Task 6c

One of the articles I found was written in the Telegraph by their education editor, Graeme Paten. Title being ‘Summer-born children ‘lag behind at school’. This article clearly states that the summer born children struggle to catch up to the others. So surely pro-longing this process more, by having the younger children of the year start later is making this worst to begin their academic journey. It talks about they are more likely to be bullied and have learning difficulties than the older children. By big issue with this fact is where is the justifying in what the government has put in place to ensure this isn’t the case. There is no good in writing these points and not giving solutions. It goes on to talk about the younger ones less likely to get a-levels, join 6^th form or attend university again this is another issue that I want to know is in place to make sure that it isn’t the case. Is it because children fall behind, is it because children have a hard time through-out their school? Is it confidence? It talks about a debate for the best way to educate summer born children. Apparently the discussion was about making children all 4 so it is earlier and they have longer to master the basics but academics warned that children being pushed too early before there ready can be negative. My thoughts on this immediately are yes maybe our children should come to school to learn the basics but surely it has to be basic. Many nurseries and children centres were some children are younger than 4 it isn’t just basics they are being pushed to learn learn learn as setting have to follow the EYFS but this is surely the problem why can’t it be all play and they start to learn and follow routine after a year of ‘play’.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7916918/Summer-born-children-lag-behind-at-school.html#

The next article I like was a BBC News one and it was named ‘is five too soon to start school’? This talks about English children go through a fixed curriculum whilst other European countries their children at the age of 5 are still playing at home. From what I have read I believe that there have been previous studies into if an early start has an advantage but like said before there seems to be no answers.

"The assumption that an early starting age is beneficial for children's later attainment is not well supported in the research and therefore remains open to question," report says.

this quote really makes me excited for my inquiry as it supports my points and views that’ there is not a definite reason as to why the UK do it different to any other country, I go on..

This article interestingly talks about out reason being in our history which a college as mentioned to me once before. It says it was for protection for our children in the Victorian times and if a child started early they could leave early and get a job. This has completely changed now as a child starts so young and can carry on consecutive learning until the age of 21+. So have they really thought about starting later to finish later?

It also discus’s that children have less time with their families than other countries does this affect them long term?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7234578.stm

 

Finally in the same article as above it discusses a lot about other countries. This was a short point I liked. It was about Finnish children starting formal education at the age of 7 yet they have the highest level of standards and the same for Polish children they have the best reading skills. So how can our country justify the starting age being so young? Or is it just a cultural thing that their naturally a more clever country?

These were 3 bits of literature on my inquiry topic that stood out to me and many link to my ideas as discussed before. They are 3 main points which I will use for module 3 and will carry on finding more literature on my topic.