Nursery World - Opinion: To the point - Protecting the Early Years Foundation Stage

From an early years perspective, it was frustrating that significant recommendations for the primary curriculum did not survive the end of this parliament. It remains to be seen whether Sir Jim Rose's proposal that the Early Years Foundation Stage approach should be continued into Key Stage 1 will be reinstated after the general election, together with more freedom for teachers to exercise their professional judgement.

I hope schools will use the additional training day they have been granted to think through their curriculum, particularly if plans for the reintroduction of more formal lessons are on the agenda.

Although there are two all-party parliamentary groups concerned with children, there is not yet consensus as to how best to support learning and achievement. Both Labour and Conservatives are inclined to prescribe approaches to early education, and are committed to accountability regimes which exert considerable counter-productive pressures on children and staff. Is it too much to hope that Liberal Democrat ideas about additional investment and training, coupled with a lighter touch, will help to restore the kind of professional judgement called for in the Rose Review, and in Excellence and Enjoyment before that?

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