'Tests deny children play-based learning'

Young children are being denied the chance to learn social and intellectual skills through play when they start school by the Government's emphasis on tests and league tables, claims an academic study.

Pat Broadhead, a research professor of education at the University of Northumbria, who has been studying play-based learning over the past 20 years, said the worst culprits were nursery classes attached to schools because they 'are busy preparing children at the age of six and seven for SATs, and then there are the pressures of league tables on the schools too'.

Professor Broadhead, whose book Early Years Play and Learning - Developing Social Skills and Co-operation has just been published (Routledge Falmer, 17.99), said nursery schools and day nurseries were also feeling the effects of downward pressure to introduce children to a formal curriculum at an ever younger age.

She said, 'Although I think there is still a very strong tradition of play-based learning in nursery schools and day nurseries, even in these settings parents have been touched by these competition pressures as well. Staff there say parents want to see their children learning to read and write, not just playing.'

Professor Broadhead observed children aged three to seven in day nurseries and schools in Leeds, Sheffield and York, and looked at a range of their activities, including sand, water, construction, role play and small- world play. She noted that although children learned skills such as social interaction, co-operation and problem solving through play, in many classrooms they were not being given enough time and space for it.

She said, 'Research shows that when children are getting on with one another they get involved with problem solving and adopt a more sophisticated use of language. When they get the opportunity to co-operate it's intellectual as well as social.'

Professor Broadhead said there had been 'a real diminishing of learning through play in recent years' due in part to early years teachers being trained on a subject-based curriculum rather than play-based learning. 'Now teachers are beginning to realise that play-based learning can fit into the Foundation Stage curriculum and are once again beginning to defend its delivery, because it is intellectually stimulating for children. Many are, in fact, crying out to have play-based learning in their classrooms.

Professor Broadhead noted a marked improvement in children's behaviour, especially in boys, when play-based learning was introduced into reception classes and Years One and Two at some of the schools she was monitoring. She said, 'Boys found the formal curriculum too difficult to manage, but when they were given times to direct their own learning through play, leadership skills emerged in this play-based curriculum. Learning through play also brought other qualities into the curriculum that formal teaching didn't allow.'

Professor Broadhead's comments were welcomed by the National Day Nurseries Association. Chief executive Rosemary Murphy said, 'This proves the point that young children are not best served by having early years education tagged on as though it's the same as school, even though it's a separate phase. What children need is full daycare as a seamless service on the same site.'

A spokeswoman for the Department for Education and Skills said, 'National testing helps drive improvement in all schools. Without national tests, parents and teachers would be deprived of the information they need to understand children's progress and to measure and compare school performance.'