Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 250)
WEDNESDAY 24 MAY 2000
MS ANN
JAMIESON, MS
PAMELA CALDER
AND MS
HELEN PROCHAZKA
240. At what age?
(Ms Jamieson) This was children who were older. I
think the tests were done on children who were six and seven by
this stage, but what they were clearly arguing was that here is
another example of over-formulation reducing the innate capacities
that children have to wander and explore. There was the example
I gave earlier about the 11-month old. If you over-prescribe,
even with children as young as that, they are going to miss out
on developing these skills for experimentation.
Chairman
241. If parents want their children to learn
to read and write at four, would you advise against that?
(Ms Jamieson) These things are a judgment. They have
to be a balance. There are probably no absolutely right answers
here.
Mr Harris
242. But what is your answer to the Chairman's
question? There is no conclusive evidence, but what is your judgment?
(Ms Jamieson) I personally would go with parents'
wishes. This is my own personal view. I think that is more important.
Professionals can only advise. The parents are the parents of
these children, and it is the parent who needs to make the judgment.
We have found evidence in some nurseries that there are parents
who cannot read and write, and I do not think I have the right
to say to a parent who cannot read and write "I am not going
to teach your child to begin to do something that you think is
right."
243. I understand the point you are making there,
but really the public sector is about providing both alternatives,
which may not be provided. Perhaps I could ask Ms Calder what
she thinks of the evidence from central Europe that in fact keeping
things very informal and not teaching reading and writing until
a later age actually aids inclusion and appears, although perhaps
the evidence is not conclusive, to give better results at nine
and ten.
(Ms Calder) I think the questions are difficult because
it depends what you mean by teaching to read and write. If you
talk to nursery teachers, they are talking about emergent literacy,
they are talking about when children are learning to just be able
to hold a pen and make movements. That is actually aiding some
of the skills they are going to need for writing. Certainly you
cannot do it if you cannot hold a pen. Similarly with reading.
If they have been read books, they know what the purpose of reading
is. That is going to help children read and write. Sometimes the
talk about teaching children to read and write brings up the wrong
images, of sitting children down in rows and making sure that
they do particular things at particular times. It does not have
to be done that way. There can be support for children learning
to read and write, but it might be very difficult if you are saying
to nursery workers that the children should be able to read and
write at four years old.
244. Do you think the downward pressure from
Key Stage 1 targets is shifting the balance too much over into
formalisation?
(Ms Calder) It might do that. It might particularly
do that for people who do not have very much training, and think
that that is what they are expected to do, that they are expected
to produce children who can read at four years old. Then it is
likely to produce inappropriate ways of relating to the children.
I think it would be an inappropriate goal, but that does not mean
that things should not be done to encourage children to read and
write.
Helen Jones
245. If I can perhaps follow that up with you
a little, because it is a contentious issue, the fact is, is it
not, that when most people talk about teaching children to read
and write, they do not mean the things that you were talking about,
about teaching children to hold a pen, reading to them and so
on, which we all know about? They mean actually teaching them
formally to read and write. We accept that children all progress
at different paces, but what I would like to hear from you is
whether or not you believe that should be a formal part of the
education of very young children, and particularly, what should
happen to those four year olds who are in reception classes in
that connection? How can we best prepare them for literacy? I
was interested in what Ann said. She said it was not for her to
tell a parent that a child should not be taught formally to read
and write. Is that the case even if it is harmful to the child?
(Ms Calder) It would not be my view. I think here
there are not necessarily the same views. I think there needs
to be discussion about what does happen in schools and nurseries,
but I do not think we necessarily have all the answers, which
is why I actually want research in the area and why I think there
should be such things as Early Childhood Studies degrees.
Chairman
246. Pamela, Ann Jamieson in her comment just
now was talking about if parents really wanted it. It seemed to
me that if they wanted children sitting in rows copying and tracing
at four, she would go along with that. Am I misconstruing your
answer?
(Ms Jamieson) We need to remember that before the
fifth birthday this is all voluntary. This education exists for
children whose parents wish it, and there is that prescription
here, that this is something that parents want or do not for their
children. I think what we know about successful practice with
young children is that it works in partnership with the child's
parents, and that the partnership with the parents will probably
be more important than the content of what you do. Having said
that, I think that good practice, good partnership practice of
that kind, means that you engage the parent in a discussion of
what the child is and is not doing so that there would be a process
of understanding going on between the practitioner, the parent
and the child, and you would hope at the end of that that the
parent might have something of a more developed understanding
of what children of four can usually do and what they usually
cannot, and would see some of the emerging skills that the child
had, which were probably far greater than being able to copy a
sentence or whatever. We are engaged in something which has that
level of complexity, and what we are saying is that this is an
area in which it is dangerous to over-formulate, and it is also
dangerous to go against what the parents say. One of the things
I am fascinated by at the moment is the rise of private nursery
education for very young children. It is not uncommon in the most
expensive nursery schools for children of two to be tested. Parents
will pay a high premium for this. It is not unusual in British
society; it is quite a phenomenon.
247. Four year olds in formal schooling are
subject very often to the Literacy Hour. The Chief Inspector told
this Committee that he believed that four-year olds could concentrate
for 30 minutes in the Literacy Hour. Those of us who have had
four-year olds will understandably be somewhat sceptical about
this. Do you agree?
(Ms Prochazka) Four-year olds are very, very different
from each other, so regardless of what you might prescribe as
any kind of formal teaching of pre-reading, pre-writing, some
four year olds would be able to cope with that but other four-year
olds would not. Some four-year olds can sit down and listen for
five minutes or ten minutes; others just cannot because they have
not yet got to that point. They will get there eventually, but
to formalise everything too early is so damaging.
(Ms Calder) My concern is, if that is going to be
the emphasis, that is probably what the workers would try and
do. The most important part of the day would become the Literacy
Hour, and that is the problem. It is what the children are missing
and the focus on what else they could be doing.
(Ms Prochazka) Some children may not have enough vocabulary.
Mr O'Brien
248. Two related questions. The first is, in
the provision of Early Years education, how do you see the role
of "gifted amateurs" rather than this inexorable trend
towards more and more qualifications? Secondly, given your support
for the parental issues, which Ann has been forceful about and
I would agree with, how do you deal with catchment areas with
no parental reinforcement as a matter of culture, so that after
they have had the early attempts to try and build children's self-confidence
in Early Years and Nurseries, it is damaged as soon as they go
through the school gate?
(Ms Jamieson) We have clear evidence that most parents
want their children to succeed irrespective of their estimation
of their own success or failure. Parents who see themselves as
failures want their children to succeed, so there is that natural
instinct there, if you can get to it. But there is quite a lot
of jungle to hack your way through, because most of those parents
will have had a disastrous experience of formal schooling. That
is a sweeping generalisation.
249. What about gifted amateurs?
(Ms Jamieson) One of the ways in which you can engage
lay people is in helping in classrooms. The clever thing to do
is to make sure that when you bring in a parent who does not have
any qualifications at all to help, they get a certificate at the
end of it. I think Peak is an excellent example of that, but it
is by no means the only one. There is a whole rash of those things
across the country, doing something as simple as giving somebody
a six-week experience of groups in personal development which
is accredited, and use that as a stepping stone to bring them
into the classroom to maybe do some games or some very simple
things with kids. You can get an awful lot of pay-off from that.
I am not sure what you mean by a gifted amateur, but I would say
a totally unqualified, unmotivated or seemingly unmotivated parent
can be drawn in. I think in Britain we are very good at that actually.
250. So you want to see that element stay?
(Ms Jamieson) Yes, I think that would be good news.
Chairman: Thank you very much. We enjoy all
our inquiries but I think the Committee would agree that this
is a most enjoyable one. Could we thank you and ask for the next
team.
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