Conservatives plan to make 'failures' resit last eyar of Primary

[Peachy]

yes, because my poor SN DS1 needs to be amrked out as a 'failure' at 11, separated from his friends and held back with his younger (NT) bother....

Cue, I suspect, one angry child who becomes even ahrder to teach and engage

So does that mean that they start school (the nursery year) at three, before going to Reception? Is it compulsory?

Intereating that today when I herad this being discussed on radio 4 they specifically said, 'For children who are not reaching their potential'

Which, if they actually mean this, would take out of the loop all those children with SEN who are meeting their potential, who are, never the less not meeting the average bench marks for a child of their age.

startouched - as far as I am aware Nursery is not compulsory. I think school is not compulsory until the child is 5 (but may be wrong on this) which is why it is possible not to send children to Reception (but then have to start in Y1 which is where the system collapses)

My DH is a primary teacher. When he heard this he muttered 'well they'll be keeping back half the class then'. Yes he was being cynical, but where do they draw the line in schools where there are a lot of kids with SEN and perhaps EAL who don't reach a certain standard? And what's that standard going to be? Level 4? WHich means primary schools will become even more tests-driven than they are already cos what teacher is going to want to teach little Johnny again if he's aggressive and throws chairs and can't read?

hippi, that is certainly the situation here, both my dds have attended pre-school but it was entirely voluntary and there was/are (dd2 is still there) certainly no targets. And school /education isn't compulsory until the year after a child turns five. But from what Peachy is saying it sounds like in this situation her LEA has a lot of say over the pre-school education and that I find really quite scarey.