In South Africa, Foundation Phase teaching is the first phase of formal schooling: Grade R and Grades 1 to 3, typically ages about 5 to 9. It is where home language, early literacy, numeracy and life skills are built as the base for later phases.
This page answers what the phase is. It is not a coding-and-robotics course, and it is not an AI primer. Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.
What the phase covers
- Home language as the main language of learning and teaching in these years, with additional language according to the school’s offering
- Literacy: listening, speaking, reading and writing at an early level
- Mathematics: number, operations, patterns, space and measurement at Foundation Phase depth
- Life Skills: beginning knowledge, personal and social well-being, creative arts and physical education as set out in CAPS
Play, routine and lots of oral language sit inside good Foundation Phase practice. That is a method, not a separate subject.
What it is not
- Not Intermediate or Senior Phase. Those have different CAPS documents and different subject splits.
- Not a promise that coding belongs in every Grade R lesson. Where a school teaches Coding and Robotics, that is an addition with its own guidance. See the Foundation Phase coding and robotics workshop note if that is the job you came for.
Related: computational thinking in African schools.
Sources
- Department of Basic Education (South Africa). Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Foundation Phase (Grade R–3).