“Doing this to children at such a young age changes the hardwiring of their left brains, sets up unnatural neural pathways, and inhibits the creativity and higher connections of the right brain. Personally, while understanding that children are going to have to be able to deal with the world in the way it is currently set up, at least for the time being, feel it is safer to ‘leave them alone’ in this regard until they are seven. My younger children are eight and nearly seven and we have only just started a small amount of formal education - a few minutes 3 R’s each day. They are exceptionally competent in many ways already without any formal education including being able to write things they need to and mental arithmentic.”
The TimesMarch 24, 2008
Leaders of teachers groups fear that the pre school national curriculum will encourage a tick box culture in nurseries
Alexandra Frean
A new national curriculum for all under-fives risks producing a “tick-box” culture in nursery schools that relies too heavily on formal learning and not enough on play, teachers’ leaders will claim today.
The new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS), which becomes law in the autumn, lays down up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on writing, problem solving and numeracy skills. It will apply to about 25,000 nurseries, plus registered childminders in England.
Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said that it was not yet clear how the early years curriculum would be evaluated by the schools inspectorate Ofsted. He said, however, that there was a danger that teachers could allow compliance with the new framework to become more important than creativity.
“The curriculum itself is not the danger,” he said. “The danger is that external examiners will develop a tick-box attitude to every aspect of the curriculum to see if staff have done it.”
“Doing this to children at such a young age changes the hardwiring of their left brains, sets up unnatural neural pathways, and inhibits the creativity and higher connections of the right brain. Personally, while understanding that children are going to have to be able to deal with the world in the way it is currently set up, at least for the time being, feel it is safer to ‘leave them alone’ in this regard until they are seven. My younger children are eight and nearly seven and we have only just started a small amount of formal education - a few minutes 3 R’s each day. They are exceptionally competent in many ways already without any formal education including being able to write things they need to and mental arithmentic.”
The TimesMarch 24, 2008
Leaders of teachers groups fear that the pre school national curriculum will encourage a tick box culture in nurseries
Alexandra Frean
A new national curriculum for all under-fives risks producing a “tick-box” culture in nursery schools that relies too heavily on formal learning and not enough on play, teachers’ leaders will claim today.
The new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS), which becomes law in the autumn, lays down up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on writing, problem solving and numeracy skills. It will apply to about 25,000 nurseries, plus registered childminders in England.
Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said that it was not yet clear how the early years curriculum would be evaluated by the schools inspectorate Ofsted. He said, however, that there was a danger that teachers could allow compliance with the new framework to become more important than creativity.
“The curriculum itself is not the danger,” he said. “The danger is that external examiners will develop a tick-box attitude to every aspect of the curriculum to see if staff have done it.”