Yes, it’s more demanding, not to mention that school starting age has sneakily been lowered over the years.
Compulsory school age is still the term after they are 5, but all pupils now start when they’re 4. The concept of ‘rising 5s’ went out of the window.
I did some research recently about the history of phonics/teaching of early reading, and early years education. I thought some might be interested in what I found out, it certainly surprised me as an ex teacher!
It’s so normalised that children start school at age 4 and must be taught daily synthetic phonics, but this is a relatively new construct.
So here’s what I discovered:
Compulsory school age has been the same since 1944, but there have been shifts in curriculum expectations and starting school age.
The National Curriculum was only introduced in the 1988 Education Act, and a curriculum for under 5s was only introduced in 2000! 😱Prior to this, there was no national consistency.
The current synthetic phonics teaching of early reading was only introduced in 2007, following the 2006 Rose Review, prior to this the National Literacy Strategy (1998-2006) had some phonics, mixed in with other reading strategies, but this was not consistently implemented in Reception, the teaching was brought in gradually so that by the end of the year, Reception children (4-5 year olds) were doing the full literacy hour, in readiness for Year 1.
Before 1998, there was no formally taught teaching of reading for a Reception aged children. Reception year was very much based on the ethos of the 1967 Plowden Report, learning through play to develop ‘reading readiness’. The teaching of reading before 1998 was largely using the ‘look and say’ method, learning whole words by sight, rather than phonics to decode.
Deferred entry to school was a lot more common historically, when starting school in January was an officially advertised option.
As the teaching in Reception has become more formal, with daily sequential phonics lessons starting from September, publicised January intake has been stopped, as it is felt facilitating deferred entry puts pupils at a disadvantage. Now many parents aren’t aware of the rules around compulsory school age.
So yes, early school education is more formal and starts earlier. In my opinion, it is not always developmentally appropriate.
MyMummyTeacher has launched a petition asking for learning through play to be included in the Year 1 and 2 curriculum, as many other countries do not begin formal learning until age 6 or 7! That’s not to say there would be no teaching, but many 5 year olds often struggle starting Year 1 as they lose learning autonomy and freedom of movement. This is the time a lot of emotional and behavioural issues can ramp up.