boys-aged-three-must-work-more

[mrz]

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/boys-aged-three-must-work-more-1852087.html

Government sponsored child abuse is about right.

If being "behind" age 3 is such a disastrous thing, educationally speaking, what's at fault here, Early Years care, or the subsequent 13-15 years of education?

More New Labour madness

Of course it's not fecking child abuse. ow I read it was that they were going to encourage boys to spend more time drawing/mark making not chain them to a desk forcing them to write.

"The guidance, which will be sent to nurseries from January, will include advice to set up role-play activities tailored to boys' interests, such as builders taking phone messages and writing up orders, post office employees writing on forms, and waiters taking orders from customers.

Boys will also be encouraged to write using unusual materials such as chocolate powder and coloured sand to make marks on the floor and walls outside. "

How, exactly, is that anywhere akin to abuse?

An interesting an important article. Thank you for posting it. Have you read Steve Biddulph's 'Raising Boys' anyone?

By DoesntTheTurkeyDragOn Wed 30-Dec-09 08:20:57

"The guidance, which will be sent to nurseries from January, will include advice to set up role-play activities tailored to boys' interests, such as builders taking phone messages and writing up orders, post office employees writing on forms, and waiters taking orders from customers.

Boys will also be encouraged to write using unusual materials such as chocolate powder and coloured sand to make marks on the floor and walls outside. "

The problem is none of that is exactly new. Nurseries have done all that for the last 25 years to my knowledge so do we really need millions spent to tell us to do what we already do? and if they claim it isn't working why send more of the same? waste of money?
Should we expect any three year old to write if they don't want to?

I've certainly had boys in my class who wouldn't want to write with chocolate powder (they might eat it when they think no one is looking) or coloured sand or outside for that matter.

Toby Youngs response is interesting.
Not sure about Latin for 4 yr olds though?

So will Childminders and Nurseries be Ordered to make girls do more Construction Toy play, as we don't have enough female plumbers, builders etc.

"Boys will also be encouraged to write using unusual materials such as chocolate powder and coloured sand to make marks on the floor and walls outside."
What about Girls? Surely they should be doing that as well. Making Marks is already part of EYFS. (Government Published Guide (PDF) from 2008)

Boys and Girls are different. While both genders should be encouraged to start making marks, I don't feel it should go as far as formal writing. Writing happens when they start school - if they learn that in pre-school then they may learn a different way of forming letters to that used at their infant/primary school.

Recognising letters, writing their name, drawing shapes. That is all fine IMO but extending it beyond that is like extending the school starting age. What next... starting school at age 2!

"Boys are also less likely to know the alphabet, or how to count to 10, sing simple nursery rhymes from memory, dress themselves and work well with classmates at the end of the reception year, before they start Year One."

End of Reception - So the research (no link to that research ) was of children starting Year One - is that how you read it?
So are they really saying that the problem is in reception class?
When the oldest child I care for started school, he could count to 100... knew the alphabet, had an interest in multiplication tables, could identify several types of trees from their leafs, likes anything Science related, knew some nursery rhymes, could dress himself (if in the right mood). Since starting school he has become a lot more social, working well with classmates.
He does not like arts and crafts but he can write his name and draw shapes.
So I take it he isn't a typical boy, if only 52% were competent in all 5 areas.
No mention of a North / South divide. I would love to see the figures based on where the child lived. I do wonder how geographic location, social demographic and generally how a child is raised effects the results of this kind of research.

It's as though we are being told we have to raise the standards of those who are in the bottom 10% by forcing everyone to do the same thing. Surely it would be better to target those in need of help, rather than make it compulsory for all 3 year olds!

While I would not go quite as far as Toby Young in hiring a Latin tutor, our experience was that firm structure was what both our DSs need. The touchy feely wandering about the classroom is especially bad for boys. Manageable chunks of sitting down listening, not talking and concentrating is what boys need. Without that they are just too distracted by whatever catches ther eye.

I do though strongly agree with one part of what Sue Palmer says: "boys were developmentally behind at birth and needed time to "run, jump and play, in order to acquire the physical control and capacity to focus that they will need later on"..."

What boys definitley need in addition to manageable chunks of structure in the classroom is plenty of outside running around and physical excercise. Boys simply cannot settle down to learn if their bodies need excercising. We give our DSs sit down maths tests and reading periods at home during the holidays and we know that they tend to focus better at 8.00 am or if they have been outside to run around first.

I agree with this that Nannynick said,

"Surely it would be better to target those in need of help, rather than make it compulsory for all 3 year olds!"

All boys are not the same. All girls are not the same. It is unfair on those who don't fit into the generalisation of their gender if miss out solely because of their gender.

nannynick
"Boys are also less likely to know the alphabet, or how to count to 10, sing simple nursery rhymes from memory, dress themselves and work well with classmates at the end of the reception year, before they start Year One."

I would imagine they have reached this conclusion from EYFS profile scores which are "politically" flawed

ABetaDad "The touchy feely wandering about the classroom is especially bad for boys. Manageable chunks of sitting down listening, not talking and concentrating is what boys need. Without that they are just too distracted by whatever catches ther eye."
I agree with you ABetaDad the lack of structure in some classrooms isn't good for any children. I would hope that all schools are now having more structure to the school day, manageable chunks of time when the children are concentrating on a specific task, be that writing, drawing, reading, listening, counting, etc.
Do we want to see that happening at a Childminder's though? One reason some parents choose a childminder is that it isn't formal education, it is more about play. When I was involved with Pre-Schools, the motto was "Learning Through Play".

Young boys are much more physical generally than young girls, so I too agree with Sue Palmer that boys need to run, jump and play. They need to learn to release their energy appropriately, rather than causing disruption once in the classroom. Some girls also need this. Every child is an individual and their individual needs should be taken into account.

"Every child is an individual and their individual needs should be taken into account."

Round of applause for Nannynick.

Oh FFS so three year old boys are more interested in pretending to be builders than girls, are they? How to enforce gender stereotypes... I really don't think three year olds are that gender delineated and if they are, something has gone very wrong. They should ALL be encouraged/allowed to play at being builders. And Mummies or Daddies. And hairdressers and nurses and doctors and whatever. No-one should be telling little boys they have to be builders and girls that they have to be mummies.

If there is such a striking gender divide in the choice of games, I suspect it's far more to do with the messages they get from corporates and adults - toys and toy advertising saying pink is for girls and blue is for boys. And even ELC saying nurses costumes are for girls and firefighters for boys.

And I reckon that later writing ? on average ? in boys is far more likely to do with boys being - on average - slower than girls - to develop strong fine motor control. The answer to that is to make the infant curriculum respond to the various styles of physical development of children, not try to force all children into the same box. Or even make boys who haven't yet got great fine motor control feel like failures even before they go to school.

FWIW my ds, my nephew and many of my ds's male friends were doing perfectly well in writing at the end of reception, thanks very much. There is a risk that this gender determinism will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, that boys will learn that they aren't expected to be any good at writing.

For anyone interested, I have located the Data XML specification for the information that was transmitted from LA's to DCSF - EYFSP Business Specs v1-2.doc (2009). In the Pupil/Child Identifiers module it does include Geographic data. So it will be possible for this data to be analysed on a location basis... wonder if DCSF will produce a nice map showing the average score for each postcode region. I would be very interested to see if there is any difference between one area within a local authority and another, between one part of the country and another.

Social demographics I feel plays a large part in this kind of analysis. Children from disadvantaged families are on average going to achieve lower scores, in my opinion. Does that data reflect that? We don't know. Perhaps DCSF would like to tell us. Perhaps DCSF would like to target those children in need, not insist that everyone has to do something just because some children need the help.

The data has been collected on individual children, so those individual children can now be targeted whilst in Year One with additional services they need. DCSF can use the data to make sure that schools in area's where children have low scores, get additional funding for special needs teachers, more classroom assistants, and classroom resources aimed towards those individual children who need the help.

Raise the standard by all means DCSF but please don't forget that each child is an individual and you need to be helping all children, not just the low scorers. What about those in the top 10%, what extra support will they be getting?

IME most settings get the balance right between allowing the children (boys) to free play and expecting them to come to a table to do some 'work' with an adult.

Well quite, nannynick. I saw a presentation by Michael Marmot - the national and international expert on health inequalities i.e. poor people suffering more ill health than the wealthy even when you adjust for smoking etc. etc. (Although smoking is related to social class and has a huge impact on health.)

It was really stark. Poorer children who are clearly bright as toddlers (not merely on conventional IQ tests) fall behind better-off children by the time they start school. And even the dim middle class children have overtaken the brightest working class children by the end of primary.

I hope Marmot - who is doing another review of this - can come up with some strategies to ensure bright children from poorer families can flourish just as much as bright children from better-off families. Or at least as well as dim children from middle class families. That'd be a start. It's horrible to think intelligent kids are held back by their social class.

Although I have to admit that even in ds's very good school, where all children are supported and encouraged to flourish to the best of their capability, boys - on average - do worse on writing throughout the school, including Year 5 and 6. Even though the fine motor skills thing has levelled out by age 7.

Girls - as a group - do worse on maths, btw. So there are gender issues on both sides.

"Boys will also be encouraged to write using unusual materials such as chocolate powder and coloured sand to make marks on the floor and walls outside."

Government approved graffiti?

Lets take our 3 and 4 year olds down to the Houses of Parliament and let them draw on the Outside walls. Yeah right, the MP's would love that!

Surely most parents and childminders and nurseries allow all children to make a mess with paints and powder and whatever?

Exactly edam what they are suggesting as a solution is already well established practice. The fact is that if they have based their advice on the EYFS profile at the end of reception then it is deeply flawed and highly questionable in it's reliability.

"Boys aged three and four must be made to write more to stop them falling behind girls before they even reach school, the Government will order nurseries and childminders."
OMG! This is so so so wrong.
ds1 is a summer birthday. When he was 3 and 4 he went to playgroup and nursery but only for up to 3 hrs a day. He had the options to write/draw there, but no-one forced him to and he rarely chose to. We also had writing stuff at home, but he would prefer to create stories himself and dictate them to me to write them down. (He had taught himself to read.)

He was transferring into yr1 of a school where children had already had 1 yr of full-time formal education, much of which concentrated on learning to write. So I taught him correct letter formation over the summer holidays so that he wouldn't be too far behind.

By the end of the first term his teacher told me he was writing more than any other child in the class, and far more than most of them!

Fast forward 7 yrs he is now 12 and in secondary school and is absolutely flying academically, picking up fistfuls of prizes left right and centre in all traditional subjects.

If he had been "made to write more" in nursery or playgroup before he was ready, I am sure he would have been disappointed with his best efforts, become disillusioned, given up trying and learned that he was "no good" at school typed things.

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-closing-the-education-gap-1852118.htm l
"Delays in learning to write among boys have longer term negative consequences for society because the connection is well established between an ability to marshall one's thoughts on paper and broader emotional development.

The question is, what to do about boys? The advice from the children's minister, Dawn Primarolo, is to encourage boys to start writing through roleplay and by offering them new materials with which to write. Don't rely on the old-fashioned pencil; try sand, or even chocolate.

Undoubtedly, the emphasis that is being laid on tempting boys into writing via misplaced "fun" activities is intended to moderate the fury of the many educationalists who passionately oppose literacy targets for boys. "

Wrong! actually it's for THREE Year old children NOT just boys!

Long term consequences for society is interesting. Given that these boys grow up into men who out-earn women and do far better in their careers.

Would it not be far easier to raise the age that children start school? Like the rest of Europe.

You'd think, wouldn't you? Only no, apparently those in power believe it should work the other way round and you get them measured and working to targets and basically in formal education by age 3...