Create a Structured and Documented Approach to your Curriculum Planning

It is very important to have documentation justifying your curriculum planning; inspectors will be looking for this documentation and clear justification of your curriculum planning based on the principles of Síolta and Aistear.

A good early years curriculum will ensure children’s curiosity is aroused and valued. It will provide children with wide-ranging experiences, including offering opportunities to think and play about different cultural traditions, including upcoming seasonal events and festivals. You can use books, props, art activities and games as part of your curriculum, but remember that the most important feature of your curriculum is that it engages and involves the children and must be largely led by the children.

Your curriculum should be planned for short-term, medium-term and long-term and while your plan should be well-structured, you will need to also build in flexibility and creatively and tailor the curriculum to the interests and needs of the individual child.

You should be documenting your plans for upcoming curriculum-based activities and summarising the interaction and learning that took place. This is essential for your own ongoing ability to provide great early years education as well as an important part of documentation required for inspection.

The Early Years Shop is now offering the Curriculum Planning Toolkit from Canavan Byrne, the early years compliance experts. The toolkit includes a guide to how to approach curriculum planning. It also provides templates that you can modify for your service to build your own curriculum plans, and to be prepared for inspection with documentation showing your adherence to the Síolta framework and Aistear themes. The key value of the pack is it is in Microsoft Word and can be adapted to suit your service.