National curriculum for babies and toddlers?

[weesaidie]

here

Any views?

A women on breakfast news said they are only teaching what you would probably teach them yourself were you at home?

Or should they just be allowed to play?

Am leaning towards the latter I must say.

Not everyone gets tax credits. I didn't. I'm not complaining - I get well paid. But my child care is not subsidised. If everyone gets tax credits, then they can start to think about imposing universal obligations on those that make use of them.

I wanted my child in a friendly, home-like envorinment - not one with targets etc to meet.

And I repeat: logically, they should be requiring SAHM's to "prove" that they are meeting the apporpriate targets, otherwise their poor little lambs are obviously being disadvantaged (sarcastic emoticon).

What's sauce for thoe goose is sauce for the gander.

This is taking target setting too far.

Haven't read the whole thread as i am allegedly tidying the study at present so have to be quick!

But this is complete poppycock and an attempt my labour to divert attention from other bad news as this is already happening in nurseries and is encouraged in childminder situations. Labour/ Sure Start introduced the Birth to Three Matters Framework ages ago.

Oh, don't get me started on whose money that is. No tax credits for me either. Now where's that soapbox?

It is all about money and justifying the spending of money. I plan activities for early years groups and this my plans are used to get funding for the groups we run. If I can show that we are meeting educational goals we get more funding and it is easier to get. It is just something about the West we are obsessed with cognitive development, hence early years learning centre, baby einstein......

At a basic level if activities are planned well there is little harm in this, children love to explore and learn from this but the thought of children sitting down with worksheets ( and it does happnen - you look at lots of pre school magazines or those workbooks they are just glossy worksheets) or being tested for skills worries me. Although again this already happens doesn't it at the various age checks.

I think what is needed is well planned quality play oppurtunities for children and sadly not all children get this at home which I think is what Sure Start and the Birth to Three matters framework was hoping to address.

I thought the new guidelines were about ensuring quality and consistency of childcare in the early years. TBH, my dd's nursery (a private one) already have sheets where they record what activities have been done, what new things your child has learned etc and keep them in a folder for each child - I have always viewed it more of a progress chart than a test,so I know what she is doing. It just shows me that everything is well planned and that they are taking notice of each individual child's development needs and progress. It doesn't rule out playing, creativity etc. In fact, the nursery staff are a lot more creative than me, and I get a lot of my ideas for activities from them.
I don't think it is saying that all children should be in nurseries, or that stay at home parenting should be monitored, but that it is necessary to have definable standards of care across the board, given that very many children are in childcare of one sort or another (and whether you agree with that or not is a different argument!)

sorry I've only just started reading this, and haven't read the whole thread so excuse me if I'm covering old ground, but what happens if you are a SAHM mum? Are we supposed to adhere to this curriculum as well or will our children be seen as 'behind the rest of the class' when they start school (a phrase recently used by a teacher about a friends child who hadn't been pushed to learn before starting school) Quite frankly this scares me.

Haven't read whole thread obviously but have two points:

a) what about those who DON'T make the grade at three? Will they be failures at that age? So young! Speech etc doesn't necessarily kick in for all children until that time (my youngest is 2.2 and has very limited speech, as did Einstein I believe).
b) And will all the mums whose children are out at nursery so they can reach targets think they may as well go back to work, therefore adding to the economy in that way and putting money into the coffers miraculously avoiding the problems of the pensions crisis and shortfall.... oops, cynical me.

Welcome to the insane world of education.

Where you get to spend valuable time ticking boxes to show what you would be doing if you were not ticking flaming boxes!

oh no, my children will be failing their Key Stage 0 SAT in brick tower building! Maybe I should be looking at booking them extra tuition sessions now.

You are right peachyclair - those who don't use nurseries, will be made to feel that their children are falling behind / missing out, so put them in nursery, go back to work and of course - pay tax - silly me - knew there was a logical reason for this...

Just read the full article as i didn't have time this morning as i was teaching my 9 month old her 8 times table!!

I think it's awful. It really feels to me that since dd1 started School this year, Reception aged 4 and a half, she not all ine anymore IYSWIM. To have them intervening from the word go would be awful. I assume that SAHM's like me would get some 'advice' on how to raise a baby!

The thing is, who would test for that? To see that stay at home babies are doing just as well?
Hopefully not the same type of people as my dd's previous Health Visitor. I'm not being smug but when i read that last line about lots of children having communication problems i thought of my dd's 2 half year check (i think that's when it was) She was always extremely articulate and chatted away to the H.V and even made a joke . Then when she mispronounced ONE WORD the H.V said she'd see her in 6 months for her speech!!(Sorry if you've read that before, it's a bug bear of mine)

I was livid and have had no outside opinions for dd2 and that's how i intend it to stay!!

Phew, didn't realise how annoyed i was about this!

I am going to repeat myself as I was this in Childminders before here.

My DS (2) would not be with his CM if she was not already doing these things naturally.

How would it be gauged? By putting an Ofsted examiner in a room with her and my not always good 2 year old. What if he is having a bad day? What an absolute crock of shite.

I feel sorry for childminders who already have the most important job in the world. Looking after other peoples kids....because they choose to.

I really think that the NCMA should take over this whole thing as their standards are far superior to Ofsteds anyway. The NCMA guidelines should be made mandatory.

UCM TBH I think I have the most important job in world - looking after my OWN kids - because I choose to......

Anyway this National Curriculum thing is a load of old bollo....s. Are kids going to be able to be kids at all? Surely they learn an awful lot through play? Stupid gits.

Pfer I would love to do your job. Can't afford to unless I sell my house and go into a hostel until our borough council give me a flat on an estate, which they wouldn't anyway cos' I would've made money on the sale of my house.

Oh and I wasn't having a dig at anyone. I think that bringing up yours or anyone elses children is the right way to go. I can remember me giving my CHM's husband a cheque which was just signed. He did question it. I said that 'you look after the most important thing in my life, if I can't trust you with a signed cheque things are a bit worrying'.

Oh and I wasn't having a dig at anyone. I think that bringing up yours or anyone elses children is the right way to go. I can remember me giving my CHM's husband a cheque which was just signed. He did question it. I said that 'you look after the most important thing in my life, if I can't trust you with a signed cheque things are a bit worrying'.

Thought you guys might like a link to the childminder thread here

"early years child development" goals already exist and e.g. nurseries must demonstrate they abide by them... as everyone else has said, they are achieved by doing what would be done anyway.

this new initiative is symptomatic of a floundering government desperately searching for a "big idea" and failing miserably...

I agree wholeheartedly

Are they just talking about rebadging birth to three matters? Because surely that won't make much difference to daycare nurseries - Ofsted already check they are following the curriculum, I think. Just more form-filling, I assume.

Ds's nursery followed birth to three matters and it seemed sensible to me. Just a way of setting down all the different aspects of child development that you want to encourage - like activities for young toddlers that help them to feel different textures - playing with a treasure box with some furry items and some smooth items. For older toddlers things like having a blue day where you look at lots of blue things! It's just codifying it so you have a range of age-appropriate activities.

Not that great if it just means more form-filling and hassle. But doesn't mean toddlers will be expected to sit at desks and learn things by rote.

I went to parent's evening at my dd's nursery the other day. What a total and complete waste of time.

I was told that DD is confident about her own physical needs, knows how to dress herself, likes playing with scissors, likes drawing, painting, playing with the house toys, ya da ya da ya da. All stuff I know anyway.

The nursery worker had had to waste hours writing down inane observations about DD and ten other kids which showed which activity fitted into which early learning goal. How to make a job incredibly tedious, was my instant thought. And if childminders are going to have to do it, lots of them simply aren't going to want to. My CM used to tell me what my kids had done that day. Every day, we had five minutes where we chatted while they got their coats on. That five minutes was perfectly adequate, but would have taken her 20 minutes to write up. And I felt much more that I knew what was going on in her house and what the kids were up to when they were there, than I have ever felt with this ever-so-efficient nursery which details everything in writing.

I really like the 'curriculum' that dd follows at nursery - she doesn't know it's a 'curriculum', she thinks she's playing. Don't have a problem with this tbh - it's just what's being done already! Think the idea is just to formalise it a little across the board.

Childminders already have to be ofsteded btw.

I think it's unnecessary to state what should be being done anyway. I also think it's unecessary to formally assess children when they go into reception, as I don't believe there are any reception teachers who by the end of the first week of school know exactly what the capabilites of each child are. Not by formally assesing and terrifying them, but by carefully watching and playing with them. And that's the important thing PLAY. I don't want my child to feel like a write off at 4 because he can't count fr enough, it's impossible to state what all children should do as they're all different. I also feel like it's yet another way of disregarding those who have the option to stay at home with their children, there are no breaks financial or otherwise for people in this position.

kate100 - disillusioned early years teacher

it's also worth noting that of comparable european countries e.g. germany, france, the UK introduces formal teaching earliest and has the lowest rates of literacy and numeracy