Thursday brought more publicity for the Open Eye campaign, which is challenging aspects of the Government’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) proposals. I must admit that I’m not completely up to speed with this debate, since early years has never been an area of specialism for me at the TES. However, it does seem that some of the arguments and concerns here are very similar to those affecting the education of 5- to 18-year-olds, including the effects of what might be seen as excessive Government control, the possible over-interpretation of statistics by Whitehall and the unintended consequences of superficially well-meaning policies. The foremost worries, for me,Read More →

Estelle Morris, the former education secretary, today became the latest person to call on the Government to investigate test-driven schooling. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7519595.stm I also found this story, in London’s Evening Standard, interesting: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23519426-details/Modern+education+%27turning+children+into+little+robots%27/article.do    Read More →

Today was an extraordinary day, even notwithstanding the fact that we are in the middle of arguably the biggest education story for years: the current test marking fiasco. What was remarkable was that Barry Sheerman, Labour chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, chose to put out a press release in response to the Government’s own reaction to his committee’s report on assessment, which had highlighted widespread problems. Ministers, he said, had “missed the point”  by being unwilling to concede that teaching to the test was a widespread problem. Widespread teaching to the test, which many schools feel forced into because of the pressuresRead More →