EYFS profile assessment support

Find EYFS profile guidance, bite-sized videos and case studies.

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Children’s early years are crucial to their future development, health and life chances. This assessment support is designed to build further confidence and consistency in the early years foundation stage (EYFS) profile assessment and good level of development (GLD) measure.

The EYFS profile

The EYFS profile is a statutory assessment of child development at the end of the academic year in which children turn 5. It summarises children’s development against 17 early learning goals (ELGs).

For each ELG, children are judged as either:

  • meeting the ‘expected’ level
  • ‘emerging’ if they do not yet meet the ‘expected’ level

Children have reached a GLD at the end of the EYFS if they have achieved the expected level for the ELGs in the prime areas of learning (communication and language, personal, social and emotional development, and physical development), plus the specific areas of mathematics and literacy.

You must complete the EYFS profile:

  • for all eligible children registered at the school or early years setting, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or developmental differences
  • in line with the statutory requirements in the EYFS framework

Schools and early years settings must submit EYFS profile data to the local authority no later than 30 June.

You can find non-statutory guidance for completing the EYFS profile assessment in the early years foundation stage profile handbook.

What is included in this assessment support

This assessment support brings together guidance, videos, practical examples and key messages for anyone who completes the EYFS profile assessment, as well as senior leaders.

These training materials are designed to:

  • build your confidence in your judgements
  • address common misconceptions about the assessment requirements
  • support professional dialogue with year 1 teachers

They also highlight the crucial role of headteachers and other senior leaders in supporting the EYFS profile assessment.

The following pages offer focused guidance on key areas, including:

  • the role of the headteacher and senior leaders
  • making best-fit judgements
  • inclusive assessment
  • transition

The ELG example pages provide practical video examples and anonymised case studies to help you make confident judgements. These pages focus on a selection of ELGs that practitioners often seek clarity on to assess, so not all the ELGs are included.

These examples:

  • show the assessment in context
  • illustrate best-fit judgements in practice
  • highlight inclusive approaches
  • clarify common misconceptions
  • support professional discussion

The examples are intended to support understanding and highlight the importance of professional judgement, not to provide templates or checklists.

How to use these resources

With these resources, you can:

  • explore the focused guidance in each section to help you understand different aspects of the EYFS profile
  • watch the short videos for practical insights and use the case studies to inform your practice
  • share key messages and prompts on transition with year 1 colleagues and special educational needs coordinators

In these resources, we’ve used ‘teacher’ to refer to any early years practitioner (including childminders) working with the child and completing the EYFS profile assessment.

Further learning and support

You can learn more about effective curriculum and assessment in our free online early years child development training.

You can find more early years support materials at:

You can use this online data tool to compare your good level of development (GLD) data.

You can also access previous EYFS profile exemplification materials published in 2022.

This video illustrates examples of assessment practice. While it features real children in real school settings, their actual developmental levels may differ from what is shown, and some scenes include acting for demonstration purposes.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the individuals, schools and organisations who helped create these materials, including:

  • Ambition Institute
  • Brickwall creative agency
  • Coleridge Primary School
  • Cranborne Primary School
  • Early Education
  • Jean Gross CBE, independent consultant and expert
  • Ofsted
  • Rivendell Flying High Academy