Caterpillar Progression Document

🐛 Caterpillar Class Progression – 2–3 Years

Our Caterpillar Class Progression Document shows how we support children’s development throughout their year in Caterpillar Class.

At this age, children can make enormous changes in a relatively short period of time. Our progression document helps practitioners recognise and build upon these important developments across all seven areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

It is organised across four points in the year:

Baseline → End of Autumn → End of Spring → End of Summer

Starting with the individual child

When a child joins Caterpillar Class, our first priority is helping them to feel safe, secure and happy.

Staff spend time building relationships and getting to know each child through play, everyday routines, observations and conversations with their family. This gives us a picture of their individual starting point and helps us understand their interests, strengths and areas where they may need additional support.

How progression looks in Caterpillar Class

For our 2–3-year-olds, progression is often seen through small but very significant changes.

A child might progress from communicating through gestures and single words to using short phrases, from playing alongside another child to beginning to interact with them, or from needing considerable adult support with everyday routines to wanting to try things for themselves.

Our curriculum gives children lots of opportunities to explore, repeat and revisit experiences. Repetition is particularly important at this age because it helps children develop confidence, understanding and increasingly secure skills.

As children progress through Caterpillar Class, we look for growing development in areas such as communication, relationships, physical skills, curiosity, early literacy and mathematical thinking, imaginative play and independence.

Not a checklist

Our progression document is not a list of things every child must achieve by a certain date.

Children between two and three develop at very different rates. They may also make rapid progress in one area while needing much more time and support in another.

Practitioners use the progression document alongside observations over time, information from families, children's interests and experiences, and their professional judgement to understand each child's development.

Supporting every child

We recognise that progress will look different for every child.

For children with SEND, EAL or additional needs, an important step forward might be responding to their name more consistently, communicating a choice, joining an activity for longer, developing a new self-care skill or becoming more comfortable playing alongside other children.

We adapt our environment, interactions and experiences so that children can participate successfully and make meaningful progress from their own individual starting points.

Moving on to Butterfly Class

Towards the end of the year, we also use the progression document to help us prepare children who will be moving into Butterfly Class.

This doesn't mean children have to reach a particular level before they can move class. Instead, we gradually help them become familiar with new adults, routines and expectations while continuing to provide the individual support they need.

Our Caterpillar curriculum provides the foundations upon which the Butterfly curriculum builds, allowing learning to develop naturally as children grow in confidence, communication, curiosity and independence.

Progression in Caterpillar Class is about celebrating all the little steps that eventually become very big ones.