I listened to Keir Starmer’s ‘re-set’ speech in December. I’m glad they remembered the early years in Whitehall and we made it into the top six priorities. It’s a relief the importance of early intervention has been recognised, but the vision appears muddled; lots of laudable aims, but little substance.
It feels like it was written by lots of different people, resulting in a list of ideas, rather than ‘this is the issue, this is the solution’. It shouldn’t only be a response to a problem, but aspirational in its desire to invest in excellent practice.
I struggle with the term ‘school readiness’, I’m not sure that anyone really knows what it means. It is a ‘catch-all’ that is vague, but sounds purposeful. It masks the real issues by placing the burden with the child. Are schools child-ready? Do they have the resources to meet the needs of the children starting? Inevitably, without the practical skills in place, children will struggle being dropped into a group of 30 and will take up ‘valuable teaching time’. Perhaps a rethink of Reception class sizes to allow children time and attention would be a practical way of addressing these issues? Perhaps we could redefine what is seen as a valuable set of skills to teach?
The focus is always on literacy and numeracy at ever decreasing ages; it would be better to be explicit about PSED being the bedrock of all other learning. A fully literate and numerate society lies in the ability to use the skills you learn usefully. Any plan, especially for the earliest years, needs to be incremental and based on a clear understanding of prior learning. This paves the way for more complex and theoretical understanding. For young children this means practical, hands-on opportunities with time built into the day to practice and refine.
Young children more than ever need to touch, feel and sometimes taste; not simply watch. Without real-world learning, life is in danger of becoming virtual, reduced to knowing but not understanding. This is easier to shrink into a set of measurable targets, but the reasons for gaining knowledge and skills become distant. The concrete needs to precede the representational. We should not be filling children’s time by ensuring that they are ready for something else.
We need the same energy and enthusiasm that we saw from politicians such as Tessa Jowell when she launched Sure Start in 1998. Leadership is about inspiration and positivity; it would be good to feel that drive coming from the top.
