Foundation Phase

The foundation phase is an important aspect of a child's life as it sets them the foundations for the rest of their life. I believe strongly that if the child encounters a good childhood then the child will go on to be successful with in their education, that’s why in my opinion the foundation phase is and important aspect on education because of the importance of the role it plays with in a child's life.

“The Foundation Phase encourages children to be creative, imaginative and to have fun, making learning more enjoyable and more effective. Children are given opportunities to explore the world around them and understand how things work by taking part in practical activities that are relevant to their developmental stage” (Welsh Government, 2013).

The foundation phase came into legislation after the published document of ‘The Learning Country: Foundation Phase 3-7’. The welsh governments priorities came from the aims of the United Nations Convention of the Child (UNCRC) which passed through government in 2004. The big influential change which came about was the ‘seven areas of learning’    (Phillips, 2012). The aims of the government were simple that in order to create a future society were children  would be able to grow up and go into a work force with the correct skills in order to be successful. This idea was to move away from core subjects so that children could concentrate on the following:

·         Skills and understanding

·         Personal, social, emotional, physical and intellectual well- being so as to develop the whole child

·         Positive attitudes to learning so that they enjoy it and want to continue

·         Self-esteem and self-confidence to experiment, investigate, learn new things and form new relationships

·         Creative, expressive and observational skills to encourage their development as individuals with different ways of responding to experiences

·         Activities in the outdoors where they have first-hand experience of solving real-life problems and learn about conservation and sustainability.

(Welsh Government.  Retrieved 30, 03, 2013, from Foundation Phase) http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/earlyyearshome/foundation_phase/?lang=en

This in my opinion is a key document which has brought education forward because children are being given the opportunity to learn valuable skills to prepare them for the future where as the old curriculum in my opinion was not fulfilling their needs. My voluntary work has helped me gain a knowledge of the foundation phase first hand and I have seen a dramatic change in the educational system since I was in primary school myself and subjects such as mathematics are more practical therefor the children can see first hand how problems are solved and how important mathematics is and will be in their everyday lives. As part of my experience of being in a foundation phase classroom I was able to watch children and how they learn. I feel as if the foundation phase is fulfilling their needs for children with all sorts of abilities. 

This picture of a maths lesson sheet is showing the different color work groups and different grading of work which has been set for children with different abilities. This is a strong positive for the foundation phase as it is fulfilling its objective by fitting around everyone's abilities rather than peoples abilities fit to into the curriculum.