New under-5s national curriculum may ‘make children go backwards’

[mrz]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article3378783.ece
www.telegraph.c o.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/16/nchildren216.xml

I've done the links -

New under-5s national curriculum may ?make children go backwards?
Under-fives curriculum will harm children

Makes interesting reading.

It think its a huge over reaction. A lot of the end goals like phonics applies to reception children rather than toddlers.

There is very little that is radical in the new curriculum.

agree with Reallytired.
foundation stage goes right to end of reception year. At which point the profile completed does not consist of tick boxes or a 'do not pass GO, do not collect £200' if any target is not reached. A load of hoo-ha over Not Very Much.

except all the extra paper work that staff have to do taking time away from caring for/educating the children.

And the fact that there will be SOME (not all) nursery nurses and teachers who like to check off tick boxes and want the children to perform so they can 'do a good job'.

And the fact that making it mandatory even for private day care takes away parental choice.

Mandatory for childminders,too.

There is already tons of paper work in the foundation stage. When my son was at nursery they filled in the foundation stage profile. My son had a lovely time at nursery, but I think it helped there was a ratio of 1 adult to 6 kids.

What is proposed is not much different to the moment. The idea of the profile is to make it easier to see what a child can do if they change nursery or school.

The profile is completed only in Reception year

utterly trivial, but if you look under the comments on the Times one, there is a button marked 'POST TO FARK'.

Mumsnet needs one of those, I think.

I was absolutely shocked and horrified when I first heard that there is even such a thing as a curriculum for under-5s! Absolute madness IMO. Children at that age should learn through playing at their own pace and according to their own interests and, through that, start to read, play music, do sport, interact in a group etc etc as appropriate and if they want to. I find it just so sad to think of them having 72 goals aimed for and checked. I was totally appalled when I visited a prospective nursery for DS and the first thing they showed me was lists of curriculum aims. I chose our nursery because its mission statement was all about love and happiness and play and they never bang on about that stuff, even though they may have to follow it.

It takes away parental choice.
I've posted this before but will put it in this thread because I think it sounds a much better way than prescribed targets which of course some children will be destined to 'fail' when the box can't be ticked.
Early Years - How Do They Do It In Sweden?

By Reallytired on Sun 17-Feb-08 20:54:22
"There is already tons of paper work in the foundation stage. When my son was at nursery they filled in the foundation stage profile. My son had a lovely time at nursery, but I think it helped there was a ratio of 1 adult to 6 kids.

What is proposed is not much different to the moment. The idea of the profile is to make it easier to see what a child can do if they change nursery or school."

Firstly aren't you concerned that the people who are caring for your child are spending so much time producing "tons of paperwork" instead of caring for him?
The fact that a nursery are filling in the profile makes it even worse as SugarSkyHigh points out it isn't even required to be filled in by nurseries as it is intended for reception year of school to inform KS1 teachers of children's ability when they enter statutory education.

Secondly with EYPS ratios are set to rise certainly to 1-13.

I am doing EYPS myself, validation pathway ........ don't particularly relish the idea of myself with 13! perhaps i will keep that bit to myself

although having 13 3yr olds will keep me off the paperwork during school hours, that's for sure......

The new framework is no better or worse than the old Birth-5 matters which was the last "New Best Thing"

There is far too much recording/monitoring of all childrens development IMHO, but particularly under 5's, & as anastasia says there will always be those carers who favour the paperwork over playing with the kids.

We have a learning through play environment in our nursery but it's a struggle to keep the paperwork to a minimum to allow the staff to get on with the important task of caring for the children.

I don't see the big deal with the whole "paperwork" thing. There will be no more paperwork than there is now. In fact, we're starting to put the EYFS into practice now and we spend no longer writing than we did before. And as for the children missing out while staff do paperwork, I may be just speaking for my own workplace but this is not the case