EYFS Framework Guide: Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Self-confidence and self-awareness

What is PSED?

Personal development is about how children come to understand who they are and what they can do.

Social development covers how children come to understand themselves in relation to others, how they make friends, understand the rules of society, and behave towards others.

Emotional development is about how children understand their own and other’s feelings and develop their ability to be empathetic - to see things from another person’s point of view.

Three aspects of PSED in the EYFS

Self-confidence and self-awareness

Managing feelings and behaviour

Making relationships

Self-confidence and self-awareness

Practitioners can nurture young children’s self-confidence and self-awareness by providing lots of opportunities for them to:

• develop a positive sense of themselves and others

• have confidence in their own abilities.

How can we support young children to be self-confident and self-aware?

Attitudes and ethos

The physical environment

Key person working

Opportunities and experiences for children

Building partnerships with parents

Our attitudes and ethos

• How effectively do we act as role models for the children by being open to new ideas and experiences?

• Does everyone understand the importance of active listening?

• How well do we show we value individual children’s strengths and abilities?

• How effectively do we help children to express themselves in a confident and self-assured way?

• Are children given enough opportunities to take responsibility for helping to ensure the setting functions smoothly?

Physical environment• How wide a range of open-ended creative resources do we have for

children to express their thoughts and ideas?• Is the physical environment well organised, to encourage children to

make choices?• How well is the outdoor environment resourced to provide

interesting and engaging experiences?• How could we rethink the organisation of the day to allow more

time for children to become absorbed in their self-chosen activities?• What is our collective view on how to provide very young children

with risk and challenge?• How could we improve the display of information around the setting

to emphasise the importance of children’s attitudes and approaches to learning ?

Key person working

• Are we happy that all members of staff fully understand their key person role?

• Do we feel the routines and staffing arrangements of the setting are supportive of key person working?

• How could we spend more time ‘getting to know’ children and families when they join our setting?

• Do we have effective systems for monitoring our key person system to ensure that it is working well?

Opportunities and experiences for children

• How good are we at observing children and using their interests as the basis of future planning?

• Do we all feel we give children sufficient time, opportunity and encouragement to master skills?

• How could we provide more opportunities for children to engage with people in the outside world - through visits and visitors?

• Do the images displayed around the setting fully reflect the community from which the children come?

Building partnerships with parents

• How well do we support new parents in understanding their young child’s learning and development?

• In how many different ways do we share children’s achievements with parents?

• Do we take enough time to listen to parents and to share information with them?

• How creative are we in finding different ways to involve parents in the life of the setting?