Claiming that it is responding to the recommendations in the Tickell review regarding exemptions from the EYFS learning and development requirements, the Government has gone far beyond the sense of that report to propose offering an ill-considered blanket exemption to swathes of independent schools.
Sadly, I suspect these schools would seek exemption to avoid the requirement that children learn through play and playful activity. In an advisory role for a local authority I once visited an independent school where I found the reception children - aged three, not four - in highly-managed, formal paper-based learning throughout the day. The reception teachers wanted to work in a different way and urged me to talk with the head. The head responded that she was not interested in what the framework said - parents chose the school because they wanted a different approach.
It was only because the school received funding for appropriate early years provision that the head compromised to allow the reception children to visit the nursery for one hour of sand play on Friday afternoons.
Whatever parents want and may think is best for their children, there is ample evidence about conditions that support young children's learning and their well-being. What kind of experiences do the children want - and more importantly, what do they have a right to?
The current proposal says individual schools could be exempted if they have a good EYFS Ofsted and subsequent checks would be done by independent schools inspectors. The proposals also open the door to funding non-EYFS provision in private schools. I am appalled and wonder who in the Government is pushing for this opt-out - and why.
Nancy Stewart is an associate of Early Education
