessons so that children are motivated to attend, focus and make effort; making lessons feel purposeful. 📹
Use choral response: Embedding routines where children respond in unison to strengthen key knowledge and vocabulary; checking for participation and understanding while fostering a sense of community and motivation. 📹
Optimise communication
Is the teacher presenting ideas in a way that is manageable for children?
Plan well-structured units and lessons: Ensuring that lessons are built around clear, precise, manageable knowledge.
Plan clear tasks and resources (adult led): Streamlining explanations, resources and learning tasks to minimise cognitive load; skilfully modelling success; managing scaffolding as children move towards independence and mastery; taking steps to ‘own’ and internalise lesson plans.
Plan clear continuous and enhanced provision opportunities (child-led): Ensuring that provision is planned around clear knowledge points with appropriate explanations, enhancements and rotations in place to support children’s learning. 📹 o Give clear and memorable explanations: Scripting and delivering explanations that are clear and purposeful, as well as memorable, sticky and designed for lasting learning. 📹
Teach new vocabulary with active practice: Designing routines to support the children’s mastery of new vocabulary. For example, scripting child-friendly explanations, using dual coding to reduce cognitive load, providing written and verbal active practice, teaching etymology, word roots and patterns, checking understanding and systematically returning to previously taught vocabulary.
Use modelling as a scaffold: Supporting children to successfully and independently construct robust, developed answers through sharing models that highlight common misconceptions or set the standard for success, providing opportunities for children to engage with models and ensuring children act on feedback.
Drive thought
Is the teacher pushing children to think hard about ideas?
Use accountable questioning: Creating a classroom culture where children are motivated to answer questions; framing questions to ensure children are accountable for thinking. 📹
Add challenge or scaffolds while questioning: Responding to errors and lack of effort during questioning; supporting children to get the right answer while holding them accountable for effortful thought; responding to success with further questions that stretch and challenge.
Use paired talk: Building purposeful routines for effective and efficient paired talk; ensuring children are accountable during paired talk. o Use group discussion: Building a culture of focus and attention during class discussion; building systems to ensure cognitive accountability.
Plan, run and monitor independent practice: Designing lessons around high-quality extended practise of key knowledge and skills; effectively running classroom practice and motivating children to focus; gathering information on misconceptions, errors and progress towards mastery; designing practice activities to allow for efficient data gathering.
Support play: Embedding clear structures to support effective play, including role modelling, narration and prompts to extend or enhance the children’s learning. 📹
Link learning: Embedding clear structures to summarise knowledge, build links between learning points and consolidate previous learning.
Gather and give feedback
Is the teacher assessing child learning and responding appropriately?
Build a culture of feedback: Building a classroom culture where children welcome error as part of the learning process; building a culture where children value learning from the work of classmates; ensuring children welcome sharing their own learning, mistakes and efforts. 📹
Specify success and plan for feedback: Planning lessons around errors and misconceptions; ensuring that teacher follow-up is carefully planned. o Check whole-class understanding: Gathering information on errors, misconceptions and progress towards mastery through whole-class data gathering; withholding correct answers from children to increase thinking. 📹
Circulate to check for understanding: Efficiently gathering data on the children’s understanding through deliberate and focused classroom circulation. 📹
Observe play: Efficiently gathering data on the children’s development during periods of play by taking notes, deploying adult support and putting enhancements in place. 📹
Give individual feedback: Delivering high-quality feedback that supports and stretches the child; building strong relationships with individual children while giving feedback. 📹
Give whole-class feedback: Stopping the class and publicly addressing widely held errors and misconceptions; sharing exemplary work with the class to address errors and improve learning; ensuring all children improve their work and make progress. 📹
Phonics
Is the teacher supporting children to read and write?
Introduce a new sound: Establishing routines to introduce and practice new sounds in context. 📹
Blend single words for reading: Building independent reading skills through modelling and practice. 📹
Write single words: Strengthening independent reading skills by applying phonics knowledge through modelling and practice. 📹
Apply phonetic knowledge in context: Embedding opportunities to practise phonetic learning across other areas of provision. 📹