Liz Truss and aimless toddlers

[BoffinMum]

So, Liz Truss reckons toddlers are running around pointlessly in too many nurseries. She says it's due to lack of structure in miseries.

Anyone spotted this happening?

I am a childminder and I took my 3 x 2yr old mindees to toddler group this morning. They would have looked as though they were "running around pointlessly" but actually they were involved in their own complicated role play situation with the dolls and buggies. They were also learning to share and co-operate as well as getting physical exercise. I would far rather they were "running around pointlessly" than being forced to sit still at tables to "learn stuff" and so, I'm sure, would their parents.

We are in the rare position of having our son in a private nursery on a military base. Because they don't have to pay rent and electricity or grounds' repairs,they employ a full time cook and cleaner (quick mopping/toilet explosions are taken care of by a member of staff), and they have a independent sports' school come in every week too.

They go about in their little 'key worker' groups taking turns on different activities; singing, counting/rhyming games, painting, role play, manner and speech rhythms (DS says please, thankyou, you're welcome, bless you, please may I have, how do you do, my name is X, what is your name? etc. It's like a little social interactions class). They also have a high ratio of male carers, which really helps with discipline I think. It's quite regulated, although they do have 'free play' and pretty much take the nursery outside in the warm weather (we live at the bottom of Cornwall, so it gets quite hot). It is about as structured as you'd want for small kids though.

Some of the other private nurseries I've seen around here though, really just seem to have an ethos of 'do what you want, when you want' and there really seems to be a lack of direction.

"The childcare minister Elizabeth Truss has criticised "chaotic" nurseries for failing to prepare children for school life".

What's her next statement going to be? Is she going to criticise parents for not getting their children prepared for nursery life?

She needs a glass of and to leave the already over stretched nursery staff alone!

Most of the time I go into DD's nursery, children are in groups doing very purposeful activities (in DD's case, digging all the stones out of the flowerbed and stuffing them in her coat pockets to bugger up the washing machine as treasure - in others', sitting nicely engrossed in writing their own names...). They do have a lot of structure, but they also have flexibility within that.

I did go in just before Christmas to hear a load of noise from the garden. The manager shrugged her shoulders and said the children were totally wound up about Christmas, they were bouncing off the walls so she'd kicked them all into the garden to try to tire them out a bit before pick-up. Seemed like a pragmatic solution to me, and I for one was grateful that DD had been running around aimlessly outside during the day rather than in my house at bedtime.

Running around is a good thing surely?

Julia that made me smile:)

Agree toddlers are supposed to play and may well be pretending to be a train or something. They aren't expected to leave with a portfolio are they? Or be beaten down by a structured system before they have the spatial development to deal with it.

Liz Truss must be hoping to be reshuffled to something else with all these bizarre pronoucements. Just because she is female and has dc doesn't mean she is an expert on everyone else's kids.

'Running around aimlessly' otherwise known as toddlers playing and exploring, surely?

LOL at toddlers running around without a sense of purpose. Just because she's too thick to see it doesn't mean they don't have any sense of purpose. In fact anyone who has looked after toddlers before knows that the minute you think the toddler is running around without a purpose is the minute your house is wrecked.

I've found this thread really interesting reading.

I've accepted a job at a well known chain of nurseries and frankly the room which I will be room leader of does need some structure for the children [or perhaps it was just a bad time to be shown around]

I believe that toddlers do need some structure just in terms of a good well planned routine but with plenty of fun play ie sensory and messy within that structure.

After six years out of working in childcare Liz Truss is making me feel a little nervous about expectations.

So if this is the case why has my DS old playgroup just got rated Outstanding ?

First we get one minister saying that the school holidays are too long and school days should be extended. Now another basically saying kids should start sitting at desks and doing some 'proper' learning from the age of 2? WTF is wrong with those people?
I come from a European country where compulsory education starts from the age of 7. I actually have fond memories of running round' aimlessly' before I started structured schooling.
If a few more stupid knobs like that actually start making changes of this nature to the UK educational system and I am going to seriously consider homeschooling (or moving abroad).

It's like when people say their children are bored at pre-school/ nursery RT and are so ready to start school.

IMVHO Any child who is bored in a good nursery will only be more bored in school. Of course it might not be a good nursery though !

i dont get all this "gets them ready for school" i dont want my kids to be trained for schools i want them, to have fun.I dot see the point of having kids if all you do from such a young age is prepare them for school,you might as well just hand them over to the council as soon as they pop out,does no one want to just spend time with their kids?just because?

I gather her comments include "failing to prepare children for school life"

Well, one thought on that ... maybe it's the expectations of school life and Reception classes (where some have an overly pressurised emphasis on phonics and writing) that is out of kilter with the children's development, and not the nurseries ?

Also if we're going to provide even less opportunity for toddlers and pre-schoolers to run around has she considered the likely effects on our already very concerning levels of obesity (where major behaviour patterns around activity and exercise are learnt early)

I think Ms Truss needs to get her backside on here for a webchat. If anyone can peer review her it's Mumsnet. Olivia et al please ask her to put on her flame proof underwear and come on over to back her ridiculous claims up.

EasilyRagedTodayTiggaxx

regarding the school start age, I think I have read that English is a difficult language to learn so English-speaking children do need to start earlier, it will take them more time to learn correct English.

so they can then spend their teenage years saying 'like' at every second word...

other European languages take less time to learn.

wonder what happens in China?

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Team Gove started on nursery schools. Everyone else in education seems to have taken a battering since this lot got into power.

specialsubject - I've heard that theory. When it suits english-speakers, then english is harder then other european languages.

Until they start learning another european language, then suddenly, that new language is much more difficult

And just because something is difficult doesn't necessarily mean you want to start learning it early ... for example calculus is difficult, or statistics, but we don't start learning it at 5, unless you include related early skills such as counting.

Well there are related early skills with learning English as well, such as listening to stories and beginning to predict what might happen next.

• With this government I daren't look to see what's in the next chapter !

specialsubject I don't believe English is harder to learn for a preschooler. Isn't it shown that a child can learn whatever 'grammar rules' thrown at them. (I'm talking about the native tongue of the parents. Not if you buy a russian peppa pig dvd hoping your LO can pick up russian from peppa). I think I watched something by Stephen Fry on this.

As for chinese. I do know the answer. Neither the tones nor the writing system make it difficult if you are learning it as a child. I grew up in HK, and my parents speak cantonese. It has 9 tones, compared to the 4 in mandarin. Until my DH tried learning cantonese, I wasn't aware there are 9 tones. To me they are simply completely different sounds. I picked up mandarin from listening to my taiwanese friends, tv and pop songs. Same thing about the 4 mandarin tones. To me they just are distinct sounds and I never thought of them as 4 tones of the same sound. (I manage to forget all my mandarin after I moved to the UK).

I don't know how I learned to read. We weren't taught any romanisation system in HK. (Unlike in China and Taiwan). So it must be that I couldn't read until I have memorised enough characters. Children books from Taiwan and China have romanised sounds next to the chinese characters. So presumably children can read by 'saying' the romanisation out, before they have learned the characters. (Meaning they could read before their peers in HK). My DD is only 2yo. Would phonics do the same thing? (DH couldn't remember how he learned to read either). In that it helps little children sounding out the words before they learn to spell/read properly?

But I disgress. I didn't find learning all those characters, even though I did it the hard way, and with traditional chinese script, hard. Human brains are simply amazing.

I don't think that Elizabeth Truss wants an end to free play nor does she want to stick two year olds behind a desk.

Learning through play is not throwing a bunch of children into a room with some pretty toys and letting them get on with it with a couple of sixteen year olds to supervise. A good early years professional will plan the play environment for the children and encourage the next steps of development.
However this takes considerable skill to do well.

Elizabeth Truss feels that high quality childcare professions with degrees in early years provide better education those with just an NVQ level 2.

Maybe Ms Truss went to the Houses of Parliament and mistook it for a nursery . That would make sense of her opinion . Plenty of people running round pointlessly there .

Alas , she happens to be my MP .

I have good qualifications myself but they haven't always been recognised or rewarded in my work with young children.