Children's minister Beverley Hughes said on Monday that she hadappointed Sir Jim Rose to review two of the goals centred on children'sability to write and use punctuation in simple sentences by the age offive.
A number of early years experts have criticised the goals as being settoo high for children.
In what will be seen by many as a climbdown by the Government, Ms Hughesacknowledged that, while the EYFS was 'a highly flexible framework',some parents and childcare providers felt that some 'specific parts wereincompatible' with their philosophy'.
Ms Hughes said, 'I have listened to these views, and while we believethe EYFS to be compatible with their philosophy, we have agreed that atime-limited process should be possible, so we can monitor theimplications of the EYFS in these particular settings and inform ourreview in 2010.'
Dorian Bradley, former director of children at Ofsted, will be theindependent advisor on exemptions, and applications will be administeredby the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
Commenting on Sir Jim Rose's appointment, early years specialist WendyScott said, 'Experts in early years will be pleased to be able to maketheir points again to him, knowing that he advocates the application ofprincipled professional judgement to the needs of individualchildren.'
She added, 'There are already indications that the EYFS may beundermined by the way the primary strategy is being implemented in manysettings and schools. All the Foundation Stage and Year 1 teachers Ihave spoken to recently are finding that many children have difficultyin keeping up with the pace expected once a systematic phonics programmehas been introduced. National data confirms that fewer than half thechildren have achieved the expected literacy goals, so it is hoped thatthe flexibility and individual approach enshrined in the principlesunderpinning the EYFS will override arbitrary requirements for decodingand encoding print that do not relate to many children's stage ofdevelopment around the age of five.'
The Open Eye campaign has led a highly successful protest against theEYFS becoming law, which led to scrutiny by the Commons Select Committeein May.
Lynne Oldfield, early years expert and spokesperson for Open Eye, saidthat the human rights issue had not been adequately addressed, becauseexemptions would be limited and conditional. She said, 'Our campaign hascentred around two key issues, that of the extent and force of thelegislation and the inappropriateness of the EYFS profile requirementsfor reading, writing and ICT.
'A serious and questionable step was taken when the legislation imposedstate-defined learning and development requirements in pre-compulsoryschool-age domain and across the divide between public and privatespheres in education.'
The goals under review are:
- Use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and makephonetically plausible attempts at more complex words;
- Write their own names and other things as labels and captions andbegin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation.
