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School Readiness? - Mr Gove


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My thoughts:

 

We are never going to have a change to the statutory school starting age. (Just as they will probably never change reception ratios!!). What we can fight is the way we will be required in future to work with those children who are going to be in school based settings for their reception year, which is the majority of children.

 

Irrespective of what is done elsewhere I believe the UK EYFS from the introduction of the DLOs through to the 2008 framework has helped more children achieve within our education system. The EYFS has achieved a shared understanding of our aspirations for them and we are capable of supporting children to achieve them through teaching and a play based pedagogy. Many countries in the world see our EYFS as something to replicate - for example Chile was adopting it within their education system when I was there and a friend was at an international schools' conference where the EYFS was highly regarded.

 

"The majority of children continue to work securely within (6 points or more) the Early Learning Goals for all assessment areas.

The percentage of children achieving a good level of development (ie 78+ points and 6+ in all PSED/CLLD scales) in 2010 was 56 per cent compared to 52 per cent in 2009 and 49 per cent in 2008." http://www.education.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/S...0961/index.shtm.

 

 

Gove's "school readiness" agenda...it's all been outlined in the education white paper, the Field review and the other various reviews/papers since the condems took office. A fundamental flaw of the Govt EYFS doc is that school readiness floats between F2 and ks1 depending on what page you are looking at.

 

It also states that there should be greater adult direction (formality?? Paper and pencil working?? sitting at tables??) when children move into reception. All of the ground made in schools to ensure reception had the same curriculum entitlement as any other child subject to EYFS legislation will be lost.

 

Respond to the consultation is all I can say to this, or write to your MP with your responses to the speech. Lobbying can bring results.

 

cx

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My thoughts:

 

Respond to the consultation is all I can say to this, or write to your MP with your responses to the speech. Lobbying can bring results.

 

cx

 

 

Call me cynical but the consultation runs from June to September and the final version of the renewed EYFS will be printed and delivered into settings by Oct/Nov ...

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I thought they said Spring 2012....................where have you seen Autumn?? At least I'd have longer to train everyone.

 

 

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1063265...EYFS-framework/

 

http://www.early-years-update.com/node/6707

 

http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/educa...-framework.aspx

It is also on the DfE site I'll find the link

Edited by Marion
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Call me cynical but the consultation runs from June to September and the final version of the renewed EYFS will be printed and delivered into settings by Oct/Nov ...

I was listening to Any Questions on Radio 4 earlier. Lord Lamont was talking about the consultation regarding changes to the planning regulatons and said how unfair it was that the consultation period was June to October, when the vast majority of people are likely to be on holiday.

 

So it isn't just early-years-related cynicism on the part of the Government. It is more a case of wanting to be seen to consult the hoi polloi but doing so in as small a window as possible. :o

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It does say September 2012 in your nursery world link

 

Rachel

 

September 2012 is when it will be implemented in settings but I was talking about when the document will be in schools and other settings... which suggests it has been printed before the consultation is closed.

 

 

The EYFS framework will be revised and the final version published in October or November 2011.

 

The new EYFS will be implemented in September 2012.

Edited by Marion
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Just read a bit more of his speech.

 

If children arrive in school unable to sit, listen and learn and then disrupt the learning of others then lives begin already blighted.

 

So Mr Gove what happened to hands on learning and supporting all those kinesethetic learners out there?? I thought we'd moved on from sitting and rote learning???

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Don't know why you sound so surprised SmileyPR,

 

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.''

 

- Petronius Arbiter - Greek Navy - 210 BC

 

 

:o

Edited by Rea
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I have this on my wall at Preschool

 

"There remains much concern about preparing children under 5 for the ever-changing curriculum which they will encounter from the time they begin statutory schooling.

 

'Preparation' is a dangerous word when used to refer to young children's learning and development. There can be a tendency to take up the precious years of early childhood and to occupy young children's minds with exercises and training designed to 'get them ready' for the next step, and then the next.

 

Educators can waste time, and insult the intellect of young children by requiring them too soon to do thongs that they will need 'when they go to school'.

 

The best way to help children to get ready to be 5-year-olds is to allow them to be 3 when they are 3 and 4 when they are 4.

 

The early experiences which young children thrive on are the best nourishment they can have and the best preparation for the next phase of life they encounter.

 

Being and behaving as a learner and a thinker is the type of preparation for future learning that children need."

 

Cathy Nutbrown 2006

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We (Nursery World) wrote the EYFS timetable story in March this year, when the new document was due to be published in Oct/Nov. I think this has now moved to Spring 2012 - we are clarifying with the DfE and will do an updated story when we have an answer

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I love this by the writer Michael Morpurgo (from his speech "Set Our Children Free" 35th annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture - Feb 2011)

 

"We can each of us remember the individuals who made the difference in our own young lives. Yet, something is wrong here and it is this, so often the importance of these individuals in children’s lives is not reflected by their importance in our society.

 

I’m not thinking here simply of the financial rewards, although that is part of the problem. Whether we are talking about people who work in children’s theatre, children’s television and radio programmes, children’s films, or children’s books, it is the same, you are at the bottom of the pile. It’s just for children. And within these worlds, the younger the children concerned, it seems, the less status there is for those involved.

 

The teaching profession, itself, is the most obvious example of this. We all know how important those early years are, in or out of school. Yet, those teaching our infants and primary school children are the worst paid in the profession and held in least esteem. So what inevitably happens, of course, is that so many of the most talented young graduates are not just diverted away from teaching altogether, because of its lack of status or lack of financial incentive – but in particular from teaching our youngest children, in the very schools where they are needed most, where they can do most good. A pound spent in the early years can save ten pounds later.

 

But the truth is that because of the nature of our political system, with its short-term target-driven mindset, we change what happens in education only superficially, usually so that it can be measured within the lifetime of a government. We endlessly jiggle the system and call it reform. I think we have to go back to the child, back to basics – and I do not mean the three R’s, though they are important of course – I mean something very different.

 

 

At the heart of every child, new born, is a unique genius and personality. What we should be doing is to allow the spark of that genius to catch fire, burn brightly and shine. What we seem to be doing with so many of our children is to corral them, to construct a world where success and failure is all that counts. Fear of failure is what does the most damage."

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Don't know why you sound so surprised SmileyPR,

 

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganization; and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.''

 

- Petronius Arbiter - Greek Navy - 210 BC

 

:o

 

I agree with the fact that we constantly need to review our practices, as we do daily... but to think that this curriculm is just a couple of years old and that another one is on it's way is disturbing. I know that it would be made shorter because there was too much paperwork and points to assess, yet some points have been rewritten, for example, as 3 in 1 (three sentences in one point). So would that really make it 'easier' or 'less work'? And, as many have said, it is just putting more emphasis on 'preparing children for school' and expecting Reception children to arrive in September already holding a pencil 'correctly' or writing letters. One can already see the higher expectations on the 'Literacy', even more than before. So, should a new curriculm be made to just 'bump peoples heads against the wall' and have to redo it again in a few years because it was wrong? I wonder how much politics are not behind all this. A change of government, a change of curriculm.

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I was contacted yesterday by the person leading on the consultation for the Department of Education. She was asking if we'd help to publicise the consultation before it closes at the end of the month, so I took the opportunity to ask her when it the final version was to be published, as I'd noticed the different suggestions here. They 'aim to publish the revised EYFS, after consultation, in the spring 2012 to implement from Sept 2012'.

 

Hope that helps. I'll be sending out an email early next week just to remind those who haven't yet had time to get their views in before September 30th! :o

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