b. Definitions:
Foundation Stage and Key Stage I
Your students will need to be clear about what these stages are and how the development of literacy takes place within them. It would help them to consider the way the Birth to Five framework provides a rich basis for activities to promote literacy, with an emphasis on the significance of oral language, the role of parents and the child's home community.
The Foundation Stage, introduced in 2000 for children aged three to five, provides an opportunity to see the reception year as a new and separate stage of education, based on the principles of Early Years education. Four and five year olds are the oldest children in this new stage, while children at Key Stage 1, ages five, six and seven, remain under pressure from Year 2 SATs. However, the intention was that there would be continuity and coherence across the Foundation Stage. Early Years practitioners hoped that this could also influence practice at Key Stage1, allowing them to retain features of the Foundation Stage, such as the sustained, shared, purposeful talk that characteristically occurs when children are absorbed in complex, imaginative play, which lies at the heart of literacy development (Drummond, 2004, 104–5).
Children may well have this kind of experience in the nurseries where they spend the first year of the Foundation Stage. However, in the following year they are in reception classes where their teachers implement a challenging Early Years’ curriculum. Researchers (Adams, 2004) have found that there is a tendency for reception classes to anticipate the Year 1 classroom, with detailed planning based on the QCA Curriculum Guidance document.
Most of the topics covered in the Foundation Stage will continue to be significant in Key Stage 1 but will be filtered through the National Curriculum and the Primary National Strategy. Student teachers will need to become familiar with these key documents and consider them in their planning.
 
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