In October we saw a clear demonstration that reasoned and evidence-based consultation means nothing if a Government has its own over-riding political agenda. The recommendations of the highly comprehensive Cambridge Primary Review were largely dismissed and, although not specifically about the pre-school years, the Review did highlight the importance of these years and the need to revisit the school starting age issue.

Surely, if a substantial review of this nature makes such a recommendation, coupled with the advice of the government's own Early Education Advisory Group, the Barry Sheerman led Select Committee earlier this year, and the new Welsh Early Years' Foundation Phase - not to mention 10,000 signatories to last year's Downing St. Petition - there must be something radically questionable about this government's inability to listen to expert advice. We can only hope that after the pending General Election, if there is a change of government next year, a new party will demonstrate a more open and responsive approach.

We can see now why so many experts and researchers have had to resort to going behind the scenes and leaking information to share what they really think.This is clearly a highly unhealthy situation for all concerned and OpenEYE is committed to the call for more open and authentic platforms for debate. Perhaps we have reached the point when education should be removed from the political agenda and placed in the hands of those who understand the real nature of education, and who are best equipped to design and enable it.

The Cambridge Review was a substantial and impartial evaluation carried out by by Professor Robin Alexander on behalf of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to report on the true state of our primary schools. The report draws on more than 4000 published sources, both national and international, together with: 28 specially-commissioned research surveys; 1052 written submissions from leading organisations and individuals, ranging from 1 to 300 pages in length; nearly 250 soundings, seminars, conferences and other meetings in different parts of the country; thousands of e-mails; and an extensive trawl of official data. The report has been written by a team of 14 authors, supported by 66 research consultants and a 20-strong advisory committee, under the editorship of the Review's director, Professor Robin Alexander of Cambridge University.


 Read the Government's formal response to the final report, issued 16 October 2009

 Read Robin Alexander's reply in the Guardian Online, 24 October 2009, and readers' comments

 

Read Robin Alexander's reply to the government's response in full

Read Robin Alexander's RSA keynote address, 19 October

Read Matthew Taylor's blog about the RSA event and readers' comments

October 17, 2009:
October 16, 2009:

We are watching with interest the Conservative Party's suggestions on educational policy. At the recent Conservative Conference in Manchester Shadow schools spokesman Nick Gibb talked of plans to review the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Gibb said: "The early years foundation stage has become a bureaucratic nightmare and it's typical of the bureaucratic approach to education that we oppose. The idea that you have to fill in tick-boxes of 117 objectives ... We have to trust our professionals not have these forms asking whether a child can tie its shoelaces, hold a rattle. Ludicrous. Really we've got to get rid of that kind of approach to education."

Bernadette Duffy, head of Thomas Coram Early Childhood Centre and chair of Early Education

"The EYFS exemptions process is a bureaucratic nightmare and I would like to see that side of things made more straightforward, but I would not want to lose the EYFS completely. I would, however, like the statutory nature of it to be dropped."

Read the Melanie Defries article in Nursery World

Read the Children and Young People Now Conference Report

Read the Children and Young People Now Childminders Piece

The Tories are also now talking of introducing the Swedish inspired system of independent schools about which we ran an article about in the August newsletter (see item below).

The Department for Children, Schools and Families is consulting on changes to the schools admission code, which would give parents flexibility on when their child started school.

Four-year-olds will be able to start school the September, January or April after their birthday if their parents think them ready. Free full-time nursery places will be available to those who do not take up the school offer. Parents can also withhold their child from school or nursery until the compulsory school starting age of five.

Open EYE, though welcoming what is at least a positive gesture towards those many  parents who are concerned about 4 year olds in school, wishes to point out that parents who wish to choose this route will find it highly problematic, and at worst a cosmetic gesture without substance.For in practice, we know that often highly-subscribed primary schools simply refuse to hold places open for children whose parents wish them to start later; citing long waiting-lists as their reasons for refusing to keep the place open for a further year. This has already been happening for a number of years and is not a new problem. The promise of a further year of nursery education grant is, therefore, a promise that cannot be upheld unless the government develops a new policy requiring primary schools to hold these places open. 

Read the Children and Young People Now article

Hilary Wilce has this to say in The Independent:

Is there really a right age for children to start school? Why do we spend so much time arguing about it?

"No, there isn't. Children differ hugely in their readiness to start reading and writing - which is what the arguments over the school starting age are about. Any parent with more than one child knows this, while a review commissioned by the Scottish Executive three years ago looked at evidence from around the world and concluded that a perfect school starting age was illusory.

The reason everyone gets so worked up about it is because it brings polarised views of children and education into conflict. One end of the spectrum sees five-year-olds as marvellously self-directed learners who soak up the world like sponges and who should be left alone with the sandpit and the water tray.

The other end sees children of this age as bundles of raw potential in need of pushing and shaping, and believes they need formal learning to channel their busy brains and give them a flying start to school.

In a perfect world, of course, children would move at their own pace from play-based learning to formalised lessons, sympathetically guided by sensitive and well-trained, early-years teachers. And this is what is supposed to happen.

However, classes are big, good staff are thin on the ground, the early-years curriculum is flawed, and teachers further up in schools put pressure on their early-years colleagues to get going on reading and writing to help them meet national targets. As a result, perfection - as always in education - remains out of reach."

Whereas Helen Ward in the TES compares the arguments put forward by both The Rose Report and The Cambridge Review:

"While the Alexander and Rose reports have been portrayed as opposing views on the school starting age, the real argument lies in how and what you teach - not when."

OpenEYE believes that children in England are being exposed to the pressures of formal learning much too early and feels strongly that 'when a child starts school' is an extremely important issue. Four year olds need a higher ratio of teachers than older children and this is just not available in classes that are 30 strong with just one teacher and an assistant. 

Children who start school too young are frequently 'uprooted' from nurturing settings and the company of empathic and sensitive childminders or parents who really care about and understand their individual needs in ways that are extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, for teachers to achieve in such large classes.

Read Helen Ward's TES article

The following press release was issued by the DCSF on the 14th of October:

Children's Minister, Dawn Primarolo today celebrated the first year successes of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) as new data shows the Framework is helping to drive up achievement in early years across the country. Over 23,000 more children are reaching a good level of development than prior to the introduction of the EYFS in September 2008.

As well as overall achievement reaching its highest level since records began, putting the Government only one percentage point away from the 2011 target, the achievement of the most deprived five year olds has also improved. The gap between the lowest achievers and their peers has also narrowed, to its smallest ever, from 38 per cent in 2006 to 34 per cent in 2009...

The statistics are the first set since the introduction of the EYFS. The findings include:

the overall achievement of five-year-olds has improved in every region

over 100 local authorities narrowed the gap between the highest and lowest achieving five-year-olds

overall achievement has improved by 3 percentage points

nationally, only one percentage point away from the 2011 target and the highest rate of achievement since records began

boys achievement improved in 11 out of 13 early learning goals and remained stable in the remaining two improvements across all areas of learning.

Read the statistical first release

Wendy Elyatt had this to say about it in Nursery World:

Nursery World, 29 October 2009
LETTER OF THE WEEK - ADULT-IMPOSED EYFS

The press release sent out from the DCSF on 14 October celebrating the first-year successes of the EYFS sent shivers down my spine - and not in a good way.

The words that really struck me were 'driving up achievement' when being applied to children of five and under. The release was sent out with a list of impressive statistics - all clearly demonstrating that children were performing better than before.

We have now given young teachers a statutory framework that they are encouraged to see as the 'norm' for children's development in the early years. The framework uses terms like 'required to deliver', 'driving forward' and 'outcomes'. Settings are measured according to how well they are delivering the outcomes and the workforce is being trained to ensure that its focus is on achievement.

What the results tell us is that children are performing better in those areas that practitioners have been told to focus on. This is hardly surprising. What they don't tell us is how the imposition of such a framework has impacted on the psychological and relational nature of early years settings.

Children will respond to the conscious and subconscious demands of the adults in their environment. We need, therefore, to be extraordinarily careful that adult criteria and expectations don't interfere with children's natural developmental agenda. Statistics can be massively misleading if they are more a reflection of the system that created them than an accurate portrayal of the larger picture.

Let's not get too excited about the reported success of the EYFS without being extremely cautious about its impact on this very precious and highly sensitive foundational period of life.

Nurseries are being urged by Early Education to sign a petition against the implementation of the Early Years Single Funding Formula (EYSFF), which it claims will have a negative impact on the most disadvantaged children.

From April next year the EYSFF will be used to calculate funding for the free entitlement across all sectors. However, some maintained nursery schools that have been offering free, full-time provision are facing huge budget cuts once the EYSFF is implemented and will only be funded to provide the 15- hour free entitlement, in line with other sectors (News, 7 October).

The petition is part of a wider campaign against the EYSFF by Early Education, which has also published a support kit to assist nursery schools and settings who believe that they may be adversely affected by the changes to their funding.

Megan Pacey, chief executive of Early Education, said, 'More and more nursery schools and settings are reporting to us that the single funding formula that is being proposed by their local authority is going to adversely affect those children who have been identified as being vulnerable and at risk, including those with special education needs and their parents who also benefit from this high quality provision.'

Read the full Nursery World article

Access the Petition

The EYSFF support kit is at www.early-education.org.uk

Montessori settings may consider opting out of the free nursery education entitlement in order to remain viable, according to the chair of the Montessori Schools Association (MSA). Dr Martin Bradley told Nursery World that emerging evidence indicated that the extension to 15 hours free provision next April would have a negative effect on settings.

Dr Bradley said, 'Many members have come to us with budgeting problems they are going to suffer in the new tax year. One setting indicated they will lose £8,000. Members are saying they will either have to make staff redundant or ask them to take pay cuts...One option is not taking the funding for three- and four-year-olds, so parents pay the full fees. At the moment no-one has found any other solutions. But there are implications with opting out, like not being able to access training funds from local authorities...We're advising our schools to talk to their local authority and get the facts.'

Read the Nursery World article

The current increasing obsession with US-like legal liability is creating a world where we are denying children the opportunity to be curious explorers and risk-takers. This letter to The Telegraph on the 17th of October is just one example:

Let children play

SIR - I worked at a school with superb facilities, which had a grassy slope to run up and down (Letters, October 16) and a wooded area with plenty of mature trees to explore.

Unfortunately, these were deemed far too dangerous; children might injure themselves on the slope, or branches might drop onto their heads. So, under the guidance of health and safety, the slope was fenced off and the wooded area declared a no-go zone.

Expensive play equipment would not be needed if common sense prevailed and children were allowed to be children without schools living in fear of reprisals from inevitable accidents. This all used to be just part of growing up.

Name supplied

Baby Einstein

A study by Washington University found that for every hour that infants of 8 to 16 months watch educational videos, they understood six to eight fewer words than other babies not exposed to such videos. The University specifically mentioned Baby Einstein when announcing the study.

In the face of growing complaints, the Walt Disney Company dropped the word "educational" from its marketing in 2006.
But now the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC), based in Boston, Mass, which had threatened Disney with a class-action lawsuit, has claimed "victory" after the company offered American parents refunds for the products.

OpenEYE contributor Aric Sigman - the author of 'Remotely Controlled'- said: "It shows what many of us have been saying for a long time, that the virtual life cannot beat real life when it comes to language acquisition in children. None of these videos or educational TV shows, including those on the BBC, can rival or supplant babies talking and listening to parents."

Read the Telegraph article