EYFS Leadership Resources

Are you stepping into your first EYFS leadership role? Congratulations! This comprehensive and FREE checklist for new early years leaders is here to provide you with different ideas for how to get started in your new post over the first few weeks, half term and term. Designed to be fully editable, adapt and amend it to tailor it to your new EYFS role. Let us support your thinking and workload so you can find balance as a new EYFS leader.

Whether you're a new early years leader looking to create your first EYFS leader file or are an experienced foundation stage lead wanting to ensure your EYFS folder contains all the documents you need, this EYFS Leader Folder Pack is ideal for you. With 31 editable templates and full guidance, it'll walk you through what you could include in your EYFS leader folder - digital or paper-based - and why you need to include it. Suitable for EYFS leaders who work within a primary school as well as those in group-based settings such as nurseries and preschools, this pack will save you both time and energy in creating your subject leader file.

🔒 Fully aligned to the Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit 2025

This EYFS Self-Evaluation Bundle helps early years leaders evaluate their provision's strengths and development areas.

You'll get:

☑️ EYFS Self-Evaluation Form (SEF) template with structured criteria viewed through an early years lens across all Ofsted toolkit strands (Safeguarding, Inclusion, Curriculum and Teaching, Achievement, Attendance and Behaviour, Personal Development and Well-being, Leadership and Governance), with the Early Years strand explored in detail

☑️ Reflective questions in each section to support critical, evidence-based evaluation of your early years provision, plus guidance on where to find multiple sources of evidence

☑️ Early Years RAG Rating Tool so you can quickly assess your provision against core grade descriptors and identify priority areas for improvement

☑️ EYFS Ofsted Grade Descriptor Grids fully aligned to the 2025 toolkit to inform your self-evaluation decisions

All templates are fully editable so you can adapt them for your setting's specific context.

Who should use this bundle?

This is essential for EYFS leaders, early years coordinators and reception leads responsible for evaluating provision in their setting. It's particularly valuable for new early years leads building their self-evaluation skills, or experienced leaders refining their SEF process. Headteachers and SLT with EYFS responsibility will also find it useful for monitoring and supporting early years provision.

The editable EYFS SEF template and accompanying documents are ideal for new early years leads or those wishing to refine their EYFS SEF writing process. Often, these sorts of documents are kept - either digitally or paper-based - in an EYFS leader file. For further support with creating, building and organising an effective early years leader folder, this template along with many more are also included in our full EYFS Leader Folder Pack.

🔒 Fully aligned to the Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit 2025

This early years audit pack helps heads, SLT and EYFS leaders review practice across seven key areas of their early years provision, from strategic leadership to teaching, learning and readiness for Year 1. Fully aligned with Ofsted's 2025 School Inspection Toolkit, it supports self-evaluation, curriculum planning and school improvement with comprehensive tools designed specifically for maintained schools with early years children on roll and maintained nursery schools.

☑️ Comprehensive 51-page early years audit document with detailed prompts across 7 key themes including leadership, curriculum, teaching, achievement, well-being and welfare, inclusive practices, and continuous improvement
☑️ Complete audit toolkit to support the full audit process, including action plan template, question bank, one-page summary and document checklist to support preparation and monitoring
☑️ Step-by-step 20-page guidance document on how to effectively audit early years provision, fully updated with the latest Ofsted framework requirements

All templates are fully editable so you can adapt them for your school's specific context.

Designed for school-based early years provision, including Reception and any nursery, preschool or foundation stage setting led and managed by the school. Ideal for EYFS leaders, heads and senior leaders driving improvement or preparing for inspection under the 2025 Ofsted framework.

🔎 Want a closer look? Click here to preview the audit pack🔗 

👉 This audit pack is part of our Complete School Leadership Audit Set, which includes eleven audits in one purchase, saving you money whilst ensuring you can evaluate your entire school provision across all Ofsted evaluation areas plus three essential good practice audits.

Updated to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements in the September 2025 EYFS statutory framework for group and school-based providers, this EYFS Safeguarding and Welfare Checklist is ideal for any EYFS leader who's looking to explore safeguarding and child welfare in their setting. It's suitable for EYFS leaders in both school-based settings as well as group-based providers such as nurseries and preschools, and is built from all of the safeguarding and welfare requirements in section 3 of the EYFS statutory framework for group and school-based providers (and therefore isn't applicable to childminders).

The checklist walks you through different criteria about welfare and safeguarding in the EYFS, allowing you to identify your current strengths and make a plan for any areas of development. The following broad areas are included in the checklist:

• Child Protection
• Recruitment
  
• Training and Qualifications
• Staff Ratios
• Child Health
• Behaviour
• Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND)
• Premises and Equipment
• Record Keeping
• Safer Eating
• Whistleblowing

Each section can help you to critically reflect on your safeguarding procedures and processes, allowing you to keep every child safe as well as ensuring compliance with safeguarding requirements in the EYFS.

Every early years leader should ensure they're aware of their setting's strengths and levels of compliance when it comes to safeguarding as well as ensuring any weaknesses are addressed quickly. This information should be regularly reviewed so it's ideal to keep copies and records together, such as in an EYFS leader folder. For further support with creating, building and organising an effective early years leader folder, this template along with many more, are also included in our EYFS Leader Folder Pack.

This EYFS Leader Folder Checklist is ideal for any EYFS lead looking for ideas and guidance on the documentation they might want to include in their EYFS leader file, regardless of whether it's kept digitally or in a paper-based folder. 

The checklist is designed to save your time in wondering what to include in an EYFS leader folder by helping you to consider the different documents you might need. Each suggestion has handy notes about what to include and you can tick them off once completed, allowing you to stay on top of keeping your EYFS file organised. 

The checklist is split into the following helpful sections:

• EYFS Improvement and Leadership
• Curriculum and Assessment Information
• Pastoral Information
• Communication and Involvement
• Staffing, Training and Development
• Governors and External Advisors

This editable EYFS leadership folder template is ideal for new early years leads or those wishing to refine how they store and organise their EYFS information. For further support with creating, building and organising an effective early years leader folder, this template along with many more are also included in our full EYFS Leader Folder Pack.

Looking to identify the skills and development points of an EYFS practitioner in your setting? Or perhaps you're a preschool worker, nursery assistant or a teaching assistant in a Reception class who wants to explore role-specific strengths and weaknesses as part of your ongoing development or when looking for a new role. No matter the situation, this handy pack contains exactly what you need to uncover strengths and plan for professional development & growth.

This EYFS Learning Environment and Resource Audit Bundle is ideal for any EYFS leader who's looking to explore how the learning environment and resources across their early years setting supports children's early development. 

The Learning Environment Audit template walks you through different reflective questions about your areas of indoor provision, outdoor provision and how you structure your spaces and resources to support development in the seven areas of learning. This allows you to identify the current strengths of your EYFS spaces and rooms, and make a plan for any areas of development. The following types of questions are included - why not see if you can answer them about your setting?

• Are items and equipment labelled? Is this in a child-friendly font? Are photographs also used?
• Is furniture adapted for any children with special educational needs and/or disabilities?
• What natural materials are available for children to interact with and observe?
• What first aid provision is in place for the outdoor space(s)?

Questions like these can help you critically reflect on your early years learning environment in order to makes changes to give your children the best possible experiences. Also included is an EYFS Resource Audit and Inventory template which covers the types of early years resources, furnishings and equipment that you might have. This can help you to identify any gaps in your resource stock as well as finding where old equipment needs replacing or updating. This template also allows you to consider different resource types, such as those that support different areas of learning, sensory and therapeutic resources, technology and digital resources, and health and safety equipment.

The learning environment and the resources available are crucial to children's development in the early years foundation stage, and your efforts in providing the best possible provision is something you may wish to evidence in a EYFS leader file. For further support with creating, building and organising an effective early years leader folder, these templates (along with many more) are also included in our full EYFS Leader Folder Pack.

🔄 Updated for 2026

Supporting your curriculum link governor effectively takes structure, clarity and the right tools. This pack gives you a great starting point with six fully editable resources designed to strengthen curriculum governance in your school, whether your link governor is new to role or needs more support to be highly effective.

You'll get:

☑️ Curriculum Intent, Implementation and Impact Questions for Governors and Trustees – 14 pages of structured questions to support meaningful collaboration between the curriculum link governor and key school staff such as the curriculum lead, headteacher or SLT, plus a triangulating evidence section and an action plan template to document next steps

☑️ EYFS Questions for Governors and Trustees – focused questions to help the curriculum governor and early years lead build a deeper understanding of the school's current early years foundation stage strengths and areas for development

☑️ Early Reading and Phonics Questions for Governors and Trustees – structured questions to evaluate the school's current position on early reading and phonics, which can be used alongside the EYFS questions for a fuller picture

☑️ Curriculum, Subject and EYFS Reports to Governors Template – three clear, structured templates covering the reporting on the full curriculum, individuals subjects (reusable across multiple subjects) and the EYFS, giving the full governing board the insight they need

☑️ Curriculum Link Governor Roles and Responsibilities – an editable outline of the curriculum governor's key responsibilities, ideal for onboarding a new governor or bringing clarity to an existing role

All resources are fully editable so you can adapt them to reflect your school's context and needs.