To the Point - Report, but re-think too

This will undoubtedly focus on 'school readiness' - all fine and good, but what 'school readiness' are we talking about? Readiness to enter school at the statutory starting age of the term after the fifth birthday? Or, readiness to cope with school at the age of four, which is what the majority of schools now define as the starting age? There is a world of difference. Perhaps this Government will address this unintentional consequence of the last Government's early years agenda.

I am interested to know what the Government is planning, given all the words that have been printed in the various reports over the past ten months. We have had Graham Allen's Early Intervention report, Ian Duncan Smith's 'State of the Nation' report, the Munro Report, Frank Field's child poverty review, and now the Tickell report. The last Government was accused of 'initiative-itis'; perhaps this one should be challenged about their 'report-itis'.

Somehow I am not convinced that all the papers published will amount to anything major being declared, or anything other than a tinkering at the edges. This was an opportunity for a radical re-think of early years policy. Perhaps we could even have had a complete redefinition of our approach to early childhood, focusing on the whole child, rather than how we care for children and how we educate children. It would be great to think that this Government might shake up early years completely as a result of all these reports and consider how we nurture and enable children from birth to five to grow and develop as healthy, happy children, rather than make sure they are 'school ready'. Most of our enlightened European counterparts consider school readiness to be around age six or seven.

A plea to the Government - let the experts decide how children are nurtured and supported in the early years. Why not make a commitment that the percentage of GDP spent on early years reflects a rate that is greater than the amount spent on the costs of failure through lack of early intervention in terms of incarcerating young offenders and crime-related expenses; and then let us get on with it.