Nurseries not preparing children for school!

[Edrof]

I think there is.

My daughter wants to learn things, so we teach her as best we can and instill values in her as best we can.

It's not like we have lesson times at home and set her homework, but when she starts looking at the clock and saying "Daddy, look it's 7 o'clock." you can't ignore that.

Just as when she wants to write her name herself in Grandma's birthday card, we encourage and teach.

I don't see any conflict with my views here. As long as your child is having fun - genuinely having fun - it's all good. Literacy and numeracy can be fun too! I just feel that some parents go too far, to the detriment of their child, whether either of them know it or not.

Learning how to interact socially with adults and other children is far, far, far more valuable at that age, as this becomes a solid foundation for all other areas of life.

 

[LordSplodge]

Some parents don't do this. Those parents may very well be morons, but is it fair for their children to be so disadvantaged because of it? Surely it is to the benefit of all to try to bring them up to speed through better nursery provision - even if that means allocating further government funds.

Shifting ownership of responsibility seems to be the 21st century thing to do.

 

[cheesyboy]

Shifting ownership of responsibility seems to be the 21st century thing to do.

Alright, tell me who actually benefits from society NOT attempting to fill the gaps from inadequate parenting?

 

[Xordium]

Your child may find it harder at school now.. In terms of pronouncing letters and words.
It's all about the sounds not the actual letter in the beginning.

So you know how one school teaches. But are you aware there is a very big debate about whether phonics is necessarily the best way to teach. What you have detailed there is far from proven.

 

[Xordium]

Alright, tell me who actually benefits from society NOT attempting to fill the gaps from inadequate parenting?

The tax payer? (short-term)

 

[LordSplodge]

Alright, tell me who actually benefits from society NOT attempting to fill the gaps from inadequate parenting?

The pot of money to provide services isn't infinite. Some other part of society will miss out to divert more funds here. Either way it is still the parents job pre-school. Having the state take ownership isn't the answer.

Even those kids a little behind quickly come up to speed when starting school proper. So it isn't that big an issue.

 

[snips86x]

Some parents don't do this. Those parents may very well be morons, but is it fair for their children to be so disadvantaged because of it? Surely it is to the benefit of all to try to bring them up to speed through better nursery provision - even if that means allocating further government funds.

This is kind of my point. The fact some parents are not making this part of their upbringing or even slight exposure is just sad. No child should be neglected.

Shifting ownership of responsibility seems to be the 21st century thing to do.

It would seem to be the quick way out for parents who are, for whatever reason, unable to make the effort.

Example - My brother-in-law lives in Japan. He has a wife & 2 kids and neither would look to potty train the eldest child as the Nursery/Pre-school which they attended would do it for them.

How can this be seen as acceptable?

Alright, tell me who actually benefits from society NOT attempting to fill the gaps from inadequate parenting?

No-one! The poor child will be left to fend for themselves with parents who don't give a ****.

 

[wesimmo]

To give the other side of the coin, I did just that. My four-year-old never went to pre-school, was never pushed academically, and is now one of the pupils with the highest abilities in her year. This is all despite her being an August birth, so some children are eleven months older that her.

Education is not a one-size-fits-all scenario, but I do think all children should just have fun in the early years.

Indeed.

I'm in quite an enlightening situation in that my sister has a little girl who is very close in age to ours and we spend a lot of time with them.

They are such different people with different interests, trying to shoehorn them into a framework of "you should learn this by then" at this age is, frankly, counter productive IMO as they get frustrated and lose interest if you push them to do things they don't want to.

As i said before, we (as in both sets of parents) do prepare them for academic life by encouraging the values while teaching them what they want to learn, when they want to learn it.

Another example would be when she asked about a charity advert on TV, so we explained about kids in Africa not having clean water, which made her a little upset for them and she asked me to send some money.

But it also got her asking about countries and where they were so we spent 10/15 mins playing with a globe, telling her where Africa is, where her Australian cousins live, etc. She now happily sits there playing with the globe, making up stories for her toys about people around the world and learning as she asks us more questions about what countries are called, does anyone she know live there, is it far away, etc.

 

[bitslice]

Three-year-olds should be allowed to enjoy life. In general, their curiosity leads them to the learning when they are ready, although there's nothing wrong with a little push and direction. Note the word little in that last sentence.

The worst kids I know, personality-wise, have been pushed hard from birth, with tutors and the like.

In Germany I believe they just let kids run around and climb trees,
(or at least that was so for one I noticed on TV)

Your last point, god that is so true


I think we try and instil a Victorian work ethic into children which may not be age appropriate.

 

[Xordium]

Even those kids a little behind quickly come up to speed when starting school proper.

What do you base this upon? The published articles I've read demonstrated that children who were behind only caught up if two criteria were met: either they attended a better school and/or they had more motivated parents (not pushy) than the comparison group. I would wager in the cases being discussed in pertinence to this point we could not guarantee this. Moreover, in my response I noted a short term benefit to the tax-payer. Long-term it would more likely be a cost from lost revenue because of a poorer workforce.

 

[cheesyboy]

Even those kids a little behind quickly come up to speed when starting school proper. So it isn't that big an issue.

Except they don't though, do they? The poorest children are, as a group, the lowest attaining at all levels of schooling. They start behind and they NEVER catch up.

The pot of money to provide services isn't infinite. Some other part of society will miss out to divert more funds here. Either way it is still the parents job pre-school. Having the state take ownership isn't the answer.

Indeed. And think how much we can "save" by cancelling all forms of education. (i.e. short-term thinking)

It may be "the parents job" [sic], but what do we do about children of parents who don't perform their job? **** those kids, yeah?

 

[platypus]

This thread just goes to show how hard it is being a parent.

I'm not, yet, but I envisage alphabets and numbers on the wall, reading to them, getting them to read to me, and so on so forth, from as soon as they can crawl, being able to read and write before they go to school, being properly toilet trained etc.. .

 

[Haggisman]

That may well be the most important thing one can learn: how to learn.

This is the first thing one my uni lecturers told us. "You're studying computing, so before you graduate, the majority of what we teach you will be obsolete, so we'll teach you the principles, but more importantly, we'll teach you to learn quickly and efficiently."

 

[snips86x]

This thread just goes to show how hard it is being a parent.

I'm not, yet, but I envisage alphabets and numbers on the wall, reading to them, getting them to read to me, and so on so forth, from as soon as they can crawl, being able to read and write before they go to school, being properly toilet trained etc.. .

I don't want to give you the impression that parenting is easy, it's far from it, but it gets easier as you get into routines.

Luckily, my son has been very open to our teaching methods at such a young age and has actively requested us to sit down with him and go through Phonics, numbers, letters, words, time and even the value of money.

We've not forced him into any of this, there's been a natural curiosity which we've just worked with.

 

[TommyV]

My child knew the periodic table by the time he was 4.

 

[snips86x]

My child knew the periodic table by the time he was 4.

Seriously??

That is pretty cool. What attracted his interest?

 

[LordSplodge]

This thread just goes to show how hard it is being a parent.

It's easier if you ignore all the 'advice' that changes every five minutes, don't benchmark your child against other peoples (in terms of performance, items they own, clubs they attend etc)

Still hard though (I have the scars to prove it)

Except they don't though, do they? The poorest children are, as a group, the lowest attaining at all levels of schooling. They start behind and they NEVER catch up.

It may be "the parents job" [sic], but what do we do about children of parents who don't perform their job? **** those kids, yeah?

They can do. I've worked for an LEA and I've seen children from the poorest most disadvantaged background flourish despite having lousy parents. That's where money should be invested. In mainstream education. It has become target driven and teachers don't have enough time to spend with children dropping behind.

I'm fine with spending on education, it just needs to be focus on the right area, and it is a finite pot regardless.

Anyway, whatever, I feel parents should take more responsibly for their children and that nursery should be about learning through play not by rote. Other peoples opinions may, of course, differ.

 

[cheesyboy]

They can do. I've worked for an LEA and I've seen children from the poorest most disadvantaged background flourish despite having lousy parents. That's where money should be invested. In mainstream education. It has become target driven and teachers don't have enough time to spend with children dropping behind.

I'm fine with spending on education, it just needs to be focus on the right area, and it is a finite pot regardless.

Nursery provision IS mainstream education. It's not mandatory, but it is the best way we have of delivering social and educational development to the groups of children who don't get that start in life at home. That's why we already have universal free provision for 15 hours per week of pre-school. This thread is about the calls to extend and expand that provision to try to further increase the benefit.

Anyway, whatever, I feel parents should take more responsibly for their children and that nursery should be about learning through play not by rote. Other peoples opinions may, of course, differ.

Very few would argue here. Parents should take more responsibility (and learning through play is exactly what pre-school generally does). That doesn't mean we presume that parents DO take more responsibility, though, so dealing with the shortfall for children who need it should surely be a job for the whole of our education system - top to bottom.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Except they don't though, do they? The poorest children are, as a group, the lowest attaining at all levels of schooling. They start behind and they NEVER catch up.

Over generalisation there.

We're one of the best countries for closing the gap between "disadvantaged" groups and "advantaged" groups.

The trouble we have though is because of the vast sums we spend on the "disadvantaged" group (Google "pupil premium") the higher attainers are held back a bit and often don't manage to stretch themselves, where as in other countries (e.g. Singapore etc) they just cut the "disadvantaged" group loose and basically write them off, meaning they can focus on achieving sky high grades.

Scandinavian block countries are doing better bringing both groups up but they've reduced class sizes and they've abandoned the "private/public" model that we're currently experimenting with (free shools/acadamies etc).

Very few would argue here. Parents should take more responsibility (and learning through play is exactly what pre-school generally does). That doesn't mean we presume that parents DO take more responsibility, though, so dealing with the shortfall for children who need it should surely be a job for the whole of our education system - top to bottom.

See, I don't think it's the responsibility of the education system at that age. I think it should be Social Services responsibility to bring the parents to task - after all not reading to your kids, not toilet training them, not teaching them to use a pencil, not teaching them to use a knife and fork is really just simple neglect at the end of the day.

 

[wesimmo]

What gets me is those parents that don't take responsibility for teaching their kids life skills as well as academic ones just make their own lives harder, surely?

Invest some time now and you get it back in spades, even if your motivation for doing things is selfish it's surely better than not at all.

I love the fact I don't have to change nappies, feed her, put her shoes on, etc any more but the amount of kids my sister saw coming into school without those skills was amazing.