Nursery school and beyond
Monday, March 28th, 2011
Going back a little way, some of you might recall my writing about Jonathan’s first exposure to a preschool environment at his little Montessori nursery school back in London.
Pause momentarily for a sigh of regret at leaving that lovely place behind...
(For reference, that was a private nursery and we were funding Jon’s 4 hours a week ourselves with the aid of government child-care grants.)
Moving on though, and now that Jonathan is over three years, he’s entitled to 15 hours of free preschool education per week (during school terms), until he starts school. As I write this, Jon is just over half way through his allotted quota of 3 terms i.e. one complete school year.
So far we’ve been very happy with the nursery school we found for Jon in Durham. He gets his 15 hours over 2½ days a week – Wednesday afternoons, Thursdays and Fridays, and he really loves it. I get the impression that he spends most of his time playing, but he’s picking up a lot of nursery rhymes (albeit with slightly haphazard wording), reinforcing his shape and colour recognition, and learning all sorts of random bits and pieces along with useful social skills.
This term (the second of the three terms that make up a UK school year), they are also slowly introducing the children to Jolly Phonics (the UK system for teaching young children to read) which uses some clever techniques on top of standard phonics. Jon has showed some interest in this too and even recognises the text of his name now which is encouraging.
What depresses me a bit about the whole scenario, is that there is no consideration of “school-readiness” when it comes to moving onto primary school. The hard-and-fast rule is that all children in Reception must turn 5 within that school year. And since the year runs from September to August, the youngest children in the year will be those with Summer birthdays – June through to August – starting school at just over 4 years. Which is where we’ll be in 6 months time…
It’s just an accident of birth really, but I feel that by picking such a very young age to start with and ignoring the fact that every child develops differently, all the advantages end up on the sides of the older kids in the class. These children get extra time at nursery school (because they can start the term after they turn 3), and go onto school with the self-confidence of extra preparation on top of being physically and intellectually older.
Of course there will always have to be an age range in any class, and children at both ends. But even ignoring the “readiness” angle, they all seem so small. Perhaps aiming for an average class age of 5 years, not 4½ would be preferable.
Still, I have to put all these thoughts aside. It’s hardly worth getting up on my soapbox about different levels of maturity in preschool children because there’s no way that any school will bend the rules to give my little fellow extra time to play and grow. Sigh. So in September, it’s off to Big School for Jon, and just like that our lives are going to be back on school timetables all over again.
