Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 309)
WEDNESDAY 14 JUNE 2000
DR NICK
TATE AND
MS LESLEY
STAGGS
Chairman
300. I do not know which part of that question
you want to start with!
(Dr Tate) One can exaggerate the extent to which we
are imposing an inflexible system on the early
years sector in that both the early learning goals
and above all, the guidance, allow a very wide range of approaches.
There was broad support for the goals from most quarters. Some
of them may well be controversial and some may feel they are not
appropriate goals for children aged 5 but there was very broad
support for them and they allow a wide variety of curricula. The
guidance illustrates you can actually meet children's needs in
relation to these goals in a very wide range of ways. However,
it is vital that we monitor and evaluate very carefully the implications
of this foundation stage being introduced: the implications of
the learning goals and the implications of the kind of curriculum
that relates to the guidance to see whether, indeed, it is short,
medium or long term in achieving the effects that we wish. A long
term programme of evaluation of the impact of this on children's
subsequent learning and progress is going to be important and
it may be, in the light of that, that one wishes to review the
whole programme.
Mr Marsden
301. Can I ask you about the importance of play
and physical development in the curriculum guidance that you put
forward? We are all well aware that for a variety of reasons,
partly because of the onward presence of television and computers
and partly because of genuine but sometimes exaggerated fears
by parents about the physical safety of children outside, it appears
to be becoming more and more difficult to assume that young children
would have a degree of, for want of a better word, knockabout
that children might have had twenty or thirty years ago in the
external environment. To what extent do you take that into account
in this guidance and, quite specifically, is there any way where
you can be of assistance when you have a setting, for example,
where there is no space for outdoor play and the children, perhaps
for safety reasons, are really never able to go outside?
(Ms Staggs) Outdoor play is threaded throughout the
document. Time and time again we talk about indoors and outdoors.
If you look at the photographs we have chosen them very carefully
to make sure they reflect that balance and that need and that
is all part of the message that also comes through the guidance
which is consistently about young children learning most effectively
when they are active and engaged with activities and so on. It
is a very strong thread running through the guidance. However,
you have picked on a very important point which is that we know
that not all early years settings have access to a dedicated outdoor
area. Clearly what we have tried to do with the guidance is not
to be prescriptive, and that clearly links with the last question,
because different settings can deal with issues in different ways.
We have given examples of how people have been very creative.
We have talked about a child minder who only has a small outdoor
area and makes good use of the local leisure centre for that sort
of large scale play. There are, however, some very positive notes
that begin to come back to us. When I go and meet with governors
and teachers, people are beginning to say, "We now have a
foundation stage; when we look at our school development plan
we need to look at how, over time, we can make that access available
to children. We can begin to look at a building programme and,
in the short term, we need to look at how we can be creative within
the context we have", so it is about encouraging people to
be creative in terms of what they have at the present but saying
long term this is something we should be working towards.
302. But given what you have said and given
the concerns I have articulated, is there a need for both greater
attention within the curriculum to these issues and greater consideration
for further resources than are currently being given to address
this particular problem?
(Ms Staggs) Certainly there are resource issues. Within
the guidance the whole thread of physical activity, physical development
and outdoor play runs quite strongly but certainly, in terms of
implementing that, there will inevitably be resource implications
for some settings, yes.
Chairman
303. Please do not get the feeling that we fell
in love with the Danish system; it was very different from ours
and we were very troubled by some aspects of it. Personally, as
a parent, I would have been horrified to hand my child over at
seven in the morning and collect him at five from the age of six
months, so I want to put that in context: that we have not come
back enamoured by the system but it did enable us to reflect on
what to do. Perhaps I expressed myself badly earlier in terms
of values when I mentioned the system of pedagogues being in charge
up to the age of seven and having their own philosophy, but there
was a clear value system running through those early years of
creative play but round a system of values learning what the Danes
call democratic behaviour—tolerance for each other, respect
for each other, independence—a whole range of values was
there. One could almost see they trusted the pedagogues with the
values because they had a profession established over time, trained
well and so on. What I was really saying in my earlier question
is this: is not the problem in the UK, as there is no core of
a profession alternative to trained teachers, that we are in the
position of teaching coming down the age group in a formal way,
helped by your curriculum advice and squeezing out the really
creative play that we saw in Denmark, the exploration of democratic
values and so on, because there is a vacuum of qualified people
able to offer anything different?
(Dr Tate) There is a danger of misinterpretation.
Clearly you have seen some examples of inappropriate practice
as you have gone round the country, but what we have really been
trying to do with the early learning goals and with the guidance
is get across the message that these values you are talking about,
this emphasis on the child's personal, social and emotional development,
is the foundation of everything else. We have been very clear
with the early learning goals that this is the first section;
it is the first section in the curriculum guidance; there were
those who would have liked to have put the literacy and numeracy
sections before the personal, social and emotional development
sections. We were very keen at every stage that this section came
first; that was the core of what people were doing and within
that there is a great deal about values, respect for others, tolerance
and rules, and that is at the heart of the early years curriculum.
The notion of a foundation stage is hugely helpful. I agree that
the people involved in the education and care of children under
5 are a very disparate group of people with different training
backgrounds and different levels of qualification and there are
big issues there in terms of comparing our country with others,
but the idea is to give them something they have in common and
to make sure that links with provision after the age of 5. We
have been very careful indeed in revising the early learning goals
to make sure they link in with the revised national curriculum.
We were consulting about the revised early learning goals at the
same time as we were consulting about the revised goals for 5-16
year olds, and the connection between the provision for 5-7 year
olds and the provision for 3-5 year olds is very close indeed.
The revised national curriculum begins with a statement of values,
emphasises the crucial importance of the personal development
of children, and is supported by a personal and social education
framework which applies to 5-11 year olds, carefully linked in
with the sections on personal development in the early years.
We are trying to get that thread through. What we do not have
is a cadre of people responsible for children from their earliest
ages right through to the age of seven.
304. If you have not got the cadre of people,
would it not be better if there was a more systematic approach
to relatively less trained people having a clear method of operation?
We looked at a high scope programme with children, a plan they
do and then review, and we actually saw structure that unified
a whole group of early years staff in that setting. That was in
Bristol. What do you think of that sort of thing? I think it comes
from America.
(Ms Staggs) The whole notion of children planning,
doing and reviewing is part and parcel of a practice that goes
beyond high scope. We have set out not to be prescriptive in that
sense. If I can take your comment a step back, although clearly
there is this disparity and we do not have this single approach
to those people who work with young children, the balance to that
is we should not lose sight of the fact that we do have a substantial
number of very effective, very well-trained, early years practitioners
out there.
305. I would not deny that.
(Ms Staggs) We have drawn from that in the guidance
and we have tried to say that there are certain features that
need to be there in the practice. I do not think it would be appropriate
for us to begin to say "This is the only way to do it".
That would not be helpful at all.
Charlotte Atkins
306. The important thing about early years is
really to create a disposition to learn. Can you give examples
of (1) how you would achieve that but (2) how would a teacher
or any other person in that setting establish that they had been
successful at doing that? It is a very difficult concept to get
to grips with.
(Ms Staggs) In terms of how you establish it, that
runs through the guidance. It is about acknowledging what children
are already interested in. One of the things we talk about in
the section that is about the goals that are about dispositions
is that most three-year-olds would come to you already with that
real strong exploratory urge, that curiosity, that ability to
be very persistent in things that interest them, and we give people
the example of children who set their own challenges and then
meet them and become very involved in their learning. If settings
can provide those sorts of opportunities for children to pursue
things, not always to do things in ten minute chunks and then
have to move on to something else, if it can be something that
can be followed through by the child, that engages the child's
interest, that the practitioner gets involved with, those are
the sorts of things that are most likely to mean that by the time
they get to the end of the foundation stage, those children see
themselves as confident; they see learning as interesting, exciting,
and something they can be engaged and involved in. So the message
we are giving throughout the guidance is that you need to think
about what interests children; the way you manage time; the way
you manage your involvement as a practitioner; and support that
real curiosity about the world they live in, which is very much
part and parcel of what most three and four-year-olds bring into
their settings.
307. We are very much in a measuring, targeting,
environment. How would a teacher establish that they had been
successful?
(Ms Staggs) By the way in which children approach
their learning by the end of the foundation stage. Is that concentration
there? Will they get involved in what they are doing because the
learning is there to be done without needing a very strong supervisory
element to it? Do they ask questions about things perhaps when
they have completed a piece of work? Do they want to know more?
Do they want to pursue it until they feel they have achieved something
for them rather than "I have done the ten minute slot, that
is OK, I can now move on to the next thing"? Through those
observations I think the teacher would get some quite secure evidence
about how children were approaching their learning.
Chairman
308. We are coming to the end of our allotted
time—unfortunately because I think all the members of the
Committee are enjoying this early years investigation and feel
we are not getting enough time—but what do you think are
the key issues? Could you sum up the key issues that you would
like to put over to a wider world out there about the document
that you have produced?
(Ms Staggs) The key issues would be we have not invented
something new here; we have drawn on existing good and effective
practice that we ought to be very proud of nationally: that this
can only be a starting point which needs to be supported by training
and by continuing professional development. I am under no doubts
at all that there are enormous resource implications in terms
of staff and accommodation, all of which will need to be addressed.
The other major point would be that I think that the establishment
of a foundation stage is really exciting for the early years;
it gives it its own character and status, and I think we can only
go onwards from here.
309. Yesterday we had the Audit Commission here
and we were told that 31 per cent, on average, of LEA budget is
on special education needs. There is mention of special education
needs in your document but not that much. I do not know if I dare
mention Denmark again, but we looked at this area and also the
special needs of children coming from immigrant communities with
great difficulties in not knowing any of the dangers, both in
terms of special educational needs and in terms of teaching. Is
there anything you would have liked to have added or would like
to add to in terms of how one at this foundation age deals with
those sorts of problems?
(Ms Staggs) I think the thread running through the
document around special educational needs is two-fold, in a sense.
One is clearly they will be children who already have needs identified.
There is a very strong message in the guidance about the need
to support those children using additional resources where that
is appropriate, but the other thrust of the guidance is that high
quality provision in the foundation stage will do a great deal
to mean that those special educational needs will not develop
later because, if practitioners respond to children's needs, if
they do not allow children to begin to move into, for example,
key stage one without having developed perhaps the language skills
they need, because that has been identified, worked with, supported,
then I think there is all the evidence we need that says that
getting it right at this stage can only have a positive impact
in terms of avoiding those children having special needs later
when they have already learned that they cannot do the things
their peer group does.
(Dr Tate) I only have one key issue to add to Lesley's,
and this is something we have learned from all the work we have
done on the national curriculum for 5-16 year olds, in which I
have been involved for over ten years now, and that is how crucial
it is to have high expectations of what children ought to achieve
by different points, but the mistake we made in the early stages
of the national curriculum was to be very inflexible about how
schools met those high expectations. We imposed a national template
that was too prescriptive and too detailed and which took away
the professional discretion of schools and I think it is vital
that, even though we must have the highest expectations and we
must illustrate what this means and we must give lots of guidance
and support, professional flexibility is left to those responsible
for the education of young children to reach these expectations
in the ways they see fit and that meet the needs of their children.
The other side of that coin is making sure they have the training
and the support and the qualifications to enable them to respond
in an appropriate professional way.
Chairman: Thank you for your evidence, Dr Tate
and Ms Staggs. It has been a pleasure to hear you.
|
