"Formal" learning - should it be put off til 6 yrs old?

[KembleTwins]

what do you think?

Just interested really.

I think it would be fantastic if the play-based approach to learning that is used in foundation/reception classes could be extended into year 1, with perhaps a gradual introduction of more formal techniques as the school year progresses.

Not only would this make the transition from foundation to y1 easier for the children, but I think it would be of huge benefit to the youngest children who are barely 5yo at the start of y1.

I struggle to understand the belief that says counting the number of blocks in the lego tower you've just built, and comparing with your friends to see whose tower is tallest/shortest, discussing which tower has the most red blocks, or thinking about ways of making the tower more stable so it can go even higher etc. is not really learning.

ok maybe I'm not explaining myself very well.

Both DS's loved reception - learning through play.

DS1 would happily have continued to learn through play for years (probably would still prefer it to be all done that way now in YR4 )

DS2 saw what the older children in the school were doing, he saw what his brother was doing. He enjoyed the learning through play but wanted more "formal" stuff as well. He needed more formal stuff.

Now he's doing the more "formal" learning in YR1 (still alongside lots of activities obviously - just more of the sit down stuff) he's having problems with maths. He wants to move on and do more, if it wasn't for the fact that a group of the high achieving maths children are being taken off and given verbal instructions on more advanced maths stuff he'd be stuffed. As his reading is "average" for a child at the start of YR1 - he wants to do more maths problems - he can't read the questions and the problems.

He wants to sit and read and write like his older brother. Perhaps it's the influence of having an older sibling, but I can catergorically say that

DS1 WOULD Have benefited from delaying formal learning until he was 6

DS2 would NOT have benefited from delaying formal learning until he was 6.

"
I struggle to understand the belief that says counting the number of blocks in the lego tower you've just built, and comparing with your friends to see whose tower is tallest/shortest, discussing which tower has the most red blocks, or thinking about ways of making the tower more stable so it can go even higher etc. is not really learning."

I don't disagree - but if your child can already do that in reception - being made to do only that in YR1 would be pretty unfair on them.

I don't think there's a "one size fits all" solution unfortuantely. Those children who are very young/not ready for formal learning when they start school suffer from being started too early, while those who are older/ready for the formal learning would suffer from making them wait longer.

I came seriously unstuck with DS2 who wanted to learn to read and write when he was still at nursery - I'm one of those crap mothers who waited until her DS1 was in school to support the school in teaching him those thing. I did manage to help him learn to write some letters (not many) and failed miserably on the teaching him to read .

No definitely not.

DD (4.11) has just entered the final year of French pre-school. The first half of the morning is devoted to "proper work" ie exercises in numeracy and literacy, some of which are done in her exercise books (which she brings home for us to see at the end of the week). Like all her classmates, she is much, much happier now that she is doing proper work at school rather than mucking about acquiring social skills playing.

I have answered o another thread with the same topic, so will just copy and paste.

I am a teacher and yes I do think they start too early. Or rather, the system across Reception and KS1 does not suit such young children.It would work with the system changing from 0-5 to 0-7 and a radical overhaul of the curriculum and class sizes.

30 4/5 year olds in one space with 2 adults is never going to be meeting the needs of such young children. My only gripe with the play based system in this country, is the training of staff. It is actually requires a high level of skill to use play effectively to develop childrens' learning, it is not enough once children are older to simply provide the resources. Time needs to be spent on modelling, experimenting, transferring skills, observing, scaffolding and expertly moving children on. If the training was right, a play based curriculum would work for all children including those like always' DS who was ready for the feeling of being challenged.

The status, pay and training of Early years professionals in many of the top performing countries is so much higher than it is in the UK.

However, I have no faith in any government to carry this out as all they do is tinker with a current system, rather than taking it all apart, looking at current information and re-assembling it using what we now know about how children learn, as the starting point.

Rant over

Am intrigued to know why only literacy and numeracy count as proper work to BonsoirAnna's dd? Why are chemistry and biology and geography no good? Those are all subjects that can be studied very well at reception or kindergarten in a hands-on manner, by doing real experiments. Which after all is what grown up learners would be doing. This is the sort of thing my children did at reception and highly educational it was too- growing plants from seed, making volcanoes blow up with baking soda, studying local buildings.

I don't see why that should count as "social skills" or "playing"? Just because something doesn't involve worksheets doesn't mean it's not academically stringent. (trying to imagine a situation where an undergraduate refuses to go on a field trip because it's not Real Learning).

Tombli,

I read your post with interest. It is the first time I've seen a teacher's point of view (on this issue) expressed so well.

It is also interesting that all the teaching unions support the Cambridge Reviews Recommendations.

But from what you are saying getting a 'play based curriculum' to work requires investment in training and (probably) increased staff numbers.

The fact that the government have rejected this recommendation is no surprise then!!!

But, but, but.....

I don't completely blame the government as they have actually fully funded many people just like me whe now hold a specialised degree in early years education. There just need to be many more of us!

Only if full time childcare is provided free of charge from the current school age.

FGS! No! Our DSs ave bene in nursery since 1 yr old and went to school keen to learn and fully socialised. Why wait until 6!

Kids need more education in the UK not less. I would prefer to see it go the other way with much more time in school both in terms of an earlier starting age (at a formal nursery/ Kindergarten level) and more days spent in school during each year. There is far too much holiday time, as one teacher in a school in a deprived area put it to me. When she gets the kids from poor deprived backgrounds in school they eat properly and have structure and purpose in their lives but when they go home for weeks on end of holidays and she has to start all over again at the beginning of next term.

What we need is a far far richer curriculum and much more sport and a much broader range of life skills in schools to stretch and prepare children for later life and spend far more time doing it. What is the point in schools standing empty for half the year when kids are just hanging about on the streets with nothing to do and parents scrambling for childcare?

We need far more teachers to deliver what I set out above but it does not have to mean more book learning but more time in school would allow more learnng at a slower pace and with a richer experience.

My DTs are not in school yet. They are due to start reception next September, when they are only just 4. At the moment they are at nursery 3 morning per week. They play, in their own view, but bring home a folder monthly which is full of observations made by nursery staff to show their progression in terms of the EYFS. They are, quite clearly, learning.

I am not wholly surprised to find some of the views expressed on here, in terms of learning through play being fine for "some" but not appropriate for children who "need" more. I'm interested in who exactly thinks they "need" this "more". I suspect there is a certain amount of "playing is fine but my child is too clever for JUST playing" going on, which, IMO, is missing the point. I loved what Tombliboobs said and agree wholeheartedly.

BetaDad - perhaps we should all pack our kids off to boarding school at the age of 2 and pick them up at 18.

All of mine have been very happy in reception classes, they were already used to lots of childcare from a young age anyway,so I don't think the current system has been a problem for my three, but I am fairly convinced by the research that it's not necessary or helpful to have formal learning at this age.

And certainly my current 5yo would be perfectly happy just playing, and isn't making any headway with reading anyway so might as well have spent the last year playing.

But one of my others took to formal learning at just 4 like a duck to water and it made her a lot happier, I think, being able to read young, she was always very hard to entertain and reading satisfied her.

so I dither.

I realise that the government is not going to admit to any failures in our primary schools - especially after investing so much money and being in charge for so long.

But it makes be mad when they commission reports and research just to back up their strategies and proposals (i.e the Rose report and the IFS research) and ignore indepth and wide ranging independent reports that do not (i.e The Cambridge Report).

Of course, no sensible answers were forthcoming from Mr Brown re: The Cambridge Report, on his Webchat today.

Maybe the next lot will do better.....

By the way, I agree with both bonsoir and Tombliboobs.

DSs had what Tombliboobs describes while at nursery for 9 hours every day and then when they got in Reception at an academic Prep they did 1/2 day book learning and 1/2 day play.

I must admit that, seeing serid rows of YR 1 children sat in silence writing in perfect unison from the board in perfect copper plate is quite impressive. Then going on to do 5 hours solid of physical activity, drama, and creative play after a nutritious lunch is what school should be everywhere at that age.

Kids can handle it - lets stop mollycoddlng them.

I think it should be left up to the parents. Where I live (N London) you can delay your child's entry to school until they are 5, but then the council will not guarantee you a reception class place. If you have decided to give your child a bit longer to be ready for school then putting them straight into a year 1 class seems utterly ridiculous.
In other countries (e.g. the US) you don't have to educate your child until they are 7. I have heard of parents delaying their child's entry to kindergarten in the knowledge that sending them before they are ready might be detrimental, while waiting a year could make a whole lot of difference. For some children putting a pen in their hand before they are ready can really put them off. Why do that if you don't need to?
My DD is 3.5 and will, I think, be ready for school in Setember. I can imagine that if she was a different child I might keep her back. But it should be my choice. Children develop at different rates. Why apply a blanket rule to them?

Kemble - I too have twins and trust me the one who was 'ready' for formal learning and 'needed' to be pushed, didn't turn out to be the brightest .

But I do agree that the current curriculum is too narrow. Why chian kids to desks doing worksheets? Get them outside fgs in the fresh air.

but cory - an undergraduate going on a field trip will be writing stuff as well - you know what their findings are while there, writing up about it afterwards.

Of course my children did growing seeds and a whole host of other "subjects" during their play (still do activities just they have "names" now - although they do have quite a creative curriculum at the school) but they could write their findings down, or read more about what they'd discovered.

Yes, but they also have to memorise a lot- just like 5yos. Why is it only proper learning if they write it down? Aren't our brains designed to keep things in them?

Personally, I would like to see more undergraduates who were actually able to store information in their brains for more than 5 minutes: imo they are far too used to being able to transfer it from one page to another without really learning things.

And listening skills would be good in undergraduates- not just expect everything to be on the screen or in the book.

but there's not much point in going on a field trip if they don't write their findings out at least afterwards is there? Even if the write nothing on the trip if they only memorise the stuff and don't write any of it down it seems a rather pointless exercise.

Imagine if scientist just did the experiments but didn't write their findings down into research papers. It's all very well memorising it, and maybe some 4/5yr olds are happy with that - but some actually want to write it down to show other people in words (and pictures/diagramms) what they've discovered.

Does anyone have experience of schools in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Italy etc?

I know they don't start school until later but are they doing literacy and numeracy exercises and worksheets, learning to read and count etc like in Anna's DDs French preschool?

NOt saying they shouldn't be allowed to write it down. But the whole class doesn't need to be sat down for formal writing just because someone might want to write something on a trip out. What's wrong with drawing what you see, anyway?

napyaddict, my experience of Swedish wsschools is twofold: having been in the system 30 years ago and speaking to my nephews and nieces and their friends who are going through it now

the way it worked then was, playschools did exist but were not that common; for many children (including me) school at 7 was their first contact with any learning or childcaring environment outside of your own home

otoh it was assumed in those days that most parents, including working class ones, would have valuable skills to impart: there was not the divide between valuable lessons taught by teachers and useless bumming around supervised by parents

by the time I got to school, I knew how to bake a cake unsupervised; I was well acquainted with the natural world around me; I could manage a saw and hammer and do basic woodwork; also basic sewing; and I could do basic household task; and I could ski and skate and swim and ride a bike

this was par for the course; it's about what my friends knew too (I also knew how to read and was learning foreign languages and various other things specific to my family)

when we started school, we did have literacy and numeracy learning, but they didn't take up as much of the day (learning to write is more efficient at 7 as children tend to have better motor control): a lot was history and geography and crafts

My nephews and nieces mostly went to nursery from an early age (2-3). There they did lots of crafts, they helped with meal preparations and learnt about different foods, they did a lot of nature trails and visits to museums and other places of interest. (Unlike here, the nursery teacher would take the whole class on public transport: they're a fearless lot ).

Children who wanted to learn to read could do so, but there was no pressure. They also seemed to spend a lot of time out of doors even in bad weather.

The crafts side seemed to me of very high standard (I've had some nice Xmas presents over the years; have never had anything from dcs' schools that would even last until next Xmas).

The parents were then given the choice of whether to let them start Reception at 6 or Year 1 at 7. My brothers' families have gone for reception, which is more play-based, but possibly less so than an English reception I(the children are, after all, two years older). Year 1 is certainly more formal, but they still put a lot of emphasis on crafts.

Litchick swoons at Cory's description.

Mind you, if I then launched into a description of the new Swedish secondary system, I think you might swoon a little over GCSEs instead. At least that's what my SIL does when she hears dd. Her nephew has had an awful time in Yr 6, not learning anything and getting thoroughly frustrated,

So it's all swings and roundabouts. Now that my children are older I am very happy that they are being educated in the UK. It was just the early years I was a bit worried about.