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?

[MajaBiene]

But you need lots of high quality practitioners to facilitate child-led learning.

Neither having lots of cheap staff, or having one highly qualified practitioner who has to maintain total control, is the way to go. But both approaches are cheaper, which is ultimately what seems to be important.

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

Plomino this? www.guardian.co.uk/politics/quiz/2013/apr/22/difference-between-toddlers-and-mps-quiz

[insancerre]

i agree reallytired as a highly skilled Early Years Professional.
I am woried about Liz Truss's statements still. She doesn't seem to have a grasp of the early years at all, which is very worrying as she is the children's minister.

[LineRunner]

What a naive bloody Government Minister.

So her government agency, Ofsted, has inspected all these nurseries and found loads of terrible, pointless crap happening, has it, and yet she has allowed them to stay open?

Or was this more likely a very silly interview where she said a load of ill-considered stuff and now looks like a twat.

[PiratePanda]

I have experience of one very bad nursery where all they seemed to do was a bit of minimal crowd control; the children ran themselves ragged (and ran over my DS head on a tricycle) and came home filthy. My DS current nursery is the opposite; calm, well mannered children playing naice games with attentive staff.

So I both agree and disagree with her that SOME nurseries allow this, and some don't. I cannot possibly see how increasing the child to staff ratio will help.

[LillianGish]

I don't think being in a structured environment necessarily precludes the children having fun. My two were both in French nurseries (maternelle) from 2 until they started school proper at 6 and they absolutely loved it. As someone has already said they had plenty of time for charging around pointlessly when they weren't at nursery (during breaks, at weekends, all day Wednesday and very long holidays). Whenever I went in to read or accompany school trips I was always astonished at the level of control exerted by the teachers who managed to keep perfect order without ever raising their voices (indeed one actually made a point of whispering so the children had to be really quiet to hear her). I don't think French toddlers are necessarily better behaved in general just that they know how to behave in a school environment.

[AmberSocks]

this wont be popular but i think its sad we need early years at all,they should be at home at that age.obviously not all kids are better off at home which i guess is why we need them.sad state of affairs.

[MajaBiene]

Who is going to be at home with them?

[insancerre]

ambersocks the research would seem to suggest otherwise
The EPPE project shows that children who attended a good-quality early years setting do better at school than those who do not.
The key point being 'good quality', hence the introduction of a graduate led workforce and the emphasis on qualifications.

[pointythings]

I scored 9/10 on the quiz .

What worries me about this is the way this government's argument always seems to be 'They do it so much better in other countries'. Then they demolish everything that is good about what we already have along with the bad, rebuild it and sell it off for profit.

What they never do is look at existing good practice and how/why it works, and then roll that out.

Even if Elizabeth Truss has been taken out of context and means well, I just don't trust her. British children are not French children. There are very many good nurseries around - the private nursery my DDs went to is one, there is another very nearby which provided out of school care for school age children including my DDs, and it was also excellent. The government needs to look at places like this and work towards having that as the norm.

But that isn't nice and cheap.

[pointythings]

AmberSocks patronising much?

[AmberSocks]

yes i know the research says they ar emore ready for SCHOOL,but there is much more to life than school!

[AmberSocks]

well ideally one of their parents,but a grandparent,or aunt/uncle?

i just dont see why we need to institutionalize them at such a young age.

[pointythings]

Well, my poor dds, institutionalised from 6 months old, are doing very well, thanks. I needed to institutionalise them because I needed to work, as did DH. As, indeed, did my parents (who incidentally don't live in the UK). I suppose DH's parents could have taken them, but the daily drop off in the US might have been a problem.

Many of us either want to work, have to work, or in my case and that of many others, both. This thread is about protecting the good childcare many of us have (and pay for) from a government bent on doing everything on the cheap. Can we stay on topic?

[loobloo]

This is exactly what we are struggling with at the moment. Our DS goes to one nursery in a poorer area attached to a failing school and they are amazing. Lots of good activities to help them learn numbers and letters. But at the nursery attached to an outstanding school and is the fashion with the yummy mummies he just seems to run around aimlessly with no structure or learning. Hence he goes to the first nursery 3 times a week and the second 2 times a week. We justify him having 2 free play sessions to 3 learning sessions and its a good balance.

[OneLittleToddleTerror]

pointythings maybe amber is talking about what the Chinese do. Send them to live with the grandparents in china until school age. She might be just as fond of them as Gove . A colleague at work spent her preschool years with her grandma this way even though both her mum and her grandma are in china. So it's nothing new and perfectly acceptable. What do you say to that amber? The child is looked after by a relative but without daily contact with the parents?

[pnin]

Put any arguments about nurseries aside. This rhetoric is nothing to do with children, it's about labour costs. However, it has been dressed up In the language of harking back to a halcyon age of obedient children and a a more adult-led schooling.

If Truss or Gove et al. Had conducted research that went against the tide of knowledge about the psychology of learning, then I would be genuinely receptive. But they haven't. They are politicians who need to stir up a controversy to justify their existence.

Oh, they seen a few biddable French children in nurseries and want to graft some of that onto our system because ultimately it would get gem out of having to spend money.

There is no political currency in a nuanced , evidence-based response to some of the issues in early child care. For what it's worth, I find their attitude to education soulless and Gradgrindian - but that's by the by

But again, this isn't about children

[PessimisticMissPiggy]

amber nice. Thanks for sharing, but not helpful

[pnin]

Oh, I used to live in Asia and knew a good few Koreans who lived apart from their children and husbands for years at a time. Chinese migrant workers also spend up to a year at a time away from their children. But you can't c

[libertyflip]

I really hate the increasing pressure people like Truss put on children, families and nurseries to prepare children for school. I see the early years as a valid stage of life in its own right, not a preparation for anything else. Is work a preparation for retirement or retirement a preparation for death? If not then back off!

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Well said liberty

• let's have some liberty and freedom in childhood

[missorinoco]

Good luck to anyone who suggests to my toddlers that their running around is pointless. It has an aim, a specific aim. That the aim is neither clear nor logical to man or beast is another matter entirely.

I have a very good nursery, which isn't into pointless toddler running around. Two conversations with my husband come to mind. One, where I suggested it might be more helpful for my DC to master English before he moved onto French, and the other where I mused if it might be helpful for a subsequent DC to be able to stand unaided before he concerned himself with tasks such as hand hygeine and potty training. Ho hum.