Potential 'Non-compliance' on 'schoolifying' of the early years

On the day that Michael Wilshaw called for more formal learning for two year olds it was good to see this letter in the Daily Telegraph. Signatories include Dr Richard House who is a member of the Green Party.

GRADGRIND FOR TINY TOTS

SIR – “The erosion of childhood” is becoming a theme of concern to citizens across the political spectrum.

The latest salvo in this “paradigm war” for the heart of childhood has been discharged by the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw. In a letter to all early-years inspectors, he instructs them to judge nurseries mainly in terms of preparation for school. They must “teach children the early stages of mathematics and reading”.

This utilitarian shift from experience to content betrays an abject (and even wilful) misunderstanding of the nature of early childhood experience. The determination to dragoon England’s young children into unconscionably early quasi-formal learning is catastrophic for their well-being, and is setting up many for failure at a very young age.

England’s early years education and care is safe in the hands neither of Sir Michael Wilshaw nor of the current incumbents at the Department for Education. We urge Sir Michael and the DfE to stop digging in their current “schoolifying” hole, and step back from this misguided drive to over-formalise England’s early-years sphere.

The alternative might be that these policy-makers end up precipitating the first wave of professional “principled non-compliance” with government policy that our education system has known in living memory. Any government that underestimates the strength of feeling on this issue, and the resolve to resist it, does so at its peril.

Letter and full list of signatories HERE 

Early years experts launch campaign to 'save childhood'

From Katy Morrison Nursery World, June 28th 2012

   A new website has been launched  LINK to promote a campaign by early years experts to save childhood. The Save Childhood Movement expands upon Open Eye’s Saving Childhood Network, which was set up last October following the publication of ‘Too much, too soon?’ by Dr Richard House. It has been launched in response to concerns of an ‘erosion of childhood’ in modern culture, and aims to bring together a team of experts to consolidate relevant research and protect and promote children’s natural development and learning.

    Behind the movement is Wendy Ellyatt, founder of the Unique Child Network, Child psychologist Dr Richard House, from the University of Roehampton, and Kim Simpson, co-founder of the Early Childhood Action Group.

   Members of the Save Childhood Movement’s advisory group include Professors Lillian Katz and Janet Moyles, early years consultants Wendy Scott and Margaret Edgington and Catherine Prisk - director of Play England. It is hoped the new website will help to gain sponsorship for the movement ahead of its official launch next spring at the first of a series of annual seminar series.

The next six months will be spent consolidating the advisory board and gaining support to grow the movement.

   Ms Ellyatt, the group’s development director, said, ‘The movement has been set up in recognition of the rapidly growing evidence about child health and well-being in the UK. According to the Children’s Society 2012 Good Childhood Report at any one time more than half a million children are unhappy with their lives and, with increasingly sedentary lifestyles. One in ten children are suffering from mental health problems, and there is what is being called an "alienation of experience".'

   ‘We have some of the most academically pressurised children in the world, with an increasing focus on targets and measurable outcomes rather than the more holistic nurturing of positive learning dispositions. We think such evidence calls for urgent action and we are now bringing together a multi-disciplinary team of experts who agree with us.’