The framework
How Obsly works with Development Matters
What Development Matters is, how the areas and phases work, and exactly how a written observation ends up linked to it — with the words from your own note that justify each link.
M1
What Development Matters is
Development Matters is the Department for Education’s non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years, revised September 2023. Non-statutory matters: it is guidance to draw on, distinct from the statutory EYFS framework, and no setting is required to use it in any particular way.
It sets out seven areas of learning across three phases of development. Obsly uses this edition, and only this edition.
M2
The seven areas of learning
Named exactly as they are published. There are seven, and no sub-divisions beneath them.
- Communication and language 62
- Personal, social and emotional development 42
- Physical development 48
- Literacy 30
- Mathematics 44
- Understanding the world 30
- Expressive arts and design 44
M3
The three phases
Development Matters groups its statements into three phases: Birth to 3, 3 and 4-year-olds, and Children in reception.
No statement carries an age of its own. “Children in reception” is a school-year cohort rather than an age, and can’t be worked out from a date of birth — so Obsly asks which phase a child is in, and never tries to infer it.
M4
300 statements, and the constraint that matters
Across the seven areas and three phases there are 300 statements, and Obsly holds every one of them verbatim.
That number is the point. The model can only choose from statements that exist, so it cannot invent one. A framework link is always a real Development Matters statement, in its published wording — never a plausible-sounding paraphrase, and never something that isn’t in the document.
The 300, by phase
- Birth to 3
- 124
- 3 and 4-year-olds
- 98
- Children in reception
- 78
M5
Which statements a child's phase considers
A child’s own phase decides what is considered — plus the phases either side of it. Development says plainly that it “is not so neat and orderly”, and a tool that refused to acknowledge a three-year-old doing something advanced, or a reception child still consolidating something earlier, would read as wrong to any practitioner straight away.
| Child’s phase | Statements considered | How many |
|---|---|---|
| Birth to 3 | Birth to 3 and 3 and 4-year-olds | 222 |
| 3 and 4-year-olds | all three phases | 300 |
| Children in reception | 3 and 4-year-olds and Children in reception | 176 |
M6 · M7
Every link quotes your own words
Each link shows the phrase from your own note that produced it. Checking a link is a glance, not a re-read — you see the statement, and the words of yours that justify matching it.
Strong matches are applied. Weaker ones are shown greyed out as suggestions — you accept them before they count. An honest maybe you can dismiss beats a confident link you have to notice is wrong.
“recite numbers past 5”
“he counted to twenty while he was doing it”
“choose the right resources to carry out their own plan, for example, choosing a spade to enlarge a small hole they dug with a trowel”
“used the long planks this time”
M8
Characteristics of Effective Learning
Alongside the areas, Obsly recognises the three Characteristics of Effective Learning — Playing and Exploring, Active Learning, and Creating and Thinking Critically — with the same evidence treatment.
These are a fixed set of three, held separately. They are not Development Matters statements and aren’t part of the 300 — mixing them in would misrepresent both.
M9
Recorded with the observation
Each observation stores which framework and phase were used when it was created — shown as “Framework section used”, for example Development Matters · Birth to 3.
It’s historical context, not a fresh assessment: it doesn’t change as the child grows or moves room. It records what was true when the observation was written.
M10
What this is not
This is not a tracker. There are no scores, no bands, no percentages, no red-amber-green ratings — nothing that turns the statements into a checklist to tick off.
Development Matters itself says the statements are not a checklist, and the sector has spent years moving away from tick-list culture. Obsly links a written observation to the framework’s wording; it does not score a child against it, and it never will.
M11
Attribution
Development Matters is Crown copyright, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which permits reproduction of its wording with attribution:
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Statements are reproduced verbatim from Development Matters (Department for Education, revised September 2023).
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