Starting ‘school’ or starting school?
Yesterday Damian Hinds, Secretary of State for Education, gave a speech about social mobility addressing major issues including narrowing the attainment gap, and children’s literacy skills. In this speech he asserted that “It is a persistent scandal that we have children starting school not able to communicate in full sentences, not able to read simple words” (Hinds, 2018).
Media headlines followed: Children starting school ‘cannot communicate in full sentences’ (The Guardian); Children arriving at school unable to speak or read properly is a ‘scandal’, minister says (The Independent); Parents sending children to school unable to speak properly, says Education Secretary (The Telegraph); and Hinds hopes ‘communications coalition’ will boost home reading and school-readiness (Schools Week).
Interestingly, Hinds did not mention ‘school readiness’ during his speech, but the confusion over when children start school is a key issue and echoes the current ‘school readiness’ debate. OfSTED (2014) and the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (2015) have both drawn attention to the lack of clarity regarding the definition of ‘school readiness’ and which transition it is linked to. Indeed, Kagan (1990) highlighted this same issue nearly thirty years ago but despite repeated calls for clarification, ‘school readiness’ is still ‘mired in confusion with practitioners and policymakers advancing widely differing positions regarding it and related issues’ (p.272).
After this speech, much of the ensuing debate on Twitter from both parents and those working in education (logically) interpreted ‘children starting school’ as being on entry into Reception. However, ‘school readiness’ is located in English policy as the transition from Reception into Year One. This tweet from the Department for Education, also suggests that ‘arriving at school’ refers to children entering Year One:
This highlights the issues that emerge when there is a lack of clarity as to what year is a child’s first year at school. Wickett (2016) argues that there are two distinct transitions, the first being the ‘institutional transition’ from home/pre-school settings into the Reception classroom, and the second as the ‘curricular transition’ from Reception into Year One. This is key as the use of the learning outcomes that make up the Good Level of Development (GLD) as a measure of ‘school readiness’ are different to the skills that are desired on entry into Reception. The image presented below is a way of visualising some of the complexities this raises.
A failure to define the first year of ‘school’ results in different interpretations about the required skills for children both on entry into Reception as the first year of a child’s ‘school experience’, and the expectations based on the GLD as children move from Reception into Year One. The misalignment of public (and government?) understanding about ‘starting school’ and ‘school readiness’, and the way this is positioned in educational policy, needs to be urgently addressed. Policymakers need to establish a clear definition of ‘school readiness’ and the transition it is referring to in order to avoid further misinterpretations and confusion.
Dr Louise Kay
References
Hinds, D. (2018) Education Secretary sets vision for boosting social mobility Retrieved from
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretary-sets-vision-for-boosting-social-mobility on 1st August 2018
OfSTED (2014) Are you ready? Good practice in school readiness London, UK: Crown copyright
Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (2015) State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty in Great Britain London, UK: Crown Copyright
Kagan, S. (1990) Readiness 2000: Rethinking Rhetoric and Responsibility The Phi Delta Kappan Vol. 72, Number 4
Wickett, K. (2016) Readiness for What? Nursery World [online] 26th April, 2016 Retrieved from http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/opinion/1156994/readiness-for-what on 10th September, 2017 http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/opinion/1156994/readiness-for-what
