A friend tells me about her journey to her local nursery: warily pushing the buggy through a rough South London estate, up five storeys on a slalom ramp in dark, intimidating tunnels to the roof of the estate, and finally through high-security gates where she is buzzed into a brand new Sure Start children’s centre. It is fabulous, with a lovely playground, fun house mirrors, a sensory garden, sand and water play areas, loads of staff and dedicated volunteers. Inside, middle-class mothers smile in relief at one another at having made it safely in, as the doors swing shut on the grim estate outside. The mothers from the estate don’t seem to bring their kids into the children’s centre.
Why not? The very people that children’s centres were designed to serve are the ones least likely to use them. Some of them can’t be bothered. Some may be put off by the dominance of the confident middle-class mothers. Some might be deterred by the fear that they will be asked to fill in a form and they won’t be able to read it. And then there is the pervasive nervousness about the State, and its power over their children: is the centre there to spy on them and report them to social services as bad mothers? Might it try to take their children away? It is so much easier to let the kids watch TV at home instead.
And there you have, I suspect, a large part of the reason why the billions of pounds poured into preschool education and services by the Government seems to have had no effect at all on raising standards, as a university study showed this week. Children using the new services were always going to be able to count to 20 or whatever it is by the time they start school. They were never going to be dumped in front of a television all day, fed on fat and E-numbers, stimulated in all the wrong ways. Their mothers were always going to sing nursery rhymes with them, read to them, play with them, take them to the park, teach them to recognise letters. Offer those mothers a lovely new playroom full of other toddlers and loads of stimulating toys and equally concerned parents, and they will use it. It’s simply an extra service to them, just as the free nursery places for three and four-year-olds are basically treated as free babysitting.
Do I hear a minister protest? Babysitting? Well, of course it is. To a middle-class mum with an armload of kids and shopping, free nursery places equals a morning off, or at least a free arm to get some washing done, perhaps even some paid work. In my experience, most playgroups and nurseries generally do little of anything but babysitting.
Of course, they tick the boxes on their “every child matters” gobbledegook charts. They even attach goals – say, “developing competence and creativity” – to the day’s activity, shape-sorting, but the two only bear any relation to one another in some dim and distant corner of an NVQ2 childcare worker’s head.
And that’s not surprising, because the official scheme is baffling. Take the “birth to 3 matters” framework that nurseries are expected to follow. On the face of it, it is a fairly straightforward exercise in suggesting that it’s a good idea to teach children to walk, talk, eat and play. But the detail is mind-boggling. There are four sections called “Aspects”: a strong child, a skilful communicator, a competent learner and a healthy child. Each aspect is then divided into four “components” – a skilful communicator, for instance, breaks down into being together, finding a voice, listening and responding, and making meaning. Thus is childhood stripped bare in humourless boxes.
And each component, yup, is separated again into headings such as “negotiating and making choices” (from the “making meaning” component) and “exploring and experimenting, labelling and expressing” (part of the “finding a voice” component). Then there is an extra “diverse needs” element to each component, particular challenges appropriate to each, and a “development matters” section on each component card, indicating four different stages of development, each with its own symbol.
Bewildered? The poor nursery worker has to align those objectives with the day’s activity, playing with shapes. That’s aside from the fact that most of the kids won’t be playing with shapes anyway, because there won’t be enough of them, and the older ones will be bored because they have played with them dozens of times before, and the younger ones will treat them as bricks or try to eat them because they are barely 2 years old. What do you expect when you put 24 children, aged between 2 and 5, in a big room together for a morning, with a gang of barely qualified staff? Chaos and boredom, even if it is branded an Early Years Foundation Stage.
This doesn’t necessarily matter, of course, if all you, the parents, expect from nursery is a bit of babysitting, and are happy to read to your kids yourself. We can leave the early years achievement charts to the corner of an Ofsted official’s filing system.
What does matter, though, is that there are children who would benefit, and benefit hugely, from holding some shapes in their hands and hearing We’re Going on a Bear Hunt read for the 37th time that term; and these are the least likely to use children's centres or take up their free nursery place at 3. By the time they start school, they have already fallen well behind their peers.
At the children’s centre on the South London estate, embarrassed middle-class mums are loaded up with free gifts – a bag of books, a packet of crayons – to add to the piles of crayons and books they already have at home. Ministers need to admit that too much of the generous early years help proffered by the Government is going to the wrong people, and concentrate instead on the ones who need it most, and who still remain so stubbornly out of reach.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/alice_miles/article2343869.ece
Why not? The very people that children’s centres were designed to serve are the ones least likely to use them. Some of them can’t be bothered. Some may be put off by the dominance of the confident middle-class mothers. Some might be deterred by the fear that they will be asked to fill in a form and they won’t be able to read it. And then there is the pervasive nervousness about the State, and its power over their children: is the centre there to spy on them and report them to social services as bad mothers? Might it try to take their children away? It is so much easier to let the kids watch TV at home instead.
And there you have, I suspect, a large part of the reason why the billions of pounds poured into preschool education and services by the Government seems to have had no effect at all on raising standards, as a university study showed this week. Children using the new services were always going to be able to count to 20 or whatever it is by the time they start school. They were never going to be dumped in front of a television all day, fed on fat and E-numbers, stimulated in all the wrong ways. Their mothers were always going to sing nursery rhymes with them, read to them, play with them, take them to the park, teach them to recognise letters. Offer those mothers a lovely new playroom full of other toddlers and loads of stimulating toys and equally concerned parents, and they will use it. It’s simply an extra service to them, just as the free nursery places for three and four-year-olds are basically treated as free babysitting.
Do I hear a minister protest? Babysitting? Well, of course it is. To a middle-class mum with an armload of kids and shopping, free nursery places equals a morning off, or at least a free arm to get some washing done, perhaps even some paid work. In my experience, most playgroups and nurseries generally do little of anything but babysitting.
Of course, they tick the boxes on their “every child matters” gobbledegook charts. They even attach goals – say, “developing competence and creativity” – to the day’s activity, shape-sorting, but the two only bear any relation to one another in some dim and distant corner of an NVQ2 childcare worker’s head.
And that’s not surprising, because the official scheme is baffling. Take the “birth to 3 matters” framework that nurseries are expected to follow. On the face of it, it is a fairly straightforward exercise in suggesting that it’s a good idea to teach children to walk, talk, eat and play. But the detail is mind-boggling. There are four sections called “Aspects”: a strong child, a skilful communicator, a competent learner and a healthy child. Each aspect is then divided into four “components” – a skilful communicator, for instance, breaks down into being together, finding a voice, listening and responding, and making meaning. Thus is childhood stripped bare in humourless boxes.
And each component, yup, is separated again into headings such as “negotiating and making choices” (from the “making meaning” component) and “exploring and experimenting, labelling and expressing” (part of the “finding a voice” component). Then there is an extra “diverse needs” element to each component, particular challenges appropriate to each, and a “development matters” section on each component card, indicating four different stages of development, each with its own symbol.
Bewildered? The poor nursery worker has to align those objectives with the day’s activity, playing with shapes. That’s aside from the fact that most of the kids won’t be playing with shapes anyway, because there won’t be enough of them, and the older ones will be bored because they have played with them dozens of times before, and the younger ones will treat them as bricks or try to eat them because they are barely 2 years old. What do you expect when you put 24 children, aged between 2 and 5, in a big room together for a morning, with a gang of barely qualified staff? Chaos and boredom, even if it is branded an Early Years Foundation Stage.
This doesn’t necessarily matter, of course, if all you, the parents, expect from nursery is a bit of babysitting, and are happy to read to your kids yourself. We can leave the early years achievement charts to the corner of an Ofsted official’s filing system.
What does matter, though, is that there are children who would benefit, and benefit hugely, from holding some shapes in their hands and hearing We’re Going on a Bear Hunt read for the 37th time that term; and these are the least likely to use children's centres or take up their free nursery place at 3. By the time they start school, they have already fallen well behind their peers.
At the children’s centre on the South London estate, embarrassed middle-class mums are loaded up with free gifts – a bag of books, a packet of crayons – to add to the piles of crayons and books they already have at home. Ministers need to admit that too much of the generous early years help proffered by the Government is going to the wrong people, and concentrate instead on the ones who need it most, and who still remain so stubbornly out of reach.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/alice_miles/article2343869.ece
