Primary schools at 2 have ofsted lost the plot?

[3asAbird]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24818439

we have hardly any schools with nursury classes attached from age 3.

cant imagine my 2year old in a school nursery in a school uniform he cant even talk and doesnt keep still for long plus ratios in school are much less than at preschools and day nurseries?

like starting at 4 was not early enough

not keen on all through schools either they be massive.

surly theres better way to support deprived families maybe more toddler groups and one to one help such as play worker?

not to mention we have shortage of school places and cant find places for ones starting school.

...and so we continue to weigh and measure our children, put them through little tests and hurdles and those who don't fit in with certain norms aren't wanted, because they mess up the nice, neat statistics and somebody has to be blamed for that.

But Ofsted already inspect nurseries. The private nursery I used for the first couple of years had a complete EYFS programme for the children from the age of 2. From what I could see it was all very appropriate and low key.

There were no issues about nappies. The staff did help out with PTing but were the first to say if they thought it was too early.

Reading through these posts I am quite shocked at how many posters seem to think that it is "ordinary" children who need this type of provision and it is their attainment that will be measured if Ofsted get their way. It is not. It is the child who is not speaking at 5. Who is still in nappies at 5 because no potty training has taken place. The child that can barely hold a pencil at 5 yet alone form a letter. I am not sure some of you are aware just what difficulties some children face when going to school for the first time when they are not even used to playing. Not all children go to nursery. Not all children come from good homes with caring parents.

As a school governor years ago I talked to one of the parents in our school because she was very upset that we had asked parents to apply sun tan cream before the children came to school and supply them with a hat. She had no time to do any of this because her driving job meant she left home at 7 and the kids got themselves to school. The baby spent all day in the van with her, she told me, in a car seat attached to the front seat in the van. So.... No eye contact, no games, no socialising, no exercise, limited toys. I bet none of you would do this, but you must recognise that some people do. Some Mums are drug addicts, some Mums have very low intelligence themselves, some Mums are in prison, some Mums just cannot cope and do not know how to bring up a child. Some children with live in squalor with poor diets. There might be violence in the home. The 2 year old provision should be for these children and there are plenty of them who really would benefit. The provision is not targeted at people like you and me who do a reasonable job.

Therefore this discussion should not be about attacking Ofsted, it should be about what we need to provide for these children so they might be ready to learn at school and not be miles behind their peers at the age of 5! (And continue to be behind for the rest of their time in school). Sure Start was notoriously hijacked by people who didn't need it. We need provision for the children who do and in some respects it matters little where it is as long as the children that need it, get it.

I meant to say, OP, you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think these parents turn up to toddler groups and play sessions on a regular basis! They are usually only one session a week anyway. You have to be a motivated parent to do that. Many families are dysfunctional and disorganised to such an extent that these children get nothing. No-one is talking about your child. What on earth has a uniform got to do with anything? I am sorry but you really have missed the point.

LittleSiouxieSue - my problem with it is, it will impact on parents who don't want or need it and those who need it most won't take it up unless they are forced to - which will mean, so as not to "discriminate," everyone is forced to join in and everyone is treated like a lousy, drug addicted parent who can't do any of these things at home. After all, well educated parents also need to use nurseries and it isn't just state nurseries which have to conform to Ofsted standards...

My direct experience of government targets and external pressure is an increasing disregard by school leaders of the actual needs of individual children and a tendency towards bending the truth (ie the figures) to the point of lying, with everyone blaming everyone else for the problem. That is why I have become cynical. Targets do not make bad provision better - you need better people doing the job for that. And you don't make poor leaders better at their jobs by bullying them into focusing on priorities which do not really relate to their actual school, but to national statistics - that just confuses them even more as they leap about trying to satisfy a box-ticking exercise and not focusing on the really pertinent issues for THEIR school/nursery. Also, it means people focus only on what can be weighed and measure and start to ignore things which can't be measured easily - like general well being...

I meant to say, LittleSiouxieSue, you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think adding nurseries to all-through schools will help those who need helping and have no impact on those who don't need the help.

But, Rabbit, having too many children who are so far behind is impinging on the learning of others now . Nearly all early years teachers are reporting larger numbers of children with difficulties in school and significant underachievement in comparison to their middle class peers. You have a somewhat elitist view as to your entitlement to provision but other lousy parents, and by implication lousy children, have to get by as best they can. All the evidence says this is not a good idea. I have long supported the idea that the most needy families are targeted more closely for intense support. A nursery for these children does not have to be on the site of a school but could be attached/federated to them in other ways. Many years ago, lots of these poor children would have obtained statements at 3 or even 2 and would have had priority nursery and school places anyway. I am sorry if this treads on your toes but it is vital that we do more and really improve the chances for the most disadvantaged children. I hate the tick box culture too and I certainly approve of child centred learning, but these children need priority and they need it now. Perhaps if you saw how badly off some children are you might think differently and support any initiative to help.

I entirely agree these children need priority and need it now. I just entirely disagree that what is being done or proposed is achieving that, or going to achieve that, because it isn't targeted at all (that would be too expensive to administer and too contentious...). Maybe it is time to push the more well off out of the state sector altogether, as their needs and desires are now poles apart from those at the bottom and they are being held back by provision aimed at the most needy who can't afford to be fussy. Obviously, that will be bad for the majority in the middle, who fit into neither category (want better than the current provision but can't afford to pay for it), and won't result in a more fair society, and in the long run won't result in a better deal for the poorest, but never mind.

ps I don't have an elitist view as to my entitlement for provision. I didn't WANT any nursery provision at all when my child was 2. I resented having to send my ds1 to school at 4, when he was not developmentally ready, because I couldn't NOT send him for fear of not having a school place if he didn't start at the school in reception. So I had to send a child to school who could already read and add up, so was bored as hell academically, but couldn't pull up his own trousers or flush a toilet, because he had a connective tissue disorder and low muscle tone, for which he needed intensive physiotherapy (which had to be fitted in around school, which was thus getting in the way of his needs...) and anxiety related to the fact that he was in an inappropriate environment for his needs. Thus, the system forced me to send him into a set up trying to meet needs he did not need meeting, and not designed at all to help with the needs he DID need meeting. How crap is that?

And all this pressure to send children to school or nursery earlier and earlier is to help those parents most in need, whose children are better off out of the home than in it. Well, it's actually quite bad for some children, but we are all treated the same.

Rest assured rabbit, that the funding for two year olds is actually limited. It will not apply to all 2 year olds, only those whose parents earn less than £16K.

Again, you cannot extrapolate a EYF strategy from your own circumstances.

As Little says, if you actually had contact with children who are three and four and yest still pre verbal and incapable of self-care,and who have actually never had proper play, then you might rethink your position.

This is not for the benefit of parents, it is for the benefit of children who are already set for a life of low achievement before they even start school.

And your rghts a parent remain unchanged. you don't have to send your child to any kind of pre school, or indeed school, until they are five.

And these are children who have never been read a story, have probably never even seen a book, never done arts or creative play, never done home play, never been taken to the playground. Never been talked to. Let alone not having their physical needs taken care off. Ie, irregular meals, inappropriate food and drinks, no exercise, no sleep routine. Kept up all hours while adults socialise around them.

I just think you don't get the depths of deprivation that exist for some children.

Do you think parents who don't take care of their children's physical needs will get up in the morning to take their children to these nurseries?

No, MadameDefarge, you don't have to send your child to school until it is 5, it's just that if you exercise that right, you find there are no local schools with spaces any more.

We could do with an awful lot more and better provision of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech & language therapy, too. I'd be happy with more and better nursery provision for very young children if it didn't actually just result in pressure for all parents to send their children to schools and nurseries from a very young age. If you can convince me that won't happen, then I'm fine with it.

I think there needs to be much closer supervision of parenting to make sure the children do go. Believe it or not we used to collect our very needy 2 and 3 year olds and take them to nursery. If they had a priority place or statement, they went. We could do this again. We worked closely with health visitors, doctors, psychologists etc to identify the children and made a real effort to make a difference. This was expensive but necessary in my view.
By the way, rabbit, in my area all the services you mention are clogged up with the middle class children who get to the services in cars with nannies or parents who have every incentive to do it. Do not believe for one minute that the most disadvantaged in society get their fair share. They often need far more input due to massively complex needs but the parents do not recognise what the needs are because their parenting skills are poor. Services are only loosely needs driven. They are access driven and who pushes most, gets most.

I would love to know the stats on who accesses toddler groups etc. There are two secondary schools in this town, so I'd say a joint intake of what, 500 children a year? Working backwards, then, we could guess there are roughly 500 2-year-olds in the town. Some will be in private childcare, but there are only four day nurseries in town, so that's maybe 100 children at the most. I go to a few groups at different venues around town - a small town with most things in walking distance and everything I go to is either free or a token cost - and I see the same 20 or so mums (and the odd dad) and toddlers all the time. It's not really middle-class people hogging stuff here, I'd say they're concerned, involved working class families who enjoy the social aspect, but that leaves a huge percentage of kids who must never go to groups or anything like that. Obviously for some people that will be a conscious choice as their children are happier at home and are given wide opportunities, but what about the rest? I do wonder.

Indeed little, and for those children whose parents are unable to push for services, due to inadequacy or perhaps poor english, getting their little ones into a setting where there needs can be assessed means that they too will hve a better chance of accessing those other services you mention.

You are mistaken if you think there is pressure for parents to send their children in earlier and earlier. All this initiative is doing is funding places for the most vulnerable, as identified by professionals.

Parents can do what they like. As well you know, in terms of preschool. trying to conflate the paucity of other provision with this is neither logical nor reasonable.

LittleSiouxieSue - I don't believe for one minute that the most disadvantaged in society get their fair share. If even the middle classes in their cars are getting a pretty shit service, you can guarantee it's going to be beyond dire for everyone else.

One thing I have observed in the area where I live, which is an area of high employment, is that a frighteningly large number of children starting in reception at the local school are coming in at below the national average levels in a multitude of areas of their development, despite having been in nurseries and then pre-schools from a very young age. What is going wrong there? They don't have the excuse of extreme deprivation and totally dysfunctional families, although they do generally come from families having to rely on the cheapest provision possible. It sounds to me like they will continue falling through the cracks.

I'm also not sure that it is conflating issues to refer to a lack of school places generally if the intention is for this provision to be largely attached to schools so that they can be all-through schools. Surely, logically, that means priority for places going to the children who have been in those schools since the age of 2? Otherwise, why send them into that school environment, just to remove them to another school at age 4? What is the advantage of them being in a school?

Is the idea ultimately to create a system where compulsory state education starts at the age of 2 for the poorest, with access denied to anyone earning over £16,000 a year (even if dysfunctional)? If not, it seems to me the result will be, in areas where the provision is actually any good, pressure to get your kids into a school as early as possible so that you know you've got your kids a place, and the earlier provision starts, the earlier you feel the need to send your children if you can get them in, while there are still spaces available. And that pressure won't be coming from dysfunctional families. Thus, it is still the most concerned and pushy who will take up the places if they can get them.

I think you have completely got the wrong end of the stick.

The provision will not merely be largely attached to schools. It will be available in a range of Early Year settings, such as independent nurseries, playgroups, childrens centres, childminders.

So this is not about school, per se, it is about early intervention in the lives of disadvantaged children.

And in addition, if you were at all familiar with the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum you would know that nursery, whether attached to a school or not, in NOT the same as being in school.

So I think your fears and conclusions are based on a false premise due to lack of comprehension on what the intervention actually is.

NO ONE is suggesting that two year olds start school. OK?

MadameDefarge - Why don't you read the article that provoked the OP? That's what I'm commenting on, so perhaps you should direct your ire towards the BBC for inaccurate reporting of what the woman from Ofsted is calling for, not me for commenting on that???...

Or do you not agree that the article implies that commentators involved in the field do indeed fear that the government is failing to understand the actual needs of 2 and 3 years olds and wanting to push vulnerable children into inappropriate environments - like, in their opinion, schools? In what way do you expect me to be filled with hope that this will be done appropriately and targeted appropriately? It's not as if a Reception year existed in the past in most primary schools, yet that is now part of official school and having had children go through it, I can say it bears a very strong resemblance to years 1 and 2, not playgroup.

Reception should actually resemble playgroup, as it comes under Early Years Foundation. If it does not, then the school is at fault in their delivery.