Originally Posted by
Arthur
Hello Everyone
I am the husband of the CM whose application for exemption was rejected. I thought it might be helpful to explain why my wife, with my full backing, decided to apply for exemption.
My wife has been a CM for 21 years and has cared for nearly 50 children in that time. We are still in contact with many of the families who she has worked for and some of the children she cared for still come and visit her (the eldest is now in his early 20s). Many of the children she cares for arrive as a baby and are still coming when they are in junior school. She has never had to advertise, doesn't have her name on the Surestart lists yet she has a steady flow of children because most of her work comes through the recommendation of families she has worked for in the past. She would, therefore, appear to be providing exactly the sort of service that parents want. Many of the people she has worked for are professional people and have included doctors, a solicitor, a nurse and many teachers as well as lots of other people.
We both have strong views about the way education has been politicised in the last 20 years or so and are concerned about the way that this is now permeating into the pre-school arena. We are both admirers of the Scandinavian educational model and believe that a later start to formal teaching is in the best interests of children and, therefore, society as a
whole. We are strong supporters of the OpenEYE group, who are the main opposition to the EYFS in its present form. The OpenEYE group are actually quite happy with large parts of the EYFS. The sections they are unhappy with are (i) the statutory nature of the learning and development (L&D) goals, (ii) the age range at which the L&D goals are targeted, (iii) some of the L&D goals themselves, (iv) the uncritical embracing of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for children whose brains are not yet sufficiently developed to cope with it and (v) the complex nature of the exemption process.
Taking each of those points in turn:
(i) There is not, as yet, a universally agreed model of how we should help young children to learn. It is wrong, therefore, to make the L&D goals of the EYFS statutory and, effectively, outlaw other learning models. Steiner and Montessori schools who both don't start formal learning until a child is about 7 now find their way of doing things is against the law and are having to apply for exemption to continue their way of working.
(ii) Many of the L&D goals are developmentally inappropriate and should be aimed at children in the year they are 6 rather than the year they are 5. The UK is one of the few countries who send their children to school at 5 and the government have now accepted large parts of The Rose Report into primary education and decided to drop this down to 4. For children this was already happening as schools increasingly opted for a single intake per year so that summer born children were starting school when they had just had their 4th
birthday. In many countries, formal schooling starts at 6, while in many Scandinavian countries it is 7. In education, though, more is not necessarily better. Finland, with the lowest number of hours spent in school, is at the top of educational league tables, while Poland, where children start school at 7, has now overtaken England at reading in the literacy tables. The Cambridge Primary Review has also shown there is no clear link between quantity and quality of education.
(iii) Two of the most challenging of the literacy goals are that children should “use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words” and “write their own names and other things such as labels and captions, and begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation” have been widely criticised. The Children, Schools and Families parliamentary committee even held a special
evidence gathering meeting to consider just how appropriate they are. At this meeting it was revealed that the government's own experts advised against their inclusion, but that they were ignored. Unfortunately, it has been announced that no changes will be made until 2010 when the EYFS will be reviewed, although The Rose Report has recommended that the wording for those 2 goals be changed to 'aspirations'. Beverley Hughes herself is on record as saying that the six areas of development are 'equally important', yet there is no evidence to support this. In fact, evidence does exist to show that physical and social development are of much greater importance than any of the cognitive areas of development during a child's early years. Sadly, you won't find anything about this in any of the EYFS documentation or on any of the EYFS courses that childminders are expected to attend.
(iv) Many pieces of evidence exist to show that early exposure to ICT may hinder or be harmful to children, yet the EYFS expects that children should "find out about and identify the uses of everyday technology and use information and communication technology and programmable toys to support their learning". Part of a paper by Dr Aric Sigman, a fellow of both the British Psychological Society and the Royal Society of Medicine, states: "The frontal lobe is the brain’s executive control system, responsible for planning, organising and sequencing behaviour for self-control, moral judgment and attention. The frontal lobe continues to develop until the age of about 20. It is imperative that children and young adults do things, which thicken the fibres connecting neurons in this part of the brain, and the more the person is stimulated, the more the fibres will thicken. The study reported by The World Federation of Neurology expresses great concern over the way visual electronic media is affecting children by ‘...halting the process of frontal lobe development and affecting their ability to control potentially antisocial elements of their behaviour...the implications are very serious...children should also be encouraged to play outside with other children, interact and communicate with others as much as possible’. It is suggested that the more work done to thicken the fibres connecting the neurons in this part of the brain, the better the child’s ability will be to control their behaviour (Kawashima et al, 2001)". While the EYFS does encourage play, interaction and communication, it also encourages use of ICT equipment, which is perhaps a little short sighted. Ever wondered why so many young people have difficulty controlling their emotions these days? Perhaps this is your answer.
(v) Just before the summer recess of parliament last year and with less than three months before the EYFS became law, the DCSF announced the EYFS exemption procedure. Originally, there wasn't going to be such a thing, but the government were advised that without it, the EYFS may have been seen to be contravening human rights legislation. The exemption procedure has been posted on the EYFS section of the DCSF web site, but to say it is not very easy to find from either the DCSF or the Ofsted front page is an understatement. The exemption process also seems to have been designed to be as cumbersome as possible. Parents need to make separate requests for each child and also for each section of the EYFS they are unhappy with. Then, if exemption is granted, the exemption will only last for 12 months after which the whole process must be repeated, thus ensuring that only the most determined of parents will see the process through to the bitter end. Gaining exemption as a provider is a similarly complex process, requiring written requests, local authority interviews, a formal ballot of the parents and applications to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to be made for each application with the additional threat of the loss of local authority grants to the provider should exemption be granted. Private schools and parents who choose home schooling for their children do not have to follow the national curriculum because they are private institutions. All childminders and many nurseries are private institutions, yet they have to adhere to the EYFS unless they successfully gain exemption. Why do the government have a different set of standards for the national curriculum and the EYFS?
Both my wife and myself strongly support these objections. My wife is also fully supported in these objections by the parents she currently works for (2 teachers, a careers officer and a sales manager).
So, as you can see, it isn't just the observations and paperwork that my wife objects to. We are fully aware, by the way, that CMs are not required to write everything down and that the early years profile is likely to be done by the child's reception teacher, but that doesn't go anywhere near resolving her objections. Why should someone who is working on their own, caring for 5 children or less, be writing notes to themselves to tell them what they will be doing next week. Incidentally, will writing everything down make the children any cleverer or cause them to do something that little bit earlier? Of course not. My wife has also said that she doesn't want either herself or the children she cares for to be part of an experiment in social control from a government that believes in a centralist, top-down way of controlling people. The Scandinavian system is based on trust with no formal testing of children until they are 7 (with the exception of looking for disabilities). The English system is based on mistrust and requires a small army of inspectors to ensure that all CMs are adhering to the latest set of rules. They also don't tell you exactly what they want so that they always have an ace up their sleeve with which to trip up the unwary CM.
Even in the British Isles, there is no agreement about the EYFS because it is only England that has implemented such a dictatorial set of rules. Political parties can't agree either. The Conservatives have said they will amend the EYFS so that it is 'light touch' for smaller childcare providers and will therefore be 'less cumbersome', while the Lib Dems want to focus their attention on the children who completely miss childcare due to family circumstances. Labour, on the other hand, have set themselves targets to reduce child poverty and see the EYFS as the tool to do this for them. That is why you are asked about what you are doing to increase the outcomes of the children in your care on your self evaluation form.
I should also say that the decision to apply for exemption wasn't taken lightly. We knew it was going to be difficult and we also thought that the outcome was probably pre-determined, but we still decided to go ahead. There is also no right of appeal against the QCA's decision, but my wife can make another application which she will be doing once she has received written comments from the parents about the QCA decision.
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