Nursery World - Anti-EYFS campaign stepped up

Two well-known children's authors have joined the Open Eye protest against the Early Years Foundation Stage becoming law in September.

Campaigners argue that the literacy goals in the EYFS are set too highfor children as young as four and should be scrapped.

Philip Pullman and former children's laureate Michael Morpurgo wereamong the signatories to a letter in The Times last week calling for thestatutory framework to be changed to voluntary guidance.

More than 80 campaigners, including early years experts, academics andchild psychologists, signed the letter. They included psychologists DrPenelope Leach and Steve Biddulph, academics Professor Pat Broadhead,Tricia David and Janet Moyles, psychoanalyst and writer Susie Orbach andeducationalist and author of Toxic Childhood, Sue Palmer.

The letter criticised children's minister Beverley Hughes for the'concession' she made earlier this month to review two of the literacyearly learning goals, because she 'ignored calls to suspend literacygoals, which are widely deplored as being far too advanced for manyyoung children'.

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