Industry News
Protests mount against state interference in pre-schooling
Posted on 28th February 2008
Thousands of independent kindergartens, early-childhood experts and concerned parents are campaigning against the government's plans for a new set curriculum for pre-schoolers.
From September, everyone that works with the under-fives will be required to follow the detailed framework set out by the government in its early years foundation stage plans, the Independent reported.
Although it allows for learning through play and exploration, the framework lists 69 goals that children must have achieved by the age of five and dictates methods of assessment for seeing if those targets are being met.
Elizabeth Steinthal, head of an independent school for three to four-year-olds in Kingston upon Thames, the Educare Small School, believes in "small-scale, holistic-based education".
She told the newspaper: "Our main aim in this kindergarten is to help them develop social and emotional skills … the children do work with letters and numbers, but there is no formal teaching."
Ms Steinthal added that she has never known a child to leave her school without being able to read.
Her views are in line with those of some other private schools, who have argued in the past that excessive state intervention in teaching and learning practices and regular testing from a young age can actually harm a child's education.