Too Much, Too Soon Campaign

The group I helped to start in Hants. in the 60s was called a Pre-school Playgroup and was run entirely by mums-no paid help. I believe we even shared the costs!
My 2 youngest enjoyed it.
I later became a qualified teacher.

I have seen some brilliant pre-schools and some terrible ones...there is a big range out there. Unfortunately education is a political hot potato because so many have a connection with education so it impacts on loads of voters!

Inspection in nursery was first brought in to ensure that children were safe and stimulated as there were some awful situations where children spent a long time in push chairs and hygiene was not always great!

However typical of government committees they created a system that is a real sledgehammer!

I used to help at play group, run in our little primary school, having three children of pre-school age. They were such great places for children to play and mix with each other. For a while I worked in the play group two mornings a week, and was there in the next classroom when my middle son joined his older brother in school. Such a good transition into school life.

I enjoyed the playgroups and remember helping now and again.It was possible to take younger children with you as well which was an outing for them. It was really good fun and enjoyable for the children until they went to school at 5.No inspections then !

When my children were young they went to playgroups. I think there were one or two paid staff and the remainder were parents who periodically did sessions on a rota basis. It was very affordable and the children enjoyed it. I don't suppose this sort of arrangement could work so easily now.

I take my son to 'playgroups' -informal settings where parent stays with child, not providing 'childcare' etc. - Love it.

Pre-school is something different, have to be registered and have to comply with the statutory EYFS and have Ofsted inspections.

I am a great believer in young children learning through play and wonder why the 'Playgroups' we all knew and loved are now 'Pre-schools'. It can't just have been a name change for the sake of it - could it ?

If the children are motivated and happy and the work interesting they will do the homework willingly! if it is tedious stuff and the kids having to be bribed to do it..forget it!

At that age, although I would of course support the school I would probably be of a mind to tell them that it is too much and amongst other things is getting in the way of family life - more important at that age than homework.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly Resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989, entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with Article 49

Article 3
1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

Article 31
1. Every child and young person has the right to rest, play and leisure.
2. Governments must promote children’s and young people’s involvement in the arts.

Shelby tbh most of the ELGs are achievable by most children who have had a good EYFS experience.

Obviously there are children who are not developmentally ready for some expectations and equally some who are ready to go beyond. It is the methods used to get them there and to assess them that are most often the problem!

Gosh that does sound a lot..every night? Usually at that stage there is a bit of reading and a weekly task of some sort. Where my DGC are at school they have a task linked to the theme they are working on in school: DGS was asked to draw a person or animal and label the body parts! He did himself but was taken with the 'bee' work his beekeeper teacher had been teaching that he also chose to do a bee too!

I am saddened by how much homework my 6 year old twin grandchildren are given. It is beginning to put them off learning because they want to play when they get home especially with each other as they have been apart all day. Not only must they learn spellings but they have to use each one in a sentence and write it down which is OK for the girl but well nigh impossible for the boy. Then there is reading followed by an activity on the reading. Yesterday they wanted to go blackberrying but there wasn't time! Actually picking blackberries and learning how to cook with them would have been far more educational from my point of view. My own children did not have this amount of homework and have all done well. Definitely too much too soon.

Some arguments against baseline testing about half way down this page:

www.toomuchtoosoon.org/the-arguments.html

Yes - the Early Learning Goals (targets more like). How to set young 'uns up for failure - some of those goals (targests) are not realistic.

The homework that some reception class teachers send out causes huge strains on the child, and the family. Pressure for schools to reach targets no doubt has a top-down effect.

In Nursery and reception children are currently assessed, through observation, by teachers/ Nursery assistants/ Early Years Educators. There are 17 goals they are expected to achieve by the June towards the end of their time in reception ..so children are 4-5 years old.

Good schools will do all their teaching through well planned and presented indoor and outdoor play activities just like European /Scandanavian pre-schools do.

Other schools feel under pressure or just think it is better to take a more formal approach with worksheets and teachers organising the children and reducing play based activities quite quickly.

The DfE is consulting at the moment about introducing a 'simple test' at the start of Reception to give a 'baseline' . There is no real detail of what the 'simple test will be!

It is not just Early Years education that will suffer!

Soon schools (not academies, free school or private/public schools) have to report , at the end of Y6 (end of Junior school) on a child's secondary school readiness. E.G. to be considered SSR they have to score 100. All kids in maintained LA schools will be ranked and grouped into deciles (10ths!!) ie your child is in the top 10th of children or your child is in the bottom 10th or somewhere in between etc.

This is because DfE (Michael Gove?) does not think parents really understand the current levels: level 4b is what a Y6 child is expected to attain by the middle of the Summer Term. Obviously a level 4c is lower and 4a is higher.

My view is that because more children are gaining the expected levels Gove wants to change it so is creating a system that makes many more 10-11 year olds feel like failures because they did not reach Secondary School Readiness! That'll boost their confidence as they move on!

Shelby, I have sent your post to my grand-daughter. She rang me this week to say her little girl, who will be five in December, is having problems with phonics. She can remember whole words but has difficulty 'sounding out'. The school also uses 'mmm' rather than 'meh'. My experience as Head of a reading service was that each child learns in its own individual way - some 'sight read' for a while and others have to rely on building up words. Some are reading when they start school, others need a couple of years, but I am convinced that formal teaching, sitting at a table, is unsuitable for most four or five year olds.

Agree-signed.
When I taught in primary schoosl from 1966 -77 it was the time of the 'Integrated Day' lots of play but my children and I loved it and thrived on it.I completed the OU 'Reading Devlopment' diploma-then taught small gps of children with reading problem.

Signed.

Eloethan, you make a good point. Also, other northern european countries seem to have lower rates of teenage pregnancy, drug/alcohol abuse etcetc. Their children are given space for educational play until their brains are ready for more formal education.
I think many children in the UK don't have enough space to play out safely, spend too much time indoors, don't have a decent diet, and have too much exposure to adults who drink/drug too much.

There - I'm off to get a subscription to the Torygraph or the Daily Wail, and to write a letter of complaint to everybody, about everything. No, not really - I'm not yet at the point where I feel everything we Brits do is wrong wrong wrong. We have so much going for us, but don't we love to be outraged about our failures.

sunseeker Are you suggesting that there is not enough teaching at an early age? I believe children in Germany don't start school until the age of 6 and there is a much greater emphasis on play in the early years. It doesn't seem to have done their economy any harm.

I think putting very young children under pressure to jump through certain academic hoops risks knocking their confidence and so building up a resistance to learning in general.

Not really, too many development unfriendly early learning goals in the EYFS and at curriculum level Key Stage 1.

For instance - Phonics - Latest neuroscience research has revealed amongst other things - that the left hemisphere of the brain develops more slowly than the right. The left hemisphere doesn't properly develop until around the age of 6-7. The right hand side sees words as 'whole pictures'. The left hand side 'decodes'. Much more to it all obviously, but that's off the top of my head.

There is a really excellent book 'Too Much, Too Soon?' edited by Dr. Richard House.

Isn't it mostly play in the foundation year?

It all starts with the foundations.

If children are indeed being put under too much pressure why is it being reported by BBC that young adults in England are scoring the lowest results in the industrialised world in literacy and numeracy tests - shouldn't this be what we should all be outraged about.