Early Childhood Forum

ECF - at the heart of Early Years from birth to 7 years
Inform ~ Advocate ~ Campaign

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Membership

If you would like to find out how to become a member please go to our membership information page.

Contact us

If you would like to contact ECF please email your enquiry to: earlychildhoodforum@yahoo.co.uk

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Welcome

The Early Childhood Forum (ECF), brings together national organisations and professional associations in the early childhood sector for all young children from birth to seven. ECF exists to promote inclusion, challenge inequalities, debate issues, celebrate differences and develop consensus to champion high quality experiences for young children and their families.

News & Events

Don't Let Them Test Four-Year-olds

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Letter from More Than A Score:

Don’t let them test four-year-olds

The government is splashing out £10 million on its plans to test four and five-year-olds in English and maths when they start school. This is despite overwhelming opposition from parents, heads, teachers and education experts — and no evidence that small children can be reliably assessed.

We only have a few more months to demand a halt to the roll-out of these pointless and damaging tests: from September, schools across the country will be taking part in a pilot of the new regime.

We already have over 36,000 signatures on our petition to Nick Gibb MP, the Schools Minister. Can you help us reach our goal of 50,000 names?

Share this email with your friends and family, especially if they have children starting school in September. Ask them to sign our petition.

Share our posts on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Would you want your four-year-old to sit tests in English and maths in their first few weeks of school?  Let’s make our voices heard: our children are More Than A Score.

Best wishes

The More Than A Score team

Take Me Out Project

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ECF member Learning through Landscapes recommends the Erasmus-funded project Take Me Out. Visit www.takemeoutproject.eu for a wealth of resources and information.

Phonics Screening Test

Professor Margaret Clark OBE has written a paper on the intended and unintended effects of the Phonics Screening Test in the EY classroom (England) in the Education Journal 349.

UPDATE
Professor Clark has had two further articles published in the Education Journal (nos. 351 and 352) where HMG's evidence supporting its phonics screening is found severely wanting...

Download: EJ349_Phonics_Screening.pdf

Proposed Changes to the ELG - ECF Response

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It is astonishing that the Government has decided not to increase the number of Early Years graduate teachers . Currently 16,000 more are needed.

The  Early years are the most important  in a child's life and the quality of provision is dependant on highly qualified and experienced practitioners and in particular teachers. Government Investment in the Early Childhood is essential to ensure that every child has the best chance in life and also saves money later; early support for families and high quality education and care helps develop resilience and confidence for both parents and children.

The Early Childhood Forum is also shocked at the proposed changes to the Early Learning Goals giving more focus on literacy and numeracy when we know this is contrary to best practice  and will have adverse effects on children’s mental health and ability to learn successfully. The continuous testing  and proposals for baseline assessment have similar affects. 

Excellent and appropriate Early Childhood provision should  continue until the age of 7 as in most other countries.

We urge and expect the Government to think again about their Early Childhood policies which are in not in any  respect in the interests of children.

Melian Mansfield

Chair of ECF

ECF Early Childhood Forum