Nursery World - Letters: Long haul on eyfs

With reference to the news story 'Sure Start "fails to boost literacy and numeracy"' (News, 6 January), how very unhelpful and wasteful in terms of resources and finances it is to conduct such narrowly based research, and how very much it skews the picture in terms of what is of benefit to young children.

Surely it is the long-term benefits and not exclusively short-term gainsthat are the desirable outcomes of early years education. We have theEarly Years Foundation Stage Profile as a measure of attainment forchildren at the end of the reception year, which should be usedpredominantly as a tool for supporting children. The administration ofPIPS (Performance Indicators in Primary Schools) tests on entry toschool is of little value in terms of reliability, wastes teacher timeand puts unnecessary pressure on children, while in no way giving auseful picture of the child's future abilities.

When will we take note of the success of other countries with regards toearly years practice and really begin to understand what matters to thechildren, who will ultimately be our future?

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