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)

We have two prac­tis­ing artists in the Cen­tre, Rosie Pot­ter and Kirstie Reid. They both have a range of skills and exper­tise and they work closely with the chil­dren one day a week. Part of their role too is to pro­vide pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment along­side prac­tion­ers to enhance learn­ing and devel­op­ment for the chil­dren. Being able to include artists in the work of the Cen­tre for me makes a very clear state­ment about the impor­tance of cre­ativ­ity and imag­i­na­tion in the knowl­edge build­ing process of our children.

Our artists sup­port the chil­dren and staff in our long-​term projects as they bring an extra dimen­sion to the Cen­tre. For me they are the icing on the cake, there to chal­lenge, pro­voke and cre­ate the think­ing rip­ples for chil­dren to prob­lem solve and explore in a col­lab­o­ra­tive culture.

One of the char­ac­ter­is­tics which define us as human beings is our cre­ative nature and the abil­ity to make mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions. Some of our chil­dren as young as they are can be amaz­ingly philo­soph­i­cal; they make pro­found state­ments and are able to ask impor­tant ques­tions, they never seem to be phased by adults! Oh, at my time of life I am still learn­ing from them, they are always full of sur­prises, so imag­i­na­tive and so gen­er­ous with their humour!

Work­ing in a cre­ative envi­ron­ment helps chil­dren to see what they look at, hear what they lis­ten to and feel what they touch. Our project work with the artists Rosie and Kirstie allows them to see beyond famil­iar bound­aries and hori­zons and hope­fully as they grow older develop a tol­er­ance for life’s uncertainties.

Children’s draw­ings never cease to inspire me; they pro­vide us with a real insight to their stage of devel­op­ment, a tan­gi­ble record of their think­ing and under­stand­ing of the world around them. Their first scrib­bles as we call them go on to por­tray their rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the visual world.

I recently read ‘A Big­ger Mes­sage: Con­ver­sa­tions with David Hock­ney’ by Mar­tin Gay­ford. For me Hock­ney is one of the great­est liv­ing artists, his work is inspir­ing. I men­tion Hock­ney in the con­text of children’s draw­ing because he talked about the impor­tance of draw­ing in his own life. He said the mak­ing of marks had always appealed to him from a very early age and he always found the art of see­ing as enjoy­able. He goes on to say that draw­ing makes you see things clearer and clearer, the image pass­ing through you in a phys­i­o­log­i­cal way to your brain and to your mem­ory, where it stays and is then trans­mit­ted into your hands.

David Hock­ney com­ments on draw­ing to be a pro­found expe­ri­ence. ‘Chil­dren usu­ally want to draw what’s in front of them, don’t they? I’ll make you a pic­ture of a house or peo­ple, or some­thing. That sug­gests a deep, deep desire to depict.’

For me, it is a priv­i­lege to be wit­ness to chil­dren draw­ing. It shows the child as a com­pe­tent learner with rich poten­tial. As prac­ti­tion­ers, par­ents and those inter­ested in chil­dren let us respect and take the ideas of our young and ten­der chil­dren seriously.

‘Once chil­dren are helped to per­ceive them­selves as authors and inven­tors, once they are helped to see to dis­cover the plea­sures of inquiry, their moti­va­tion and inter­est explode.’ ( Malaguzzi 1998)