Early-learning tests 'are a recipe for toddler tantrums'

THE Government's new "nappy curriculum" for nurseries is fuelling tantrums among toddlers who are forced into formal education too early, teachers warned today.

Three- and four-year-olds are being labelled as "failures" before they have even started primary school under the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, a union conference was told.

Children are measured against 69 early learning targets for literacy, numeracy, problem solving and social skills under the rules, which came into force in all private, state and voluntary nurseries last year.

Members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said toddlers should spend more time playing and learning nursery rhymes instead of being forced to read and write at such a young age.

Ministers introduced the curriculum in an attempt to guarantee consistent standards across nurseries in England.

They say parents need to be reassured that wherever children attend a nursery or playgroup they are receiving a suitable early education.

Angela Forkin, a childcare specialist and delegate at the ATL conference in Liverpool, said she was "very concerned" the new rules were putting children under too much pressure. "It's becoming a prescriptive nursery education," she said. "Three- and four-year-olds are being assessed against targets which are developmentally inappropriate."

In many nurseries toddlers spend hours trying to write their names on a blackboard, or learning to sound out letters of the alphabet in a formal reading technique known as phonics.

"I can't help feeling the deterioration of behaviour we have seen in children is because of this," she said. "They should be learning nursery rhymes and the rhythm of language, not sounding out with phonics. We will get an increase in what you might term 'challenging behaviour' because young children don't always know how to express themselves.

"We all know about the 'terrible twos' and the tantrums. That will just get worse as children are forced to do things they are not able to do. Their confidence and self-esteem will suffer and this often results in disruptive behaviour."

Ms Forkin said children were expected to write simple sentences by the age of five. "They are not ready for that {so]. they are being labelled as failures before they enter statutory education."

The union was debating a motion calling for reforms to the curriculum to make more time for play-based activities.