Times
Educational Supplement April 4, 2003 Look
Westward to Find Childhood is Alive and Well
Diane
Hofkins
Here,
Hofkins, talks of Jane Davidson, the minister for Education and Lifelong learning (Wales), proposing that
the Foundation stage should be extended to include Key Stage 1. She continues ‘ While English five and six
year olds will be sitting on the carpet focused on the whiteboard for a
literacy hour lesson, their Welsh counterparts will be playing outdoors,
developing curiosity, a keenness to learn and creativity. Building relationships and personal efficacy
will be more important than formal learning, which Welsh education bodies
believe is beginning too early’.
These plans will come about between 2004, and 2008.
Belfast
Telegraph June 3 2003 At the Chalk Face: What is
the Enriched Curriculum?
Kathryn
Torney
In this article Kathryn talks of the Enriched
Curriculum project being developed by the Belfast Education and Library Board
and piloted in six Schools in September 2000.
Children
are only taught formally how to read and write when they are ready, time is
spent building social and learning skills. Children spend less time seated, and
move around from activity to activity.
Other
European practice is mentioned ie that formal learning does not begin until six
or seven. Some European teachers
describe our current system of four year olds at desks as ‘child abuse’. A spokesman for the CCEA suggests that
feedback from project has been good, and that children have benefited in terms
of confidence, creativity and concentration span.
The
spokesman continues
‘Our
experience to date has alleviated any concerns that parents might have …
about..slightly later start to formal learning. And indeed all the evidence from other top performing countries
suggests that this approach improves children’s literacy and numeracy in the
longer term, especially for boys’.
Daily Mail July 23, 2003
Pupils who wait to start school are keener to learn
In this article the Mail’s Education Correspondent
discusses a new report from
Ofsted. Here Ofsted claims that
children who start school at a later age are less likely to misbehave, and that
they tend to co-operate with teachers and have a higher threshold of boredom.
Sarah then goes on to remind us of the ongoing
debate in England about when children should start school, and that there are
many warnings by early years experts that youngsters are being ‘damaged’ by
beginning school too soon. She
re-iterates the fact that nowadays most children start school when they are 4
even though the law states that children do not need to begin school until the
term after their 5th birthday.
In the survey Ofsted inspectors compared 6 year
olds in England with those in Finland and Denmark (who are still in pre-school
at 6). Even allowing for the class-size
variable (England and Denmark similar at 22.6, but Finland twice as small)
Finnish children had the highest concentration threshold, but only slightly
more than Denmark. Scandinavian
children were more interested and showed ‘enthusiasm and delight’. English children found classroom tasks
‘insufficiently or excessively demanding’.
Scandinavian teachers were not as ‘preoccupied’ with discipline as
English counterparts. In the
Scandinavian classrooms the atmosphere was
‘consistently more relaxed than in many of the
English classrooms. The children complied with what was expected of them
without obvious pressure from the teacher, and the noise levels were lower.’
The report suggests that the differences were due
to the ‘radically different approach to schooling compared to England (where
learning was more rigid and influenced by the national literacy and numeracy
strategies).’ The two countries have
‘virtually no national testing in the early years of education and the
curriculum is more flexible, with pupils being taught relatively little formal
reading and writing.’
Importantly, the report also points out that
Finnish children outperform their English counterparts at 15, even though they
begin formal schooling 2 years later.
There is research to suggest children are not damaged by beginning school too early as long as the approach is in keeping with best practice, and a sound knowledge of the developmental needs of young children. In practice however, many schools are keen to push children into formal learning because they feel that this is the only way to keep SATs scores high, and many teachers and heads have not been trained in the developmental needs of very young children. (Remembering that to have children as young as 4.1 in school is a relatively new phenomenon, especially in Education Authorities where the intake is now on a yearly rather than termly basis) There is also evidence to suggest many Ofsted Inspectors seem to expect formal learning in the reception year particularly in literacy and numeracy, though the current guidance is that this should not happen (the full hour of literacy and full hour of numeracy) until the final term in Reception.
Sarah Harris does not mention the fact that where research does suggest children are being damaged by starting school too early, it applies in the main to boys, who find it much more difficult to settle.