The Westminster Education Forum was interesting in that we got to hear some strong, individual voices, even if the sessions were  not illuminating about what was actually going to happen to the hard work of Robin Alexander and Claire Tickell. Here, for reference, is a link to the Cambridge Primary Review and here’s one to the review of the EYFS,  although I have made note of this before in this post.

What Robin Alexander had to say at the Westminster Forum is, in some ways, replicated by his Minimalisms Model in the release from CPR currently on their home page and also seen in this response to the DfE consultation process.  He remained reticent about what reception this message got from officials or ministers in the DfE, and it looked to me as if DfE representatives had been told not to do much, well, representing to us last week, although they may, of course, have had a different brief, and were representing back to ministers the feeling of the forum. They would have had their work cut out, I think, with so many different partis pris at pains to say their bit. I shall pass over my irritation at the cutesy tones of those advocating direct instruction for under sixes on the grounds that “children just love being praised for doing things the teachers ask them to” and the general frustration at the same speech-as-question repeated at every opportunity about why we have to fund Early Years when education is only compulsory over five. Too cheap (even for me) to carp at the people I disagree with.

With conflicting voices at the forum it was also fascinating to read Julian Grenier’s comments on his blog about how the media are reporting Tickell and I note (although without much hope that it will have effect) his sonorous sentence “This is not the time to start all over again.” I agree, it isn’t: but we remain, or rather as Carol Aubrey  wrote nearly ten years ago, the children remain

“the nexus  of power relations, policy concerns and value investments of home and school. They are caught struggling to meet competing social, cultural and academic goals embedded in distinct pedagogic practices at school and home. In this context, notions of complexity and diversity may not convey positive meanings.”

The next WEF session may be more enlightening in terms of how the Government is intending to lay the paths.  Attending  was fascinating but it tells me we are not out of the woods yet.

So it’s out. Claire Tickell’s pieces to camera notwithstanding, there is much to be thought through, munched over, &c., &c. in the review, which is linked here:

I’ve only just begun to take it in, and early reactions have to be tempered by thoughts of how well the Government will take it, whether it will be tinged with the other debates – such as the phonics stuff, for starters, and the debate about making it voluntary (which she addresses on p 11) – and what effect it might have on the NC review (the call for evidence, about to close,  is linked here) or vice versa. But here from a first reading of the first section are a few snippets to ponder:

Repeatedly people reinforced the importance of an experienced, well-trained and supported workforce, and the international evidence supports this. Indeed, there is strong evidence that under-qualified and under-supported staff have a detrimental impact on outcomes for children. I have therefore made recommendations on how the status of working in early years might be enhanced and developed.
There was also a strong and repeated emphasis on the importance of an appropriate, proportionate regulatory framework delivered by an inspectorate with a deep understanding of early years.
Finally, and very importantly, the current economic context needs to be acknowledged as a significant factor informing the approach taken to the review.

Already there is lots to say here. I like the idea (how could I not?) of an experienced and well trained workforce, but looming over it like a thundercloud is her final point here: how will this be paid for? Later in the report she notes that “Much of the resource initially provided to support the implementation and development of the EYFS is being phased out.” In the same way, an “appropriate framework” inspected (or delivered, I’m not sure what the import of her wording is here) by people “with a deep understanding of early years” is something I and others have wanted for a long, long time – but I am in real doubt that the current regulators and inspectors are necessarily ready to take this on without considerably more training.

Pressing on to the parts that everyone was (perhaps understandably but unfairly) waiting for, the issues of school readiness and what the new framework might say about formal aspects of learning such as reading. Dame Claire comes out with guns blazing:

I know that some people interpret the term ‘school readiness’ as implying that
children could be pressured to learn to read and write at inappropriately young ages.

Her emphasis on personal and social development puts her review back (if it ever left it) within the “nursery inheritance.” While I still haven’t quite digested where she’s gong (to mix my metaphors) with talking about school unreadiness, I can, I think, see sense in her assertion (p21) that personal, social and emotional development, communication and language and physical development are identified as prime areas of learning in the EYFS.” It will depend, of course, on how this interpreted in the final documents, and how this is spun by politicians.

On then to Annex 4, the proposed slimming down of the Foundation Stage, and Annex 5, the proposed Early Learning Goals.

“Mercifully little change” seemed my first response, but I am now unsure. We have had slimmings-down before, and somehow the debate moves from giving children time and space to the day being taken up by those things the Government want measuring. No party can be seen to be in favour of declining standards, and it always seems to me to be beyond the wit of spin doctors to devise a way of selling to their politicians the notion of early learning not being about reading and writing. We will have to see whether the “school readiness” debate becomes, again, dominated by an adult-led (a panic-driven, headteacher-led?) scramble for formal skills, desirable for Governmental measuring, or whether the reports recommendation (p58) that “playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically are highlighted in the EYFS as three characteristics of effective teaching and learning” is actually taken seriously.