The campaign has been organised by Keeping Early Years Unique (KEYU) with a petition called ‘Right from the start – revoke the EYFS reforms’, on behalf of ‘children, families and early years practitioners’.
The group argue that the reforms are ‘muddled’ and do not reflect the ‘active, playful and creative ways’ children learn.
The revised EYFS is too formal an approach to learning and will lead to 'inappropriate practice' with children 'drilled in narrow content', rather than 'building foundations' for learning, they say.
The changes will also lead to an increase in workload for practitioners at a time when they should be focused on supporting children's well-being, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The goals for maths and literacy for young children are not appropriate and ‘will make them feel like failures before they are six’, and will also not help to close the attainment gap.
Children from birth to three have been 'largely ignored' and activities focus on the older end of the key stage.
Changes to the early years curriculum for birth to five would mean that children would be ‘subjected to experiences that are likely to hinder, rather than help’ their development.
The group is calling for the early adoption of the EYFS to be abandoned.
The Department for Education has asked schools to volunteer to be ‘early adopters’ of the EYFS from September, with the new EYFS becoming statutory from September 2021.
‘Changing any framework always increases workload and at this time Reception teachers should be concentrating on supporting well-being and a recovery curriculum for children and their families,’ the group says.
‘The EYFS could usefully be reviewed, but it must be done in true collaboration with the sector and with a full range of expert input.
‘This version of the EYFS framework should be abandoned. It is not fit for purpose and does profound disservice to children and practitioners. ‘
The group said, ‘The EYFS reforms provided the perfect opportunity to ensure we get early education right from the start, but this opportunity has been squandered. We want an early education that puts priority on children’s emotional well-being, resilience, and motivation to learn alongside their knowledge and skills.
‘But we are about to have a framework which no longer values how children learn through their play and exploration, creativity and thinking. It emphasises learning from books more than real experience, which means learning may be shallow and easily forgotten rather than building a real foundation for life,’ KEYU said in a statement.
‘This framework could give some children, especially those most at risk of educational disadvantage, a stressful, negative experience instead of a joyful, playful and successful one.’
Maths
Explaining why the group is against changes to the mathematics early learning goals, Reception teacher Elaine Bennett said, ‘Reception class teachers will be in the terrible position of legally having to drill four-year-olds on rote memory of addition and subtraction facts, which is completely inappropriate and goes against all we know to be right for young children.
‘Mathematics experts have also criticised the new expectation for all children to automatically recall number bonds, which they say is not backed by research evidence and can result in children missing out on building understanding of numbers.’
OBJECTIONS
The group’s objections are:
- The reforms do not meet the stated DfE objectives of improving early language outcomes and decreasing practitioner workload.
- The reforms put less emphasis on supporting children to become better learners, which will have a negative impact on closing attainment gaps. They do not take sufficient account of the active, playful and creative ways in which children learn.
- The harder Early Learning Goals in Maths and Literacy will not improve outcomes but will make more young children feel like failures before they are six. They will result in inappropriate practice drilling children in narrow content, which will hinder building the necessary foundations of embedded deeper understanding.
- The reforms are muddled, with important areas left out and others placed in illogical sections, and in most cases are not improvements on the current EYFS. This will fail to support professional understanding, while causing increased workload in adjusting to the new framework structure.
- There is an over-emphasis on formal teaching and passive learning.
- The descriptions of activities within areas of learning are all aimed at the older end of the key stage; birth to three is largely ignored.
- The reformed EYFS does not take equality, discrimination or the climate crisis into account.