Down with the Early Years blueprint!

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) has complained to children’s minister Beverley Hughes that the government’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework violates parents’ human rights by denying them the freedom to choose how they educate their children. I don’t know about human rights - but the point about parental choice is a very good one.

The EYFS has been criticised already, by educationalists who object to the prescriptive, didactic character of its aproach. Children develop at different paces, it is argued, and professionals should have the autonomy to choose which method of childcare or education that works best. I agree with this - we are talking about little kids here, from birth to five, and it is extraordinary that the government thinks a blueprint for developing the ideal child is possible, necessary or desirable.

But my big concern with the EYFS is that which the Independent Schools Council has brought out - the impact on families’ privacy and parental autonomy in child-rearing. The EYFS casts parents in the role of ‘partners’ in raising children, the clear implication being that professionals know best. The fact that professionals are then denied the opportunity to make use of their own skills and experience, instead being told that they need to dance to the tune of government policy, makes it even worse!

As the ISC also points out, parents who don’t like the way the EYFS operates cannot opt out of it through choosing private daycare (as they could with schools), as the government, through Ofsted, inspects all childcare for the under-5s. This seems to me an absolute racket: the state does not provide childcare, expecting parents to pay through the nose for it, yet reserves the right to make every private daycare organisation adhere to the misguided standards laid down by a policy framework that undermines both parents and childcare professionals equally.

It’s great news that some people are causing a stink about this. I wonder what parents can do to make their objections known? Any ideas, please post at the parents’ forum!