Editor's View - Speak up for children by responding to the EYFS consultation
Monday, July 25, 2011
While the launch of the consultation on the revised Early Years Foundation Stage received plenty of media attention, there was almost total silence on the much more wide-ranging Foundation Years policy document released by the Government last week.
This can't be due just to the iron grip of the News of the World phone-hacking saga on the news agenda. Perhaps it is also down to the relative simplicity of reporting on 69 goals being slimmed down to 17, compared with the more complex messages from 'Supporting Families in the Foundation Years'.
This does a good job of responding to the reviews from Graham Allen, Frank Field and Dame Clare Tickell and weaving them into a comprehensive document.
It does lead you to wonder, however, if this work sprang from the same team that came up with the revised EYFS framework. The more you examine this, the more unsatisfactory it appears.
While the recommendations in the Tickell review met with wide support from the early years sector, there is a growing sense of unease among early years practitioners that many of these recommendations have been lost or lack sufficient emphasis in the EYFS framework.
One point in particular is the lack of clarity about the EYFS in reception classes and the statement that practice should 'move increasingly towards adult-led learning as children start to prepare for reception class'. There are real fears that this could open the floodgates to formality and an inappropriate curriculum for reception children.
Early years practitioners should make sure they contribute to the consultation and make their feelings known - lots of responses from individual settings will have more impact than those from the sector's organisations and well-known experts!
