My spouse is a nursery teacher and told me this week that OFSTED have banned the use of 'time out' in nursery education.
This means, for example, that if Child A bites Child B, rather than taking Child A aside and telling them that this is a bad thing to do and putting them on their own for 5 minutes to make the point, they have to take Child A to a different activity with different children and... that's it.
I was also told that the word 'naughty' is banned. I'm not sure if this is also an OFSTED rule or whether it's just this particular nursery, but nonetheless I was astonished. Why can't you say 'naughty'? Because it has bad connotations, I was told.
Neither my spouse nor any of the other teachers at the nursery can believe the rule about time out. They are astonished. It leaves them with practically no recourse whatsoever to demonstrate to a child that what they have done is a particularly bad thing that they should not do. All they can do now is raise their voice.
I'll say that again: the ONLY way a nursery teacher can express to a child that what they just did was very bad is to raise their voice. A 'good' child might not like that and might learn. A regularly misbehaving child, I am told from my spouse and other teachers, will take absolutely no notice whatsoever of a raised voice. In fact it can even encourage serial misbehaviour as the intended goal of getting attention is attained. Being left in a corner for 5 minutes does not give the child the attention they crave and, in the teachers experience, can correct misbehaviour if it is done appropriately.
In my opinion this continual erosion of disciplinary actions teachers have at their disposal will render them little more than daycare supervisors. Now, depending on the nursery your child is at, perhaps that isn't a big change. my spouse works at a very highly regarded nursery where the development of children's mental and social capacities is actively encouraged. These children spend the vast majority of their waking hours with these teachers, and in most cases I know for a fact that they spend considerably more time with the teachers than they do with their parents.
I believe such measures by OFSTED are in reaction to fear of litigation, and nothing else.
These teachers aren't beating the children in any way, aren't abusing them mentally with harsh discipline; they are educating children about right and wrong in a way that the child can understand and acknowledge (ideally). Simply giving the child something and/or someone else to play with when they do something that would previously have warranted time out is teaching that child, in my opinion, absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Anyone else have an opinion on this?