Early Years Evidence Store expands with two new themes

Developed as part of the EEF’s work supporting the Department for Education’s Stronger Practice Hubs, the Evidence Store takes a comprehensive look at priority areas for early years learning and development. Co-developed by researchers and educators, it identifies approaches early years staff can use to support learning and development. The store provides a summary of the best available evidence for the approaches and illustrates how they could be put into practice with children in all types of early years settings.

The new theme on early mathematics summarises five approaches, including teaching problem solving skills for maths and supporting maths language, to give early years professionals guidance and pointers on how to implement them to boost learning and development.

Each approach is accompanied by videos of it in action, and further written examples to illustrate how it could be put into practice. For the approach for teaching association between number and quantity, the Evidence Store shows Honey, a childminder, following a mud pie recipe during play with a group of two- to three-year-olds. She uses words and gestures to illustrate how much of each ingredient the children need and then labels the amount after counting the ingredients.