mummiez & daddiez magazine

Is Early Schooling too
Academic for Children?
PARENTS often hear the words "I don‘t
want to go to school! " or "I want to play
with my toys instead" during their child‘s
first few years of school, but do we here
in England push children into education
too soon potentially causing long term
academic harm? I had a chat with a few
parents and a Nursery teacher to see what
their thoughts were.
Children need to be taken into school as
early as possible in order to start
interacting with other children and to get
a heads up on any valuable life skills.
Reading to her children at home is a
normal activity for Lianne Matthews of
Hertfordshire, but she strongly feels that
her children are too young to be dealing
with the stress of trying to academically
learn, and that fun is more important than
homework at their young age. The
importance of school for Lianne is that of
socialising and learning the skills that the
children can use in later life, rather than
an academic lesson for things such as
English or Maths.
Dr Richard House, a co-founder of the
Open Eye and Early Childhood Action
movements, argues that there is sufficient
proof that starting school earlier does
more bad than good for our children. He claims that
children should follow the Early Years Foundation
Stage; this is a statutory framework that sets the
standard in which all early year care providers must
provide in order to ensure that children learn and
develop well, whilst also being prepared for school.
The three prime areas that the EYFS looks at are:
communication and language, physical, social and
emotional development. The EYFS is extremely
play based and aims to prepare a child for school
rather than helping them to get a heads up. Once
children have been given this opportunity they will
be ready to tackle the academic schooling that faces
them.
What harm can starting school early do? Those were
the words of Nursery teacher, Claire Punter. In her
own words "I personally don‘t see any problem with
a child becoming academically developed at a
younger age. Surely the sooner you start the better?
"The children that Claire teaches and looks after
learn via playing games, whilst also using academic
methods and were described by her and other mums
at the nursery as "bright and on-the-ball". Wouldn‘t
we all like our children to be described as that?
Hannah Aldwinckle