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To the point: Just playing by the rule

Recently, someone I respect a good deal said how much she had appreciated the rule that 80 per cent of the assessments for the EYFS Profile had to be child-initiated learning, and only 20 per cent adult-initiated.

She felt the so-called 80:20 rule gave early years practitioners an opportunity to argue for play and child-led learning.

Lots of primary school headteachers and others who did not see much of a role for play suddenly found themselves in an unexpected position. Their schools' EYFS outcomes would be judged, for the most part, on those very aspects of the early years curriculum. It is not an exaggeration to say that in some cases, this led to a complete turnaround in school policy. Suddenly, headteachers were hot on play and going round asking whether there was enough of it.

So surely this was a good thing? I would argue not, for two reasons.

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