Debe Lawson, immediate past chair of PAT, put a successful motion at thePAT gathering in Harrogate which insisted that early learningopportunities should prepare children for life, not just for school. Shewas later quoted in the press as supporting a reduction in the startingage for school to six or seven, in line with successful practice inScandinavian countries.
Ms Lawson told delegates, 'Teachers, nursery nurses and early yearsprofessionals are struggling to provide a play-based curriculum, due tothe pressures of performance tables and targets, where researchers haveobserved children being called away from free play to do adult-directedactivities. Is this only to maintain a healthy position in a leaguetable and not to advance the development and learning of the child?'
There was too much concentration on a 'readiness-for-school' approach inBritain, she said. 'The disadvantage of this is the use of programmesand approaches that are poorly suited to the psychology and naturallearning strategies of young children.'
The conference backed another motion that welcomed the Government'scontinued support for the Every Child Matters agenda but said that inreality it had become the 'Every Statistic Matters' agenda.
The mover of the motion, Kathleen Barraclough, was unable to attend theconference. But in her speech, delivered by Ian Pringle, she said,'While delivering the Every Child Matters agenda is the responsibilityof services other than education, schools play a part in providing forchildren in each of the five outcomes. We are concerned that leaguetables and other requirements are shifting the focus away fromchildren's needs to statistical data.'