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Our approach

Young child building a tower with blocks and connectors

We developed Cambridge Early Years in line with international best practice and research, and in collaboration with pioneers of early education in India.

The programme builds on these key principles:

  1. Experience
    Learning should complement the social and cultural factors (like experiences of home and community) that shape a child’s learning and development.
  2. Active
    Children should be involved in their own learning through well-planned experiences that help them develop competence, agency, emotional attachment and self-worth.
  3. Balance
    Learning should encourage an appropriate balance of physical, cognitive, language and communications, and social and emotional development.
  4. Play
    Learning should be age appropriate, play-based and child centred. It should include both child- and adult-led activities.
  5. Transition
    Early years education should help children transition successfully to primary school, moving from informal, play-based learning to teaching that is more formal.

These key principles are central to our approach, and we recommend that you use them in all Cambridge Early Years settings to get the most out of the programme.

Find out more about how we developed the Cambridge Early years key principles (PDF, 287KB).

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