Petition against school league tables for five year olds – update

Pressure from the parent-initiated petition against school league tables at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage – and support from a number of MPs – seems to have brought about one of the government’s turnarounds, as they now say that there are no plans for school-level league tables. Even so, so please do visit the petition and consider signing it: http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41774.html. Additional signatures remain important in order to express continuing concern, and to support the ongoing petition against phonics tests, see below. 

 Petition against phonics tests for young children

Ever since the previous government introduced synthetic phonics into schools, as the single recommended method of teaching young children to read, there has been significant concern among early years experts and practitioners about the narrowness of this approach. The coalition government is even more determined that schools should concentrate on synthetic phonics, and now proposes to introduced a phonics reading test for all children at the age of 6. A new petition against this measure has been started by Janet Moyles, expert in early childhood learning. Again, please do visit it and consider signing: http://www.gopetition.com/petition/42347.html.

Pat Gordon-Smith, Freelance writer and children’s rights advocate