A Department for Education and Skills (DfES) spokesman is quoted as saying, 'We will not apologise for raising standards and we are not about to change a strategy admired around the world. Children cannot learn anything until they get the basics right.' But if this is the case, how will children ever manage to learn these basics, given that they cannot learn anything - until they've got these basics right! This is real 'Alice in Wonderland' stuff, but do you see my problem with such gobbledygook?
I congratulate you for your skill and speed in picking up this bit of nonsense. It certainly makes me wonder whether DfES staff read any modern research on the development of the brain and the thinking and learning abilities of babies.
In 2001, The House of Commons Education Select Committee report on the early years highlighted the significance of such research. Could it be that such reports are not read either and taxpayers are wasting their money?
As for the other claim, that Government strategies for raising standards are 'admired around the world'. Well, I must be operating on another planet. I am currently editing papers from educators and researchers in New Zealand, writing a book with an Australian early years professor, and in regular contact with early years experts in Wales, Scotland, Scandinavia and Germany - and there is no admiration in those countries for what we are doing to young children.
I must be meeting the wrong kind of people on my funny little planet.
Marian Whitehead. Drayton, Norwich
