Opinion: To the Point - Ofsted is wide of the mark

Ofsted seems to have gone off its head. The school inspectors have been moaning about the failure of children's centres and nurseries to promote literacy and numeracy among three- to five-year-olds.

Admittedly the brain regions responsible for maths and logic begin to need the right stimulation from about 18 months, but the idea that small children need to be inducted into formal schooling at such a young age is nonsense.

It cannot be called education, as this means drawing forth, not ramming in. But this seems to illustrate the Government obsession with producing figures that tell us how well they are doing rather, than making life better for anyone.The health and education services have been demoralised by this attitude so let us keep it away from small children.

Beginning formal education so early is generally regarded as being damaging; the idea of creating a foundation stage for three- to five-year-olds piles on the pressure and reinforces the mistaken assumption that preparing children for school, rather than life, is a good idea. It is easier to measure, of course, and measuring is an easy activity for the compulsives who want to keep their managerial niche in the system.

In central Europe and Scandinavia the emphasis is on social play and generally messing about and exploring what the world has to offer. In Finland there is no formal schooling until age seven and by 15 their teenagers have the highest school attainment in the world. But this would be hard to evaluate, so we can't have that.

But play is what the Early Years should be about, as young childen learn through play. This is what the brain has been designed to rely on by millions of years of evolution. Formal education is a very recent fad in this timescale. Play is what nature intends for this age, and much better developmental outcomes are attained by sticking to our evolved predispositions.