Consultation on smacking
Government proposals to tell parents how to hit their children will open the UK to international ridicule, an alliance of 260 organisations has claimed. In its submission on ‘Protecting children, Supporting parents’, the Department of Health’s consultation on smacking, Children Are Unbeatable! called for the Victorian defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’ to be removed, thereby giving children the same protection as adults under the law on assault.
It also warned the Government that, if enacted, the proposals would ‘seriously undermine its positive policies for strengthening and supporting families, for child protection and for crime prevention’, as has been outlined in its Green Paper Supporting Families. It said, ‘That children, who are smaller and more vulnerable than the rest of us, should have less protection from being hit than adults contradicts common humanity.’ It added, ‘The proposals are incompatible with the Government’s commitment to human rights and with its obligations under international law.
The Children Are Unbeatable! strategy group consists of five major children’s charities – Barnardo’s, EPOCH, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the National Children’s Bureau and the Save the Children Fund.
The Government consultation said that while ‘The harmful and degrading treatment of children can never be justified… We have made it quite clear, however, that we do not consider that the right way forward is to make unlawful all smacking and other forms of physical rebuke and this paper explicitly rules out this possibility. There is a common sense distinction to be made |between the sort of mild physical rebuke which occurs in families and which most loving parents consider acceptable, and the beating of children. The law needs to be clarified to make sure that it properly reflects this common sense distinction.’
Note – The Children Act 2004 stipulates that it is illegal to hit a child if the force results in bruising, swelling, cuts, grazes or scratches. Under the Human Rights Act it is unlawful to smack children.
https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/1780/1/dh_4054848.pdf
First 'degree' level qualifications launched
Early years practitioners now have access to a degree-level qualification for the first time with the launch of the NVQ Level 4 in Early Years Care and already working and wish to will start in September and finish in two years time.
The qualification has three strands: management, advanced practice and enhancement and support of quality control. Candidates can choose from a range of options in addition to the core units…
CACHE said, ‘Many early years workers want to study for a higher level qualification but they can’t afford to study full-time. The new qualification will make degree level study accessible to these people.’
A question of age: a special report on starting school
A veritable storm was whipped up last month about whether too much academic pressure is being put on children too young. As the Pre-school Learning Alliance warned that pre-school playgroups – which have been losing four-year-olds to schools – may become a thing of the past, the Government trumpeted a tiny survey of 127 parents declaring that 89 per cent of them were happy to send their four-year olds to Reception classes.
Meanwhile one mother declared she was going to the European Court of Human Rights to keep her child out of school, another was considering legal action against her local authority for the same reason and parents complained about the pain of SATs for seven-year-olds. Could this be the start of a national debate about when formal learning should start?
According to the Department for Education and Employment, 95 per cent of four-year-olds have a free ‘nursery’ place…However, in England there are now well over twice as many four-year-olds in Reception classes as maintained nursery classes and schools… 353,867 four-year-olds are in the former and 142,414 in the latter…
Although the Government declares that it wants voluntary and private nursery provision as well as maintained, many in the early years field suspect that it wants to get all three- and four-year-olds into school based provision. The concern is, once there, will they have a good nursery education or a watered down, inappropriate junior one?
Note – in 2019, 78 per cent of four-year-olds were in maintained nursery, primary or other school settings.
Taking notes
Government guidelines stress the importance of recorded observation and assessment. This, says early years consultant Margaret Edington, is to be welcomed
It is impossible to miss the references to observation and assessment in the Early Learning Goals document. ‘Practitioners must be able to observe and respond appropriately to children’ and are required to identify ‘the progress and future learning needs of children through observations which are evaluated, recorded and shared regularly with parents, so each child’s particular needs are met’.
…Practitioners… sometimes feel guilty ‘just observing’. The emphasis on observation in the new Foundation Stage guidance is therefore very welcome.
Note – The Foundation Stage was introduced as a distinct phase of education for children aged three to five in September 2000.