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Welcome to the OpenEYE Campaign Newsletter
OpenEYE consists of a unique and growing multi-disciplinary team of experts who have come together through a shared concern about Early Childhood in the UK. They have the support of an increasing number of childminders, parents, practitioners and teachers. Additional  support comes from a prestigious group of international researchers, authors and early childhood experts. OpenEYE is an entirely voluntary group  who give their time freely to the cause.

The monthly newsletter aims to share some of OpenEYE's concerns and to highlight some of the relevant media items that have appeared during the past month.


 
In This Issue
Select Committee Report
New Strategy Document
School Starting Age
The Danger Signs
Endangered Childminders
More Providers Opting Out
Learning through Play
Baby Babble Learning Goal
UK ranked Low in Child Wellbeing

A table of young people's wellbeing in 29 European states - the EU plus Norway and Iceland - has ranked the UK 24th.

See the video and read the full BBC report here
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Sally Goddard Blythe's new book highlights the importance and function of early reflexes.
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'According to a recent survey published by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, three in four teachers are adamant that it is wrong to admit children to mainstream classrooms at the age of four'.

Not only does this constant form-filling treat childcare professionals like morons, but it also reduces the time they can spend in affectionate interaction with their charges. Nurseries are turning into giant filing centres; perhaps as a result, the number of registered child minders has fallen from 102,600 in 1996 to 61,929 by the end of last year.

Rowan Pelling
World Forum on Early Care and Education
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   Hastings Europa Hotel,  Belfast, Northern Ireland
16th to 19th June

Over 600 early childhood experts from more than 70 countries are coming together to exchange ideas.

For more details click here
OpenEYE Film

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OpenEYE launched its Campaign film 'Too Much too Soon' in July 2008. You can see the film on Youtube
 

 
Send in your stories!
 
OpenEYE works because it is in touch not only with early years experts, but with people at the grass roots who really know what is going on. If you have stories that you think we should know about please email us
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April 2009

OpenEYE welcomed the March Select Committee Report on The National Curriculum which included a number of important points relating to the Early Years. We have included a link to the report below, together with Robin Alexander's comments and Wendy Scott's comprehensive review in Nursery World

But we are deeply concerned that Minister Ed Balls is refusing to listen to expert opinions about the school starting age. We challenge the Minister to back up his decision with hard evidence that counters the body of research and professional opinion that shows no advantage to starting too soon and, in fact, it is more likely to inhibit natural learning dispositions than to encourage them.

More providers are talking of opting out of the EYFS and we are monitoring carefully the processes that they are asked to go through.
The Select Committee Report on The National Curriculum

The Select Committee Report includes these important recommendations relating to the early years:

1) It welcomes the Government's request that Jim Rose should consider two of the early learning goals (ELGs) for communication, language and literacy as part of his current review of the primary curriculum, and draws attention to the near-universal support for the reconsideration of the ELGs directly concerned with reading, writing and punctuation.

2) It recommends that all five literacy goals should be removed pending the review of the EYFS next year and proposes that his review should evaluate whether the statutory framework is too prescriptive.

3) It rejects the Rose interim recommendation that all children should normally enter their reception class in the September of the year they become five because, 'due to their low practitioner-to-child ratios, these settings cannot cater for the needs of very young children'.

Former Government Advisor Wendy Scott provides a comprehensive analysis of the report in her Nursery World article, and highlights many of the issues that OpenEYE has been concerned about.

'The principles underpinning the EYFS state clearly that children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates. Their potential to be resilient, capable, confident learners from birth may be undermined by unreasonable expectations laid upon them by ministers who, unlike the select committee, seem to be bent on forcing through practice that is not based on research evidence, and ignores the real experience of the youngest children in our schools'.

- Wendy Scott is the president of early years organisation TACTYC


Read the full report

Read the BBC article

Read Robin Alexander's article in the Guardian

Read Wendy Scott's article in Nursery World

New National Strategy Document

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We have been sent the details of a new booklet called Progress Matters (pub March 2009) that confirms all our previously documented fears about how children will be tracked against the 'age -related' Development Matters statements in the EYFS.  There is a CD Rom with the booklet which gives examples of approved practice for tracking progress in a setting. This clearly shows the pressures that practitioners will be put under to achieve results.

You can see the publication on the National Strategies site here
Do we really want children starting school at four?
Why does the government persist in wanting children to start school at such a young age when other countries in Europe achieve better results, and have happier children, with pupils starting much later? We have some of the unhappiest children in the world. It doesn't take much to work out that this may be due to the fact that we ask too much too soon.

Young children are joyful natural learners. We think that this is a right that should be fought for and protected.

Read the Telegraph article
From the Guardian's Letters page - 28th April

We found this letter on the Guardian's Letters page about one woman's experience of the Norwegian system.

'I am a British woman with a six-year-old son. A little under six years ago, I moved to Oslo. In August 2008, my son started in a Norwegian school. He was five years and eight months old. Coming from Britain I was at first sceptical about this late start. However, I am astounded how quickly he has developed academically - in the space of half a year, he can read and write and is already multiplying numbers.

I work as an assistant at an international school here, which has the same system as in Britain, and my son is at the same level as the year 1 students who started at four years old. By starting so late he had the time to develop his social skills through play and to physically develop, which is often neglected in schools. He was mentally ready to start school. He absorbed information like a sponge and relished learning.

I have watched the majority of four-year-old reception students struggle as they are forced to sit still and quietly for a length of time that is difficult at their age. It is tough enough anyway letting them go so young, without feeling that it is not the right decision.'

Henning Labr�, Oslo, Norway

See the letters page online
Childminders an endangered species?

We have also been shown a copy of a very powerful letter recently sent to Beverley Hughes. It included these statistics and comments:

'The figure (for registered childminders - ed) of 60,915 at March 31st, 2009, released today after quite a long delay, is a new record low, the 10th successive quarter decline and 1,000 fewer than at December 31st, 2008; a 1.5% drop in three months. The decline in the 12 months to March 31st was 3,733 (5.5%) and in the two years to March 31st the number decreased by 9,000, or 13%...

If I may say so Ms Hughes, you too should be greatly concerned. Many parents prefer a home environment and a 'maternal' rather than 'educational', target-oriented approach for their very young children and this is increasingly being denied them because of government policy and the unreasonable demands now being made of childminders.

Ms Hughes, generally speaking childminders are not - and are not meant to be - educators. It is all very well for you to say that 'early learning and childcare professionals need to have the same level of professionalism as teachers', but are you somehow going to offer childminders the same pay and working conditions as teachers? Of course you're not. In any case I'm sure that most childminders would claim to be thoroughly professional, whether or not they have a formal educational qualification. They shouldn't need the latter to prove their professionalism.'

The author has given his consent for us to share the whole letter here.
More providers opting out
April saw more independent providers threatening to opt out of the EYFS with Steiner schools leading the way. We believe that parents should be able to choose the setting that is right for their child and that diversity of provision is essential for a balanced society.

Read Joanne Sugden's article in The Times Online

Childen need more time to learn through play
In a survey on early education, members of the The Association of Teachers and Lecturers Union claimed that the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the primary school curriculum are to blame for a lack of play-based learning.

'The vast majority of respondents said that assessing children against 117 EYFS indicators is unnecessary'.

Read Lauren Higgs' article in Children and Young People Now
Even Baby Babble is now recorded as a learning target

We loved Rowan Spelling's article in The Daily Telegraph, and reproduce some of it here:

My magnificent child minder is the mother of four delightful, intelligent children, and needs no advice from Ofsted about how best to promote infant development. She passionately believes that her primary role is to provide a loving environment for children of working parents, but says the oppressive bureaucracy is driving her "insane": she can't even apply sun-cream to her charges without parents filling in permission forms.

As her annual Ofsted inspection is imminent, she's frantically filling a scrapbook with pictures of her charges demonstrating that they are "enjoying achieving" and "making a positive contribution". Then she has to locate a dark-skinned doll to display prominently in her playroom, to show she's promoting cultural diversity - never mind that her toddler groups contain infants of myriad nationalities.

The constant monitoring is also filling parents with unnecessary dread about their offspring's progress, or apparent lack of it. An astonishing number of acquaintances have consulted the professionals because their infant (nearly always a boy) is late walking or talking. I always tell them about a friend whose younger son was deemed to be "educationally subnormal" at the age of five, and has just qualified as a doctor.

Now that I come to think of it, I'm not quite sure how our family will do on the tests. The activity my one-year-old enjoys most of all is popping bubble-wrap. But such heady infant rapture is not within Ofsted's grim remit.

Read the full article
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With warm wishes from
 
The OpenEYE Team

We hope that we have fairly and accurately reported the items in this newsletter. Please contact us if you notice any errors.