The revelations come in the same week that education minister Ruth Kelly launched an action plan on the ten-year childcare strategy, which included more details of the EYFS, the new framework for children from birth to five, in advance of a formal consultation next month.
When children's minister Beverley Hughes first announced the new title for the birth-to-five framework late last year (News, 10 November 2005), it was widely understood by the early years sector that the intention was to combine the existing key frameworks Birth to Three Matters and the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage.
However, Nursery World has spoken to early years experts who have attended consultation events on the new framework in the past two weeks and they have voiced grave concerns about the suitability of the EYFS for babies and toddlers.
In its current form, practitioners have told Nursery World, the EYFS is too formal an approach for children from birth to three. They also fear that the guidance and support available to early years practitioners and childminders through Birth to Three Matters will be lost.
While the Birth to Three Matters framework focused on four 'aspects' of development, the EYFS clearly refers to 'six areas of learning and development' from birth to five - the same areas of learning currently used in the Foundation Stage.
One early years practitioner, who has seen drafts of four of the six areas of learning, said, 'We laughed at the newspapers saying it's a national curriculum for babies, but now we find it is a national curriculum for babies. Birth to Three Matters has basically been abolished.'
The practitioner said that the six areas of learning had been 'pushed down'
to the nought-to- threes. 'As soon as you break it up into the six areas of learning, it becomes a curriculum.'
The action plan on the ten-year strategy states that the EYFS 'will set out requirements to promote the well-being of every child and provide high-quality experiences covering six areas of learning and development'.
Although the EYFS does not become statutory until September 2008, the literacy and mathematics elements will be available for nurseries and childminders by September this year.
However, drafts of these were apparently not shown to early years experts who attended the recent consultation events.
The early years expert added that the influence of the Rose Review, for teaching of formal synthetic phonics to five-year-olds, would lead to pressure on literacy and numeracy in reception classes and that the Foundation Stage would be driven down to the youngest children.
Early years specialist Jennie Lindon, who has also seen a draft of the EYFS, said, 'There are positive elements within the draft materials, but it is not possible to judge the final balance of the document at this stage.
'However, my most serious concern is that, as exemplified by the recommendations in the Rose Review, there will be immense pressure to have a top-down approach and developmentally inappropriate methods will spread beyond literacy.'
* See At a Glance, p24-25, and www.surestart.gov.uk for details
