STS0007
Written evidence submitted by the Save Childhood Movement
Too Much Too Soon: Evidence relevant to the school starting age
Executive Summary
There is no research evidence to support the ‘earlier is better’ view. On the contrary, evidence for the benefits of play-based learning in early-mid childhood is distributed widely across anthropological, neuroscientific, psychological and educational studies; such evidence is outlined below. It is demonstrated that:
It is suggested that more suitable, play-based education and care provision is made for children under seven in terms of allocation of funding to support families, purpose-designed settings, and suitably trained practitioners.
SCM and Reasons for Submitting Evidence
The Save Childhood Movement consists of a growing collaboration of individuals and organisations that share a deep concern about societal values and wellbeing and the current erosion of natural childhood. It has a particular interest in how modern culture impacts the values and mindsets of children, especially in the early years. The movement aims to identify and highlight those areas of most concern, to protect children from inappropriate developmental and cultural pressures and to fight for their natural developmental rights, especially in relation to the UNCRC.
The movement's first major 'Too Much, Too Soon?' campaign was launched in September 2013 and achieved both national and international attention. It has now joined forces with other leading organisations to oppose the introduction of Baseline Assessment, which it sees as fundamentally flawed and likely to lead to the erosion of both child and parent wellbeing.
The Evidence
1.1 Evidence from international comparisons and psychological research of young children’s development as learners indicates that a slow trajectory into formal education, with the early years period being spent in child-led play based learning produces better results. For example a PISA comparison of the literacy levels of children in their mid-teens in a variety of nations (PISA 2009) indicated that the children from nations where formal education begins at the age of seven show the most advanced literacy skills, and that those from nations where formal education begins at the age of six also out-perform British children. Studies in New Zealand comparing children who began formal literacy instruction at age 5 or age 7 have additionally shown that by the age of 11 there was no difference in reading ability level between the two groups, but the children who started at 5 developed less positive attitudes to reading, and showed poorer text comprehension than those children who had started later (Suggate, Schaughency & Reese, 2012). Addtionally, a number of longitudinal studies have provided evidence of long-term outcomes. Marcon (2002), for example, demonstrated that, by the end of their sixth year in school, children whose pre-school model had been academically-directed achieved significantly lower marks in comparison to children who had attended child-initiated, play-based pre-school programmes.
1.2 Once the goal of ‘readiness’ is set in any early education policy, the play-based teaching and learning practices traditionally offered within statutory education for children under seven tend to become gradually replaced by an academic preschool curriculum. The practice of transmission teaching ‘to the test’ within such regimes, where the material to be taught is broken down into specific objectives, funnelling down into a set of highly defined outcomes, sometimes referred to by teachers as ‘WILF’ [What I am Looking For] drastically reduces opportunities for children to contribute to the collaborative construction of original shared narratives (see Jarvis, 2009; Layard and Dunn, 2009; Santer, Griffiths, and Goodsall, 2007; McNess, Broadfoot, and Osborn 2003; Bishop and Curtis, 2001; Reay and Wiliam, 1999). Internationally renowned psychologist Alison Gopnik’s research shows that direct teaching at an early stage in a child’s development ‘Leads children to narrow in, and to consider just the specific information a teacher provides. Without a teacher present, children look for a much wider range of information and consider a greater range of options’ (Gopnick 2011, online).
2.1 Lyle (2000) proposes that human beings are a ‘storying animal’ making sense of thoughts and events via narratives which we organically construct from infancy in play-based interaction with a small circle of familiar people within our home and direct neighbourhood. The natural human habitat crucially involves immersion within familiar stories which are initially created in interaction with carers and those who inhabit the role of siblings. Suzanne Zeedyk (2006) proposes that what happens between young children and carers must essentially be flexible and spontaneous: a ‘jazz duet... the two partners are not dancing to someone else’s tune but are creating one of their own.’ By the third year of life, children are increasingly able to independently create such ‘jazz dances’ with peers, drawing upon rapidly emerging skills of language; schooling based in direct teaching and instruction simply cannot provide a suitable milieu in which to engage in such interaction. Internationally renowned developmental psychologist Jerome Bruner (1976) categorically stated that human development which is separated from a natural social environment ‘provides no guide, only knowledge … These are the conditions for alienation and confusion.’ The indication is that, for human beings, social narrative and story-telling is the ‘glue’ that holds their socio-psychological functioning together, and therefore, a school is a completely inappropriate environment for young children.
2.2 A range of experimental psychology studies have clearly indicated the superior learning and motivation arising from playful as opposed to instructional approaches to learning in children (Whitebread & Jameson, 2010). There are two crucial processes which underpin this relationship: firstly, playful activity has been shown to support children’s early development of representational skills fundamental to language use. Christie & Roskos (2006), for example, reviewed evidence that a playful approach to language learning, as opposed to formal instruction, offers the most powerful support for the early development of phonological and literacy skills. Secondly, through all kinds of physical, constructional and social play, children develop their skills of intellectual and emotional ‘self-regulation’ (Ponitz, McClelland, Matthews and Morrison, 2009) which have been clearly demonstrated to be the key predictors of educational achievement and a range of other positive life outcomes (Whitebread, 2010).
Human infants are born at a very early stage in their neuronal development and subsequently need to build a vast number of neuronal connections. There is much evidence that play is an evolutionary adaptation in mammals, and that species with the most complex social networks have the longest childhoods, during which free play is the major vehicle for developing neuronal connections. Bjorklund and Pellegrini proposed that over 30 possible functions of play in learning had been listed within the body of research available (2000, p. 1693). Jarvis et al (2014, p.54) posited that, consequently, ‘homo sapiens (the man who knows) can only fully develop through homo ludens’ (which translates to the man who plays; Hunzinga 1949); that authentic and organic engagement in play is the basis of the development of narrative competence, upon which human culture is based. Neuroscientific studies have supported this view of play as a central mechanism in learning; for example Pellis & Pellis (2009) produced a review of a number of research findings indicating that playful activity leads to synaptic growth, particularly in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for many of the higher mental functions. In a later article they concluded that mammals use play to ‘finely tune their behaviour in a contextually relevant manner with peers and so modify the brain mechanisms that underpin social skills’ (Pellis and Pellis, 2012, p. 1). In 1934, G.H. Mead created a theory of human development he called ‘symbolic interactionism’, in which he proposed that make believe play formed a crucial stage in the development of the mature, socially connected human self. For example, in the narrative constructed to make a towel ‘stand for’ Superman’s cape and consequently the self for Superman, children become able to flexibly view the world from a number of different positions and perspectives. In the early 21st century, this concept ‘crossed over’ into biological research when bio-psychologists discovered ‘mirror neurons’ which fire when we simply imagine ourselves taking part in activities that we have been introduced to within cohesive narratives (see the section above). This is a tangible, biologically demonstrable illustration of the power of play narratives for human beings.
4.1 The evidence outlined above, directly addressing the consequences of the introduction of early formal schooling, combined with the evidence on the positive impact of extended playful experiences, raises important and serious questions concerning the direction of travel of early childhood education policy currently in England. There is an equally substantial body of evidence, which will be briefly outlined, concerning the worrying increase in stress and mental health problems among children in England and other countries where early childhood education is being ‘schoolified’ (Gray, 2011), which suggests strong links with loss of playful experiences and increased achievement pressures. By 2004, one in ten British children had a clinically diagnosed mental disorder (Office for National Statistics, 2005, p.24), with a similar problem existing within the United States (CDC 2013 online). More recent research indicates that child mental health problems in the US have further increased over the last decade: ‘a total of 13%–20% of children living in the United States experience a mental disorder in a given year, and surveillance during 1994–2011 has shown the prevalence of these conditions to be increasing’.
4.2 Unfortunately, a similar national project has not been undertaken in the UK; however The Children’s Society and the University of York conducted research, as a result of which they estimated that about ‘half a million children in the UK in the eight to 15 age range have low well-being at any point in time’ (The Children’s Society, 2012, p. 5). American researcher Jean Twenge commented that ‘until people feel both safe and connected to others, anxiety is likely to remain high’ (Twenge, 2000, p. 1017). Correspondingly, two successive Unicef reports focusing upon the richer nations, in 2007 and 2013, have found British and American children to have very low levels of ‘well being’. Unicef detail specific concerns about British and American children’s apparent lack of close friendships, and their reports of not liking school very much. In the 2013 report, Unicef speculate further about whether this relates to the pressure of being continually assessed in situations in which children perceive themselves to be in competition with each other.
5. Recommendations for Action
• Recognise young children as citizens with developmental rights and freedoms that need to be protected, particularly in relation to the UNCRC
• Delay the start of formal schooling until the age of seven; structure early years provision on a Scandinavian model, whilst clarifying and incorporating the best of traditional British practice.
• End the use of formal, standardised tests for children under seven; replace with informal assessments managed by local GPs (medical) and health visitors/ early years practitioners (developmental).
• Abandon the policy of moving two year olds into school; divert the money saved into local initiatives to support families and communities to provide play-based education and care for children under seven.
• Develop a new early years specialist route to Qualified Teacher Status, focusing on children from birth to seven and including a common core with health and social services. Training on work with parents as well as other professionals should be included. This qualification should be equivalent to teachers working with older children, and with the same terms and conditions
References
Bishop, J., and Curtis, M. (2001) Play today in the primary school playground. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bruner, J. (1976) ‘Nature and uses of Immaturity’. In: Bruner, J.S., Jolly, A. and Sylva, K. (eds.) Play: its Role in Development and Evolution: 28-64, New York: Basic Books.
Bjorklund, D., and Pellegrini, A. (2000). Child development and evolutionary psychology. Child Development, 71(6), 1687–1708. Retrieved from http://bernard.pitzer.edu/~dmoore/psych199s03articles/Bjorklund.pdf
CDC (2013) Mental Health Surveillance Among Children-United States, 2005–2011. Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6202a1.htm?s_cid=su6202a1_w
Christie, J.F. and Roskos, K.A. (2006) Standards, Science, and the Role of Play in Early Literacy Education. In D.G. Singer, R.M. Golinkoff and K. Hirsh-Pasek (Eds) Play = Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gopnik, A. (2011) Why Pre-School Shouldn’t be Like School. Retrieved from: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html
Gray, P. (2011). The decline of play and the rise of psychopathology in children and adolescents. American Journal of Play, 3(4), 443–463. Retrieved from http://www.journalofplay.org
Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture (English edition). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Retrieved from http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/1474/homo_ludens_johan_huizinga_routledge_1949_.pdf
Jarvis, P. (2009). Play, narrative and learning in education: a biocultural perspective. Educational and Child Psychology, 26(2), 66–76.
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Zeedyk, M.S. (2006). From intersubjectivity to subjectivity: The transformative roles of emotional intimacy and imitation. Infant and Child Development, 15, 321–344. doi: 10.1002/icd.457
February 2015