However, we cannot go on applying the 'one size fits all' rhetoric to the term 'early years', when the learning and development at nursery level is so markedly different from that of a child towards the end of the reception year, perhaps nearly six years old.
Sir Peter advises the DCSF to ensure that by 2010 all pre-school children are taught about time and capacity. Was he ever taught such concepts before age five, or did he learn them quite easily later, on a 'need to know' basis? Young children live in the present. The power of now means more to them than clock-watching!
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