By Sue Palmer (Orion, £14.99, ISBN 978-0-7528-9011-1)
Reviewed by Julian Grenier, head of Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre, London
In her latest book, Sue Palmer worries that an increasing policy emphasis on narrow educational results, along with an almost pathological dread of risk, has practically imprisoned little boys to tiny desks in little classrooms, and a housebound life of TV and video games.
But any reader seeking the 'cutting edge research' promised by the book's blurb would be well advised to be cautious. To take just a few examples, Palmer cites the negative findings of the EPPE research project - of a 'small but significant difference' between children who attend nursery childcare before the age of three and those who do not. But she ignores EPPE's finding of 'an earlier start (before three years) being related to better intellectual development at ages six and seven and to improved independence, concentration and sociability at entry to primary school and age six'.
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