Opinion: To the point - The future of learning

I want to continue my focus on the Rose Review of the Primary Curriculum which I wrote about for this column last month (22 January). I talked then about my concerns relating to early entry to the reception class currently being advocated in the Review. Under the lead of our president, Wendy Scott, TACTYC has just prepared a response to this which you can see on our website and which may assist you in making your own responses - there's still time.

I wrote about the need to protect children's rights in relation to them being in a high-quality and age-appropriate learning environment. For children of five years and under, this is a nursery environment, a pre-school, a kindergarten - whatever you call it. Each of these, in whichever country you find it, has two underpinning features in common. First, they place playful, experiential and active learning at the heart of the child's curricular experiences both indoors and outdoors. Second, and integral to the first point, they support the child's right to select and develop their playful learning experiences from the basis of their own interests and preoccupations, some of which come from their home life and some from their 'school' life. The adult's role is to nurture and support this process with appropriate pedagogy and provision. Knowing how to do that is a very complex business.