An open letter to Rt Hon Beverley Hughes, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families
Dear Minister,
It has now been nine months since the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework became statutory. In the run-up to its launch, I and others wrote to you to challenge the notion of Learning and Development requirements for very young children and drew attention to the flawed nature of the age-related Learning and Development Grids in the Non-Statutory Practice Guidance. We predicted this would be used to measure children's progress and to put pressure on settings deemed to be 'failing'. We also predicted an unacceptable increase in paperwork for practitioners.
In Nursery World (4 September 2008) and in subsequent letters you dismissed our concerns with the assertion: 'It (the EYFS) will not require endless bureaucracy. The only written record that is required is the EYFS Profile completed at the end of the EYFS, and that is no change on what happens already.'
The Primary Strategy's publication Progress Matters (March 2009) asks managers and practitioners to put in place 'a robust system' 'for identifying the stages children are at and showing the progress they make over time in all six areas of learning and development'. All the example materials on the CD-Rom appear to require settings to judge their children from birth against the Development Matters statements, and Leicestershire's model actually makes this a requirement of Nursery Education Grant funding. This does represent a huge 'change on what happens already' for most settings and is, in my view, a gross misuse of non-statutory guidance materials. It is clear that managers will only be able to provide the tracking demanded by Progress Matters if they ask their overworked practitioners to match observations to the grids.
This is already happening. A significant number of practitioners say they have been asked to number all the statements so they can annotate each observation with the initials of the area of learning and development, its aspect and the relevant number on the grid. This does not reflect the EYFS principle of the Unique Child. It is also impossible to know if a child has achieved something securely on the basis of one observation. Worse still, poorly-trained practitioners are seeing the grids as an accurate view of child development rather than a top-down model, which has simply tracked flawed goals back to babies and toddlers. In the EYFS Practice Guidance it states clearly that the Learning and Development grids should 'not be used as a checklist'. Children do many things that are not reflected in these grids and there is a real danger that practitioners' thinking will be constrained when they follow them rigidly.
If, as you say, the 'only written record that is required is the EYFS Profile,' how do you justify the publication of Progress Matters? Can you assure practitioners and managers that they will not be penalised if they note their children's unique development and progress through individual learning journals, rather than plotting them against the grids? Can you also assure us there will be a complete review of the grids by an independent expert in child development?
I look forward to your reply.
Margaret Edgington, independent early years consultant, Enderby, Leicester
MOLLUSCUM RELIEF
My children, as well as those I have worked with, have contracted molluscum contagiosum (Health, 26 March). It is not as innocuous as it sounds in the article. My daughter had well over 200 lesions, many of which popped and oozed. She was shunned by friends and daycare.
Our doctor told us to let it run its course. We were told that cryotherapy, skin acid or curettage were out, as there were too many lesions. The virus was spreading fast so, with some scepticism, I ordered the SilverCure product from the US. Within three weeks of using it, half the lesions had disappeared and the others were much reduced. Within six weeks she was totally clear and she has been molluscum-free for almost a year.
Maybe we are the exception to the rule in terms of severity, but parents and carers should know there are alternatives to the painful, scarring treatments and 'waiting it out'.
Patrick O'Malley, by e-mail
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