If you read some reports on the Ofsted website you will see that you are expected to have a certain amount of long term planning in place.
Confusion seems to be that people think long terms plans have to be themes for each month of the year!
That's not the case as the Eyfs is clearly a document which expects us to plan for individual children's interests.
However, there is still a certain amount of long term planning that we need to do, even if we intend to differentiate everything for the children.
For example, most of us will have Christmas or Kwanzaa on our long term plans for December... we will do something around Valentines day for February... we will have plans to cover Easter or Passover in March / April.
At the same time, you will also plan long term for John's mum's wedding or Jane's birthday.
Long term planning is of course showing how you will meet the Eyfs...
BUT my understanding is it is also about looking at the year ahead and planning your intended activities to cover the requirements of the Eyfs to introduce children to and teach them about global events, festivals and celebrations.
Hope this helps