John Humphrys asks: at what age should children start formal schooling?
Formal schooling should be delayed until children reach the age of six or even seven. That’s what a group of very distinguished experts is telling the government it should consider. It is precisely the opposite of government policy as it stands. Who’s right?
Under the present system children are meant to start their formal education at the age of five. That’s what the law says. In reality, the vast majority of them take their first nervous steps through the school gates even earlier. Many go into nursery or reception classes at the age of four or even three and are subjected to what is officially called the Early Year Foundation Stage (EYFS) or, more commonly, the “nappy curriculum”. Whatever you call it, they are exposed at that tender age to assessment against a set of targets which covers such things as personal and social development, communication and early numeracy.
And the government is interested in the idea of even more rigorous assessment in those early years. At present children are not tested in the three Rs until they reach the age of seven. The government is consulting on its proposals to bring those tests forward to the “early weeks” of their schooling. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted who was himself a highly successful secondary school head teacher, has said that the best nurseries and primary schools have a “systematic, rigorous and consistent approach to assessment right from the very start. In line with this approach, there are promises to increase the standard of child care within the next year or so – more specifically, to make sure that staff who look after even the youngest children hold qualifications of A-level standard.
The group of experts, who wrote to the Daily Telegraph this week with their thoughts, include such luminaries as Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the former Children’s Commissioner for England; Lord Layard, director of the well-being programme at the London School of Economics; Dr David Whitebread of Cambridge University and Catherine Prick, director of Play England. There were almost 130 of them altogether and their message was a pretty simple one: children should not start their formal education until they have had more time to develop. And during their time they should be able to do what children do instinctively: they should play. They claimed in their letter that successive governments have promoted a “too much, too soon” culture in schools and nurseries. The system actually robs children of their ability to play and puts too much emphasis on formal education. Here’s part of what they say:
“For many children, nursery education provides their only opportunity for the active, creative and outdoor play that is recognised by psychologists as vital for physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. However, two key qualifications being drawn up for nursery teachers and child carers no longer require training in how children learn through play. Current policy suggestions mean that tests and targets that dominate primary education will soon be foisted upon four year-olds.”
The writers make the point that children who start going to school at six or seven after several years of high quality nursery, consistently achieve better educational results as well as higher levels of wellbeing. That, they say, is what is done in Scandinavian systems with the result that many intractable problems in this country – such as the widening gap in achievement between rich and poor and problems with boys especially not learning to read properly, could be addressed.
And they go further: “This continued focus on an early start to formal learning is likely to cause profound damage to the self-image and learning disposition of a generation of children.”
To which the government’s response is (my word not theirs): piffle. The Telegraph quoted a spokesman for the education secretary Michael Gove as saying that what they were actually advocating was dumbing down. And there was more:
“These people represent the powerful and misguided lobby who are responsible for the devaluation of exams and the culture of low expectations in state schools. We need a system that aims to prepare pupils to solve hard problems in calculus or be a poet or engineer – a system freed from the grip of those who bleat bogus pop-psychology about “self-image”, which is an excuse for not teaching poor children how to add up”.
Later in the day the education department said those quotes had come not from a spokesman for Mr Gove but from an adviser. But when the education minister Lynne Truss went on the World at One she did not disown the language. She said if the experts had their way their way the gap between rich and poor children would be even greater than it is now. And she said that she herself had been a victim of the “pop psychology”. When she was in school, she said, she’d been made to learn about Sir Francis Drake by standing on her desk.
So whose side are you on and what was your own experience in school? More to the point, how do you want your own children to be taught and, if you have very little ones, when do you think they should start their formal education?
