Who is this template for?
This template is designed specifically for Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Teachers in England. It provides a structured framework to reflect on practice against the Teachers' Standards (Early Years), enabling meaningful self-evaluation and career development planning.
Why use this template?
This template supports a structured and evidence-informed approach to performance management, moving beyond simple checklists to foster deep professional reflection. It helps you to:
- Empower Professional Growth: Take ownership of your performance management through meaningful, structured reflection against the professional standards for Early Years Teachers.
- Structure Appraisal Conversations: Build a clear, evidence-rich portfolio that facilitates more meaningful and focused appraisal meetings with your Headteacher or line manager.
- Identify CPD Needs: Pinpoint specific areas for development across the core standards, ensuring your CPD is targeted at enhancing your practice and improving outcomes for children.
- Evidence Your Impact: Articulate and demonstrate how you promote good progress and outcomes for children, linking your practice to established professional benchmarks.
- Enhance Strategic Thinking: The logical iAbacus process of judgement, evidence, analysis, and planning encourages a deeper understanding of the factors helping and hindering your effectiveness.
- Promote Consistency: Provides a consistent framework for EYFS Teachers across a school or Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), supporting a shared understanding of excellence.
How does it work?
This template uses the standard, intuitive iAbacus process to guide you from reflection to action. You will evaluate your performance across the key Teachers' Standards (Early Years), making judgements, adding evidence, analysing factors, and creating a targeted action plan. The key areas evaluated are:
- Set High Expectations
- Promote Good Progress and Outcomes
- Demonstrate Good Knowledge
- Plan Education and Care
- Adapt and Respond to Needs
- Use of Assessment
- Safeguarding and Welfare
- Wider Professional Responsibilities
Gaining Strategic Insight
For school and trust leaders, this template offers powerful strategic oversight. A Headteacher can overlay the self-evaluation and improvement plan abacuses from all their EYFS Teachers. This provides an instant overview of practice, highlighting where teachers are demonstrating best practice and improving outcomes for children, and which colleagues may benefit from targeted support or coaching.
Similarly, a MAT EYFS Lead can overlay the abacuses from all EYFS Teachers across the trust. This facilitates a powerful comparison, helping to identify which teachers are having the most success and enabling the sharing of best practice across schools.
Clear, Professional Reporting
With a single click, you can export your evaluation into a polished, visually compelling PDF report. This is perfect for sharing with a Headteacher as a comprehensive and evidence-informed basis for an appraisal discussion. For a MAT EYFS Lead, the combined 'Overlay' or 'Stack' views can be exported to provide a clear strategic overview of teaching practice and development priorities across all schools in the trust.
References / Source Material
How to Get Started
New to iAbacus? Discover how this template can support your improvement strategy. Book a personalised demo or start a free trial to explore the full platform. Visit www.iabacus.com to learn more.
Already a subscriber? You can find this template in the template library within your iAbacus account. Simply log in, create a new abacus, and select it from the list to get started.
