In spite of the ‘pivotal’ new era of autonomy for education practitioners, childminders and nursery school teachers are to now be included in OfSTED’s remit.
New legislation under the Childcare Bill will demand that all infant-care providers implement a new national curriculum. Consequently, 0-3 year olds across the country will soon be learning the same thing, the same way, most probably at the same hour. What is concerning about an infant curriculum however, extends much further than restricting creative freedom for toddlers.
A legally imposed learning programme for under-fours will homogenise early-years care as practitioners are forced to stick to prescribed activities. The response to an infant curriculum has been very negative. The principal objection is the predicted loss of creative play as infants are subjected to specific learning outcomes. Even under prior arrangements, many practitioners were sceptical about the early introduction of formalised learning in the UK – and that’s when the national curriculum started at four. The children’s minister, Beverley Hughes, has responded to criticisms of the proposal by arguing that an infant curriculum won’t symbolise the end of childhood, but simply a ‘coherent framework’. Yet it’s exactly the coherent framework which is pernicious.
However, it’s the straight jacketing of practitioners, rather than the straight jacketing of children which is most alarming. The suitability or inappropriateness of an infant curriculum is less important than the issue of choice. Just a week after the release of the DfES’s white paper championing new freedoms for educators, independence is being sucked out of a previously autonomous education sector. Under the direction of OfSTED, infant care providers will now be duty-bound to teach ‘four distinct curriculum headings’. What is concerning about this arrangement, is that ultimately it means a government monopoly on early-years pedagogical methods, where alternative approaches to early-years teaching are no longer permitted. Choice may be topping the government’s rhetorical agenda, but at the frontline diversity is being disabled.
The other major concern is the near certainty that formal testing will be employed. As we’ve witnessed so painfully, government-set learning goals are invariably accompanied by testing in order to regulate their implementation. Testing for 0-3 year-olds is not only a preposterous notion in itself, it would also run the risk of driving practitioners to becoming league-table, rather than child-development, focused.
When the plan was so clearly going to come up against major resistance, why has the government decided to introduce an infant curriculum? Crudely put, OfSTED-enforced outcomes permit regulation without investment. Whilst this may be a cheap way of securing accountability for the DfES, the costs are high for children.
Comments (1)
This is a very disturbing trend.
The purely utilitarian model of education is not only economically damaging (who can predict the needs of this country in ten years?) it is also a symptom of the authoritarian 'grand plan' politics of this government, precisely the politics Hayek argued against, warning of the dire consequences, the beginnings of which are there (the cavalier attitude towards torture and the rule of law, the national identity database, the surveillance of the population...)
Posted by despairing liberal | December 11, 2005 2:21 PM
Posted on December 11, 2005 14:21