The smiley sun with rays of yellow clothespegs decorated with photos of children may strike you as being cute, or amusing, or plain tacky. But for a young child, the act of taking their special photo off the smiley sun, and putting it on to the sad cloud, is a public act of rebuke. Some three-year- olds will not have the capacity to bear this.
Then I read that 'Golden Time' is offered to those children who manage to remain as little rays on the golden sun. This seems to involve taking core nursery experiences like clay and dance out of the main curriculum, and turning them into trivial rewards. I doubt that it's even worth bothering to make a pot or develop a dance if you only have ten minutes. It's a system, in other words, that would wreck a decent nursery curriculum.
But what I am most alarmed by is the idea that any of this is about moral development. A moral act is based on a system of values, and is carried out because a person believes it to be right. Nelson Mandela's stand against apartheid, for example, had nothing to do with public praise. He took difficult decisions and accepted the consequences.
Do we want English nurseries to bring up a generation of children who think that being moral is about getting a reward?
* Julian Grenier, headteacher, Kate Greenaway Nursery School and Children's Centre, London
