Visiting a primary school, Welsh education minister Jane Hutt said, 'TheFoundation Phase takes a different approach to learning and a keyfeature is using the outdoors to encourage children to learn aboutconservation and the environment. In Wales we are lucky to have afantastic outdoors and children will discover their environment, theseasons and the weather by exploring.
'Having drawn on international practice from countries such as Denmark,New Zealand and Italy in introducing the Foundation Phase, we believethat the pay-off of this radical new way of learning will be long-termand its impact will be felt for many years to come.'
But groups such as the Welsh Local Government Association and theNational Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) Cymru insist that an extra10m funding, on top of the 30m already allocated, isrequired to ensure staff:child ratios of 1:8 from nursery through toreception (News, 15 May).
Iwan Guy, acting director of NAHT Cymru, said, 'We are still concernedabout sustainability. It's like a Rolls Royce of a scheme that has onlybeen given enough money for a small family saloon.'
However, Iram Siraj-Blatchford, chair of Early Childhood Education atLondon's Institute of Education, said, 'I think we're doing a prettybrilliant job both with the Foundation Phase in Wales and the EYFS inEngland, and it's a shame people aren't singing about the positives.Research has shown that it's not just about money but also the qualityof staff.
'What we have failed in so far is raising quality through highertraining. If we had well-qualified, mixed teams and low ratios, I thinkit would solve an awful lot of problems.'