It’s finally happened. A news event so irritating that I’ve been compelled to write a post.
‘School’, eh?
And what exactly does he mean by that?
A skim of a couple of sources indicates that he seems to mean:
- university qualified staff
- based on school grounds
- with assessment
“What children facing serious disadvantage need is high-quality, early education from the age of two delivered by skilled practitioners with degrees in a setting that parents can recognise and access easily. These already exist. They are called schools.”
Here’s the thing: he’s completely right.
Only, he’s not.
How much difference could preschool really make, anyhow?
If I were you, I’d stop reading this post immediately and go read this instead: The Perry Preschool Study
For those that didn’t take my advice, here is the synopsis:
The Perry Preschool study followed two groups of underprivileged preschoolers for 40 years, starting in 1962–67. The groups were last assessed in 2005.
The group that got free high-quality preschooling had better outcomes on just about every level you can think of.
Over the participants’ lifetime *so far*, the return on investment for every dollar invested in preschooling is $12.90.
Return on investment for free preschool for disadvantaged kids: 1190%
That level of benefit is so incredible it makes my head reel every time I see it.
So — based on the Perry Study, I must agree with Wilshaw, mustn’t I?
No. I do not.
The difference
The Perry kids did not get taught extra maths, extra literacy, or how to pass at extra testing. They got taught things like:
- sitting quietly
- doing on one thing at a time
- sharing
- listening
These are the soft skills that they took to school with them, the skills which then allowed them to learn their maths and reading and all the rest.
The kids in the control group, on the other hand, had to learn maths and literacy and sitting and listening *at the same time*. It was too much for them — it’s too much for any kid. They seemed fidgety and thick to their teachers, and most of them never learned their soft skills. That soft skills deficit followed them for the rest of their lives.
Learning to pay attention is a precursor to learning academic skills.
Wilshaw’s proposal is to replicate the failed merging of soft skill acquisition and academic skills acquisition…
…but three years younger.
So close, but yet again, so very, very far.
Addendum:
The fundamental plan is so good, it might just succeed despite itself.
Prediction:
If the plan is scuppered, it will probably be scuppered by:
1. Outrage — wholly justified — at imposing assessment on very young children (which already happens, for what it’s worth), and
2. A failure by the advantaged population to understand the soft skills gap that affects children from the disadvantaged population. Kids from advantaged families already start school with the soft skills that let them learn — that’s what makes them advantaged.
Hope:
This might be our way of getting free universal childcare in by the back door. If so, forget everything I just said. The plan is clearly genius.
(This post was originally posted on my old blog, at zoero.se. Comments may have been lost.)
