It seems chil­dren in the UK are low down as far as 24^th and 25^th on the global list for read­ing and maths. I find this stag­ger­ing and in a lead­ing econ­omy! What is it that holds our chil­dren back despite a national obses­sion and neu­ro­sis with league tables? Have we com­pletely lost the plot? Should we be tak­ing a more con­ti­nen­tal approach? Why have par­ents become so anx­ious about their children’s edu­ca­tion and is all the pres­sure we put on them, their chil­dren and their teacher’s counterproductive?

Do we pro­vide for­mal school­ing too soon? My view is we do! It is an inter­est­ing debate.

I read an arti­cle in the Times this week on very young nurs­ery age chil­dren in France do not begin for­mal read­ing until the age of seven, they just learn let­ters and sounds and how to write their name.

The French have a much more relaxed atti­tude with an empha­sis on devel­op­ing their social skills, how to orga­nize their thoughts and learn how to speak well and com­mu­ni­cate verbally.

This makes sense because in order to read, chil­dren need to hear the sounds.

The child learns to adopt a point of view and begins to rea­son and is then capa­ble of count­ing and clas­si­fy­ing. This is based on the French logic that if chil­dren can speak clearly they can think clearly and so ask ques­tions and hypoth­e­size; they become ana­lyt­i­cal thinkers and intel­lec­tu­als as they become adults.

I read in the same news­pa­per that a gov­ern­ment advi­sor announced ‘Tod­dlers with bad speech are doomed to fail as adults.’

The world renowned pre– schools in Reg­gio Emilia chal­lenge the notion of for­mal­ity too soon and places empha­sis in cre­ativ­ity and dia­logue as an effec­tive learn­ing process. 

It is so easy to blame poor teach­ing meth­ods and teach­ers. I believe our prob­lems go so much deeper than this about child­hood and learn­ing. Much has been achieved in the UK in Early Years but the cul­ture of test­ing is con­cern­ing. For me really valu­ing child­hood in itself is cru­cial. A time to be savoured, enjoyed and develop at readi­ness albeit at dif­fer­ent times makes for a sound maxim for life!

Let me leave you with this thought. “And the first step as you know is always what mat­ters most, par­tic­u­larly when we are deal­ing with those who are young and ten­der. That is the time when they are tak­ing shape and when any impres­sion we choose to make leaves a per­ma­nent mark.” Plato (428−348)