Early Years Foundation Stage - Learning and Development Requirements Controversy

Learning and Development Requirements Controversy

The L&D targets are controversial in not being generally accepted by experts in child development and education as being appropriate for this age group. They include literacy requirements that 5 year olds should:

• readily use written language in their play and learning
• use phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words
• show an understanding of how information can be found in non-fiction texts to answer questions about where, who, why and how
• begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation

There are similar levels of requirements for numeracy.

There is a body of professional opinion that attempting to push under-5s into early literacy is ineffective or even counterproductive, possibly even producing reading difficulties in some children through the experience of early failure, and other problems including ADHD. It is reported that schools in Scandinavian and other countries, and Steiner schools, where children start school at 6 or 7 years old, produce better academic results.

Apart from the question of whether the L&D targets are appropriate for the age group, there is controversy over the prescriptive nature of the curriculum, burdensome nature of the assessments of children they demand and stress inflicted upon young children by the curriculum and assessment (as with SATs to which older children are subjected).