Early learning goals for literacy to stay in EYFS, says Jim Rose review

Sir Jim recommends extending play-based learning from the EYFS into the primary curriculum to ease the transition for young children, particularly for summer-born children and those still working towards the Early Learning Goals.
Literacy, numeracy, ICT and personal development are to be at the heart of the new primary curriculum, to be introduced from September 2011, with a new focus on developing children's speaking and listening skills.
Sir Jim was asked to review two of the literacy goals centred on children's ability to write simple sentences and use punctuation in simple sentences by the age of five - the goals 'use their phonic knowledge' and 'write their own names'.
But he recommended that the Department for Children, Schools and Families should give extra guidance to early years teachers on how to support young children's emerging writing skills, with examples of how these two goals are being met by children.
Sir Jim said, 'Large numbers of children are already achieving these early writing goals, so I fail to see why we would want to put a ceiling on them and stop children in their tracks. There are other areas of learning, such as problem-solving and creativity, where similar proportions of children are already achieving them, but we have not seen a call for these to be scrapped. The goals are aspirations that teachers encourage children to move towards in a supportive way – they are not hoops to jump through.'
The report recommends that summer-born children should start reception class in the September after their fourth birthday rather than the following January, but says that parents' views will be taken into account and in some cases children might start school part-time.
For further information see http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/primarycurriculumreview