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Boys Aged Three 'must Work More!


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That is so ridiculous - and scary - and I completely agree with Sue Palmer's comment:

 

"Sue Palmer, a former headteacher and author of the book 21st Century Boys, described the decision as "state-sponsored child abuse", arguing that boys were developmentally behind at birth and needed time to "run, jump and play, in order to acquire the physical control and capacity to focus that they will need later on". "

 

Whatever next? It really makes me want to throw in the towel (again) as we will be told what to do yet again, even though we know it's wrong on every level :o

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Been sitting here quietly seething and reading the related articles on the Independent website......

 

What a one-sided analysis of the data! Why don't they tell us what the boys excel at over girls? We could start a list but I'd like to see what their stupid statistics say.

 

I do agree with Toby Young's observation that:

"The reason that boys fall behind girls during these early years is because of the new softly-softly approach to education. Girls are natural learners, eager to soak up new information, whereas boys are more easily distracted with shorter attention spans. That means that a modern classroom environment, in which children are left to learn at their own pace, will automatically favour girls over boys."

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Yes Marion sitting in the hairdressers and nearly screamed out and then remembered where I was!!!!

 

Why oh why does everyone think they are an expert? So at 4 / 5 boys do not achieve the same ELGs as girls but they can do lots of other things and boys do catch up - look at industry and the government who is running this?

 

MY bigger concern is the gap in the have's and the have nots and while the guy in the article could afford for a Latin tutor for his four year old - lucky them!!!! - what about all of those children, boys and girls, who have the abilitiy but not the advantages. If Dawn P spent more time in soring out inequality than worrying if boys should play in sand or cocoa powder then perhaps we would have less of an achievement gap.

 

What is even more annoying is that we have all been offering these opportunities to children in our provision.

 

As the mum of two boys, now men, who didn't write at an early age but who are now succcessful in their own fields I feel I want to go and shout from the rooftops let children especailly boys have a childhood!!!!!!

 

Roll on the revolution!

 

Emilia

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listened to a phone in discussion on this during the night...

 

one caller said she wanted 3yr olds to be sat at desks not allowed freedom to choose at it instils discipline needed to learn... she was cut off rather quickly..

 

but I did find it worrying that they want all children to reach same stage at same time when we all know it is not possible...

 

Sue Palmer was on with her take on it... but the other expert who I failed to find the name of was for all children being able to write name before school...

 

and the discussion led to why focus on boys, some girls also have the lack of inclination in this area too... equality?

 

Comment was also made that the focus is on the preschools and childminders.. not school based nursery... making reference to the gap in education of the carers.. graduates are obviously so much better than those of us who choose not to go that route but have tons of experience and a good education which apparently counted for nothing.. (by now I was wide awake.. it was about 2am!)

 

so are we going back into that dreadful cycle again... DLOs seem to ring a bell ....

 

my one thought is settings have been doing 'pre skills 'for years... and will continue to do so.. do they really think they have found something new? Those of us on the ground know differently..

 

 

Children lose childhood early enough these days.. are they about to lose their early years of fun too... we all know children learn at different paces, and are individual but this seems to want them all to be the same...

 

I too had a late reader and writer, was 7 before he could understand and enjoy it... now highly educated and happy in his work... which in today's climate is a miracle with so many graduates out of work or not using their degrees..

 

Inge

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I'm sure I read or heard somewhere something about boy's bones in their hands not properly hardening and developing until they're 5 or 6 anyway, meaning that they find it much harder to write than girls whose bones harden around 3 years of age. What do the government want us to do about that?

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My heart is slowly sinking after reading that this morning. It is probably pleasing to pick up that we are doing those things that the government will have in their guidance already, but even so this will just make parents worry and fuss even more, especially some of our dads.

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Thanks for posting this. I've had a quick look (and it was very quick!) and my initial reaction is that of a mother. My son is a summer born boy and although he is only 18 months old at the moment, the time will come when he will attend some kind of early years setting. The though of him being made to sit down and basically 'practice' writing fills me with dread. I'd much rather he be allowed to explore at his own pace and make his own learning choices supported by people such as those of us on here - people who actually know what they are talking about and working in his best interests.

 

I do agree that there are some issues when it comes to boys' emotional development when they enter school. It is what I am focussing my dissertation on, but I don't see how this "forcing" is going to improve these issues. There are boys attending our pre-school who would hate to be forced to mark make, especially when there are studies that prove that boys need space to develop greater movements before the smaller ones associated with holding mark making tools etc. Maybe I've read it a bit too quick and have missed a main point somewhere along the line.

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I'm as horrified as everyone else by the notion of any three-year-old, boy or girl, being put under such pressure to perform in order to meet government targets. As others have said, we have known about the difference between girls and boys development for years...but this doesn't give us the right to try and alter natural child development. The part that concerns me most is the very young age that children are expected to gain 'academic' skills in the UK. We are just about the only country in the world that begins formal education at this very young age. There are mountains of statistics and research showing that children (for example in Scandinavia) who begin this kind of education at 6 or 7 years, learn very quickly and rapidly overtake British children in literacy.

 

There is a very good programme on TeachersTV (you can watch it online) called How They Do It In Sweden which shows this in practice

 

Beehive

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Im not disagreeing with any of you and I would love to see a more relaxed approach to education BUT dont forget this is a newspaper report.

 

 

Totally agree with you on this, Susan. Unfortunately, it's just this kind of media rubbish that some parents will latch onto. I'm just going to hope that all 'mine' were too busy with important things like playing with their children over Christmas to read it! :o

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What is even more annoying is that we have all been offering these opportunities to children in our provision.

 

As the mum of two boys, now men, who didn't write at an early age but who are now succcessful in their own fields I feel I want to go and shout from the rooftops let children especailly boys have a childhood!!!!!!

Absolutely!

 

my one thought is settings have been doing 'pre skills 'for years... and will continue to do so.. do they really think they have found something new? Those of us on the ground know differently..

 

 

Inge

Absolutely!

 

but even so this will just make parents worry and fuss even more, especially some of our dads.

 

Hmmm............that is one of my concerns too........I have spent and continue to spend so much time explaining the EYFS and 'Learning through play' to parents.........I'm happy to do so.....but this sort of newspaper article is not helpful! :o

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Lets wait and see if the letters materialise.

 

I would be very worried if the reaction to boys not being ready for writing at 5 was to start pushing them to start at three. That sounds like a plan formulated by someone who has absolutely no idea of what is a developmentally appropriate curriculum.

 

Let us hope that common sense prevails and that we as a country start to realise that by winning the race to have the children writing first we are losing the overall competition to produce academically able and motivated young people.

 

Time will tell.

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This type of news makes me so MAD xD:(:( Boys of that age are not developed in the same way as girls. Particularly their thumbs! (which hold a pen)

I listened to aman teacher discuss this and it all goes back to cave man times :o which really makes sense

Having had two boys they are now fine in their pencil skills and are adults but always were later developing compared to their sister

 

Let boys be boys PLEASE!

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This type of news makes me so MAD xD:(:( Boys of that age are not developed in the same way as girls. Particularly their thumbs! (which hold a pen)

I listened to aman teacher discuss this and it all goes back to cave man times :o which really makes sense

Having had two boys they are now fine in their pencil skills and are adults but always were later developing compared to their sister

 

Let boys be boys PLEASE!

 

 

Just done a quick Google search on pencil grip and found the following

 

An interesting note concerning pencil grips in connection to writing in the

early school years is that, in the present results regarding schoolchildren in

Finland, so-called mature pencil grips are more often found in boys than in girls

from seven years on. Earlier studies suggest that girls’ grip development was

ahead of the boys’ up to six years at which point the boys caught up (Blöte and

Dijkstra, 1989; Schneck and Henderson, 1990). Could it be that boys are more

interested in other activities than fine motor performance like handwriting, thus

giving the grip more time to develop before the grip is stabilised? Also, boys’ grip

strength increases more during school years than girls’ (Levine, 1987). This might

explain why boys do not need to use a power pencil grip or to add pressure to the

same extent as girls. This may, however, be partly culturally related as, in the

present study, such mature pencil grips are not in the majority in the American

pupils either by age-group or by gender.

 

You can find the whole document here

 

https://oa.doria.fi/dspace/bitstream/10024/...P.objres.23.pdf

 

Interesting!

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MY bigger concern is the gap in the have's and the have nots and while the guy in the article could afford for a Latin tutor for his four year old - lucky them!!!! -

 

Don't forget too, that this guy, Toby Young, is the one who wants to set up his own 'parent power' school in his local area because the local schools are not good enough for his kids, but he doesn't want to go private - has 3 kids y'know! So he could get a shed load of taxpayers money to do his own thing - with Latin for all to boot. Grr makes me so mad when this type of news event breaks during a holiday, when people mau have time to read it and go into panic mode. Can't wait for Jan 4th!

 

Jenni

 

PS - anyone else checked out the new site from Hamilton Education? It's called Hamilton at home and looks to have some good ideas for helping children at home - lots of games and puzzles, all split into relevant age sections!

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Unfortunately for his children, Toby Young clearly has not grasped the fundamental difference between rote learning and understanding. He probably will find out where he went wrong when his children are older.

 

In the meantime we early years practitioners will continue to offer children opportunities to develop their understanding of the world, drive to explore, emotional resilience, positive dispositions towards learning and the physical skills to back them up when the time is right. These will be the children who are equipped to take full advantage of the resources at their disposal throughout the rest of their education and the lifetime which follows.

 

If the children in my care want the sand and chocolate powder out that's fine. If they don't? Well that's fine too.

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I don't think we need worry too much about Toby Young, he's the author/publisher of "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" I don't know how to add links but if I suceed and you can click on this one below read what his wife has to say. Its seems like they are barking and live in cuckoo land; if he set up a school after reading this no one in their right mind would let their child attend.

 

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_an...icle4847558.ece

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:o What a mad world we live in xD Let boys be boys and develop at their own pace and in their own way - surely we'll only switch them off even earlier by forcing them to take this approach?!

 

As for Toby Young?? I can only wonder what his own children are like!

 

Nona

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I've been thinking about what might be in this new publication the Government will be sending out to us all, nothing that we don't know or don't already do I'm sure. But then I thought about this one we have already.

 

I have found this one, below, very useful on a day to day basis. I often bring it out and wave it around when I heard staff saying "but how do we get the boys interested" and it works every time. It is a good reminder of inclusion not meaning "one size fits all" that everything has to be presented in different ways for different groups. Boys are different to girls, they need space, large movements and the hardest movement of all for them is to stay still!

 

http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.g...ng_achievements

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aaarrrggghhhhh lovely article with sound suggestions that I am sure none of us have ever thought of before, I don't know how we all manage without the government support ! xD:o:( :wacko: :(:(xD

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If the children in my care want the sand and chocolate powder out that's fine. If they don't? Well that's fine too.

 

...and in my opinion, that is what it should be about.

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quote 'The guidance, which will be sent to nurseries from January, will include advice to set up role-play activities tailored to boys' interests, such as builders taking phone messages and writing up orders, post office employees writing on forms, and waiters taking orders from customers. '

 

So, these people don't read Ofsted reports about what is already happening in early years settings, and has done so for oh at least the last 20+ years, they've just read the figures then. :o

 

and will this guidance become mandatory?, even if it's not it will be the focus of every Inspection for the first half of 2010. xD

 

I too would like to hear much more about what our young children do well at, rather than this continual 'could do better' refrain.

 

I can imagine these people who come up with these ideas at home with their own young children, maybe the child spills a drink, or sulks when told to do their homework, I can hear the parents now, telling them off and ending with the words, "....Stop behaving so childish, or stop behaving like a child" :(

 

I suppose that will be the next thing, homework for preschool boys on writing skills.

 

 

Peggy

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quote 'The guidance, which will be sent to nurseries from January, will include advice to set up role-play activities tailored to boys' interests, such as builders taking phone messages and writing up orders, post office employees writing on forms, and waiters taking orders from customers. '

 

:oxD:( Ha! Ha! Ha! I've only ever been able to leave an answerphone message for a builder and they never ring back!

My local post office either a) has no forms or xD tells you it's quicker to do it on-line and most restaurants these days have a little electronic device with a touchscreen menu :(:( :wacko:

 

Nona

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If we're tailoring it to boys interests we need to link it to running, wrestling, racing, weaponry, superheros, vehicles, Ben10, football and creepy crawlies. Not waiters, form filling and phone messages! I can't remember ever caring for a little boy who was passionate about working in a post office!

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