Memorable moments can be educational... educational moments often aren't...

From an Early Years Teacher based 'Beyond the Wall'.

I feel a boycott coming on…

Walking into any Early Years classroom, I expect to see mess. Toys strewn across the carpet, paint dripping from an easel, playdough that has fallen from the table onto the floor mixed with sand that has met a similar fate. Mess shows that children are interested in their environment, are engaged with it and are learning through their play.

When I moved into my new classroom this summer, I removed roughly 3 tables. Tables that were for children to sit and ‘work’ at. The children are 3 and 4 years old. They should be learning through play not sitting at desks being forced to do work in a book.

This week I was deeply saddened and angered by the Bold Beginnings report in which Ofsted claim that Reception aged children are being failed by a lack of emphasis on reading, writing and maths. The idea that 3 R’s should be taught formally, not through a play based curriculum, is one that is surfacing from this report like a creature from the deep.

I fear that as a result of this report head teachers will be calling for a more formal attitude to teaching in the Early Years. Abandoning the play based approach we know to be best for children’s development.

Alongside this comes the return of the dreaded baseline assessment. A way in which to label our children. A way to determine their path at the age of 4 and 5 years old. We have successfully fought this before, but this time it’s back. This time the lesser of the three evils, Early Excellence, have announced they are not going to be providing a test-based assessment as it, “will not accurately reflect what the children know and understand, provide data that is meaningless and unusable, and, most absurdly of all, appears unlikely to even be available until seven years later"¹

If one of the testing providers has come out and said that essentially, baseline testing is not fit for purpose then why on Earth are our government still wanting to do it? Why put our children through this? Why allow the toxic high stakes testing culture that our education system has become to penetrate the lives of our youngest pupils?

I feel another boycott coming on…

Last week, I abandoned my well thought out planning in favour of wrapping up warm and taking 30 three year olds out into the first snow of the season. One child ran up to me and shouted, “I’ve never seen real snow before!” I, and other EY practitioners, are incredibly lucky to share moments like this with children. Moments like this are not only memorable, they are educational. As well as giving children the perfect opportunity to play as a group, listening and responding to one another as they made the world’s smallest snowman, the children described the texture of the snow and the ice that had formed on our water tray (Expressive Arts and Design – 30-50 months in case you’re interested!) and developed their scientific understanding of how our natural world changes over time.

Unfortunately, as neither Expressive Arts and Design nor Understanding the World contribute towards the overall Early Years GLD (Good Level of Development) I expect that the powers that be would not approve. However, seeing the look of pure joy on the children’s faces as they ran through the trees catching snowflakes on their tongue makes the possibility of being reprimanded for not focusing on the formal teaching of reading, writing and maths, worth it.
I would much rather run through the snow and face the stormy weather than make children sit at tables and force them to access a curriculum they are simply not ready for.

¹ https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/early-excellence-pulls-out-bid-unworkable-reception-baseline-test