Education/government/nursery rant

[Nattie]

I've got to get this off my chest 'cos I'm completely gob smacked.

Did anybody hear the results of a report broadcast yesterday that children who have been in nursery/pre-school education since they were 2 years old do better at maths and english and obey rules better than those who have stayed at home - supposedly with their inadequate parents - therefore, don't worry it's alright you should all be doing it.

I am a conspiracy theorist and so many of the government's 'childcare' policies are aimed at getting parents back to work and paying taxes that this announcement has really enraged me. Nothing was said about the emotional development of the child and how they do at any other (god forbid, creative or initiative using) subjects. Surely they do better at the core subjects and behave rules better because they're institutionalised?

I am not having a go at parents who do send their children to nursery and pre-school but I do suspect the motives behind the results of this research.

But are you saying that these particularly disruptive and unpleasant children didn't go to nursery HMB, and that if they had done, they wouldn't be behaving like this?

I think the first question to ask of any research, is who commissioned it? Then what were the objectives?

Then you can actually start looking at the methodology and whether they weighted the results for things like class, educational level of parents, ethnicity, nursery/school interaction, family set-up, etc. etc.

I agree lots of the time, good research is reported badly, but much of the time, bad research is commissioned purely in order to provide research backing something about which someone has already made up their mind. And as Aloha says, if it doesn't give you the results you want, you throw it in the bin.

No, all I was saying is that I would like some of the kids I work with to learn some very basic manners. No more than that. And if their parents cannot/ will not do it, then for societies sake someone somewhere has to do it. (and for the kids own sake tbh)

I am in the process of trying to set up a nurture group for secondary kids to try to undo some of the dreadful harm neglect has done to them. Do I feel that those kids would have benefited from a good high quality nursry, you bet! Is it essential for all kids? no.

Apparently (and I say that as I have not read the report I am going on what one of the researchers said this morning) this study did look at the effect of class etc and found the greatest impact in lower socio economic groups

Have you seen this BBC report about Finnish schools "possibly the best education system in the world" and this one too The children don't start school until age 7, and then finish at 1 pm each day.

Shall we all move?!

Streets ahead of us. Mind you, starting at 7 is quite traditional - it's when the Jesuits always started proper formal education. Though most countries who start children at 7 do have almost universal nursery provision from about 3, so all the early socialisation stuff has been done by the time kids start formal education.

Having said that, Finland does have a massive alcoholism problem. And according to a Finnish friend of mine, everyone stares at you all the time - Finnish people have no discreet looking away habit, when you get on a bus in England and you think everyone is looking at you you're being paranoid, in Finland, everyone really is looking at you, according to her!

But I'm not suggesting these 2 things are linked to the education system!

This sort of research can raise hackles because I think as parents we can't help but see it as a criticism, should we do things another way. My boys only had a year or so of playgroup because that's all that was available in the late 70's/early 80's. Yet they are both now studying for PhD's and in happy relationships so a lack of preschool doesn't seem to have had an untoward effect on them. But there again, I know that the children of the drug addicts with whom I worked would benefit enormously from early education, in fact it's probably their only chance to break out of the cycle. It's the one-size-fits-all approach and the emotion involved that makes such research difficult to digest.

Wow, Roisin, that school in Finland sounds wonderful! I wish I could go there!

Caligula, doesn't Finland also have high suicide and heart attack rates? I'd heard it was similar to Scotland, where I am, in that the dark, cold winters made people more prone to alcoholism and other woes. Ater living in SE Asia I think I'm immune to be stared at, it didn't bother me tbh, though my red-haired dd got a lot of attention.

Sue, agree 100% that one size fits all sucks. I have a number of emotionaly disturbed children who woould have benefited in an early nursery placement

But surely it depends on the nursery?? I have two relatives who both work in nurseries and some of the actions of adults in these settings is quite disturbing. Therfore if you send an emtionally disturbed child into such a setting, having had less than a loving set up at home, all it will do is reinforce their mistrust of adults. I AM NOT SAYING ALL NURSERIES ARE LIKE THIS, however to think that a nursey education would have helped emotionally disturbed children IMO is misplaced. Children need loving home environments whatever their childcare set up, whatever they witness at home they will take forward in life, childcare could not erase this part of their lives.

In an earlier post I made the point that the nursery needs to be high quality.

That said, what soem of these kids get at home would be hard not to improve upon. At 11 a lot of the kids I teach cannot eat with a knife and fork and cannot give or recieve a compliment without becoming offensive. Children come to school withough breakfast, smelling of stale sweat in clothes that are dirty and smell. The PE department has to try to get some of them to wash.

I think mykidsmum is probably right - I don't think it would be enough for the nursery to be of high quality, I think it would have to be set up to be able to deal with these children who have extra needs because of coming from such inadequate homes. If they were all sent to nursery at a young age, all it would do is to start the early socialisation/ physical care problems seen at primary school at a slightly younger age, this time at nursery. You can send kids to whatever institution you want at as early an age as you want, but if the home back-up is non-existent, you're still going to be fighting with one hand tied behind your back throughout the whole of their school life.

And I also think it might put lots of other people off sending their kids to nursery. I have just been trawling the nurseries in my local area with a view to putting my DD in one, and last week when I went to one where some of the kids about to start school were still in nappies and several of them released expletives which the BBC won't broadcast until after 9pm, I decided it wasn't the right one for me! I know that sounds awful, but that's how I felt.

I fully agree that the home environment is most important. Interestingly there was a review of the findings of te report that has sparked this debate in the TES today, which I have now read. The researchers state that home back up and support, coupled with good nursery provision gave the best results.

But I cannot think that if you have to chose between being with neglectful parents until 5 or being in a good nursery from 3 and then going home to neglectful parents the latter is perferable. Best of all is not having neglectful parents but that is a whole different thread

I have a ds who loves his nursery. TBH I don't care if it is good for him academically. Dh and I were both "clever" at school-accelerated etc-and we have both spent our adult lives avoiding similar labels. Ds is extremely sociable and the nursery that he is in has helped that to blossom.

The only thing I'm getting out of this research is that, for once, I (never dh btw) don't feel like I'm being criticised for making a choice which we always knew would be right for ds. I am absolutely sick of defending myself to most people who basically seem to think I leave him tied to a tree all day.

I think the research is just as biased and flawed as any other social research.

Research into childcare echoes the political climate. Most of the anti-nursery stuff comes from either the US (Bush/Clinton both pretty anti working moms) or Thatcher/Major and before.

Now we have a government who needs mothers to be in the workplace and oh look, research is published saying it is a good idea.

I think its crap. But I hope it means less hassle for "part-time mothers" (!).