To think nursery age children don't need to be "school ready"

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Beyond being toilet trained, able to put on shoes/coats and recognising very simple numbers and shapes.
Head of OFSTED says that nurseries and childminders are failing children as they are not getting them school ready. he thinks there should be more structured learning for 2 and 3 year olds.
I am a childminder and see my role at that age is to ensure children can sit attentively for a few minutes, can use a knife and fork etc.
As it happens, I do also make sure I do lots of reading/ number games/ colour recognition etc. but I disagree that this should be in a structured environment as he suggests.
He says the good nurseries are those attached to schools, dismissing the thousands of excellent nurseries and childminders around the country.
I think that children already start school very young and if they only start to learn simple arithmetic at 4 yo, then so be it.
2 and 3 yos should be learning through play, the word structured fills me with dread in relation to what are essentially toddlers.

I read that a place at a Swedish nursery costs the government 11000kr ( about 1100 pounds) all children are entitled to a heavily subsidised place, families pay asmall contribution which is means tested, high earners only pay about 100 pounds for a full time place, food and nappies included.

Auntie those things aren't hard and if there are no SEN issues very easy for the vast maj of parents to teach.

I wish people would stop excluding children with SEN issues as being irrelevant to the discussion. If you look at the stats children with SEN make up a significant enough proportion to be included within a discussion like this. They should be included in what type of education is suitable for this age group. Maybe then education would be more inclusive....

Agree, retropear. And I think concern for children who are not managing those things (which is what was actually said) is totally correct.

But as there are posters on here who have said that don't want their DC to become 'school ready', then no amount of improvement to provision or encouragement of take up of parenting classes is going to make much difference. And I think that's a shame.

My son has just turned four a couple of weeks ago. I'm very glad he was born in March not August as he really isn't 'school ready'.

I think he's got the loo thing, and the concentrating and listening thing, but he's not got a clue how to hold a pen and emotionally he's devastates each nursery morning when he has to leave me.

I hate the idea he might go through that pain every morning going to school and I can't keep him off or go in with him or basically do anything to give him a break and help him get used to the idea. It's all just rule driven not child driven. Hideous.

When I started school my parents had the choice to keep me back a term or to do half days and a staggered start. I personally think they chose the wrong option as I was miserable and it started a bad relationship with the school system, but that's my parents failing vs the education system failing.

And more practically he actively doesn't want to learn a better way to hold his pen, he's happy holding it in his fist, and gets very grumpy when I try and show him differently, so I've stopped pushing as it will become 'a thing' if I do. He just isn't ready to do it yet, and that should be ok, as he's 48 months old, and has a long time to get it right.

What I'm concerned about with all this politically driven change to education and early years, is that it won't be ok for children not to be ready. And it will make children very very unhappy, and stop them developing rather than accelerate it.

Gov et al. have their own agenda in making these changes, and that agenda is not driven by expertise or knowledge. That's the worrying bit.

Where is the choice and the personalisation to a child's development? Where is the relationship between school and parents? It's devolved into state as best, parents as problem. Children must be taken away at the earliest point possible to mitigate the bad effect the parents have on a child. It's a foul attitude and shows the governments basic disgust and disrespect of the majority of the population.

MiscellaneousAssortment I entirely agree with every word.

My DS started school at 4 unable to hold a pencil correctly. He struggled to use a knife and fork because he wasn't developmentally ready.

Yet he could read independently, add, subtract, knew his tables etc. etc.

Gove and Wilshaw would say he wasn't school ready. I daresay he wasn't. That's no reflection on either him or me.
It certainly meant nothing in the long run: he won an academic scholarship to a public school.

Wilshaw has revealed his utter ignorance of Early Years. It's extremely worrying that he and Truss and Gove are arrogantly ignoring the expert Early Years advisers that do know what they're talking about.
It's utterly terrifying is that these three have the power to do a great deal of harm to our young children with their ignorant blundering.

AuntieStella

Agree, retropear. And I think concern for children who are not managing those things (which is what was actually said) is totally correct.

Thing is when you child does not manage all these things, you do not want 'concern', which is usually equated with worried hand wringing and waiting lists. You want action, positive practical help and encouragement for you child. You do not want any negative aspirations or assumptions that they will not be able to do anything.

^your child. Typo.

"Children need to be children".

What does this statement mean? There is no "natural" state of childhood. The concept largely didn't exist before Victorian times.

IMO, we fetishize "childhood" and youth in this country far too much. How children turn out as adults is the main thing, the only thing really.

I don't think it is a school teachers job to teach children how to sit still and concentrate. It is their job to teach. Just like it isn't a university lecturers job to teach students how to research, write essays etc.

Op
My kids are all in serious trouble then according to that line of thinking !
Dd14 ds11 dd2
All kept with me exclusively until 4 1/2 yrs .
School ready ...
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

The Scandinavian model sounds lovely, but comparing Finland or Sweden with the UK is not comparing like with like. Take Finland - its extremely socially and ethnically homogeneous compared with the UK (so very few children from non-Finnish/ Swedish speaking backgrounds for example). So broadly speaking the Finnish get better results, but they face fewer issues.

I work in early years in a very deprived postcode and these changes that have come in yestersay are ridiculous. The children I work with have little basic skills such as table manners, speaking, using toilet etc and now again they want more abcs etc. We have to do a lot of thrive where we are due to the families that we work with and my main concern is childrens emotional and social wellbeing and not academics pre age 5.

The Scandinavian model sounds lovely, but comparing Finland or Sweden with the UK is not comparing like with like. Take Finland - its extremely socially and ethnically homogeneous compared with the UK (so very few children from non-Finnish/ Swedish speaking backgrounds for example). So broadly speaking the Finnish get better results, but they face fewer issues.

Sweden is most certainly not ethnically homogeneous, there are huge levels of immigration in Sweden.

In my sons class out of 5 children 3 have a non Swedish home language.

I don't think that the extra 3 years that British kids get at school is needed just to deal with the ethnic and social differences in the UK, if anything if kids were left to mature and develop in their own time it would probably creat fewer issues.

The most important thing to a child pre-school is to feel safe . Putting any sort of pressure on a child in these years could make them feel less safe. Very bad idea for future mental health imho .

I do agree with you, but the problem is that more and more children now are entering school still in nappies, unable to follow instruction, unable to hold their concentration for even a few minutes, unable to put on their shoes, unable to eat using a fork and spoon, never mind a knife. I don't think holding pencils correctly, knowing shapes and colours etc is really necessary but these basic skills are.

I think people are presuming that being 'school ready' is much more than it really is.

ikeaismylocal

I'm probably generalising too much from Finland, which comes up lots on threads like these. I've been a few times and have friends there (one of whom is Finnish/British and works with new immigrants to Finland) and the UK it really isn't. I would love to push the school starting age back at least a year in the UK, but I don't think following a Finnish pattern wholesale would necessarily bring about Finnish results.

Yanbu this is ludricous, they are babies fgs! In other countries Chidren don't start school until they are 6/7, let abides be babies!

They want kids being able to recognise their own name by the time they start school at four, what an evil government picking on parents and childminders

The ten skills they listed as necessary for every school age child was shocking for the fact that people seem to think it's acceptable and even normal for a four year old not to have them. Special needs excepted obviously, there is no excuse for any neurotypical four year old not to recognise their own name, understand what no and stop mean, to be able to talk in sentences etc... My two year old can do all of them and she's only a spectacular genius to her adoring parents.

You can hardly blame the government for wanting to step in early to try and reverse the damage by neglectful parents who are producing four year olds who have been spoken to so little they can barely speak, let alone do anything else. They're years behind other children by the time they start school and the damage is already done, they'll never be able to catch up. They're condemned to a life of underachievement and there are social consequences to that; behavioural problems leading to criminal activity, lifelong dependence on benefits, the reproduction of that into the next generation, hence government concern.

There are only two options; mandatory sterilisations for these parents and forced adoptions for their stunted through extreme neglect children or government intervention. That's the nice option.

I'm yet to see any evidence of this hideous rise in children being so developmentally behind. I think there is a problem, but no one has shown any evidence that it's got worse. Or that the help that used to be available wasn't working - like access to speech therapists etc.

I also think that forcing everyone through the same extreme measures does not have the result of scooping up the minority of children from troubled backgrounds.

There isn't a choice between sterilisation, forced adoption or
Gove remaking the education system as some fucked up homage to his prep school. These are not the only options here!

You can hardly blame the government for wanting to step in early to try and reverse the damage by neglectful parents who are producing four year olds who have been spoken to so little they can barely speak, let alone do anything else. They're years behind other children by the time they start school and the damage is already done, they'll never be able to catch up. They're condemned to a life of underachievement and there are social consequences to that; behavioural problems leading to criminal activity, lifelong dependence on benefits, the reproduction of that into the next generation, hence government concern.

Views like these, if they become entrenched, internalised, are what makes life all the more difficult for parents and children, dealing with SEN. The assumptions you face are horrible.

Olympia school readiness at 2! Good on your child, what a genius she is big at on the back. All children develop at different rates, at the moment my 2.3 year old s not ready to recognise his name or speak in sentences, plenty of time for that, his speech is delayed we are seeing SALT. My dd 7 paedritrician told me that a lot of development takes place between 3-5 years old. We had none of these re schools r nurseries back in the day, I was taught at school to read and recognise my name.

Meant pre schools

Capsium; there's a huge difference between a child who has learning difficulties and one who is severely neglected. It's extremely unfair to ignore the latter because you don't want to offend the parents of the former.