The myth about Ofsted, the DfE and early writing

 

An unhelpful myth has taken root in early years education: children should avoid writing altogether until they can spell simple words correctly and form all their letters accurately.

This misunderstands an important point. There is a big difference between expecting young children to complete formal writing tasks before they are ready and encouraging them to experiment with marks, symbols, drawing and early writing.

This myth has two sources. The first is Ofsted’s Strong Foundations report, which argues that “curriculums for writing often introduce complex tasks too early”.

The second is the Department for Education’s Writing Framework. This states that “emergent writing” (experimenting with making marks and drawing) is “not a necessary stage that children have to go through before they can be taught to write letters and words”.

On one level, I think both of these comments are sensible and helpful.

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Starting with Ofsted’s argument, I have often seen children in Reception being expected to write sentences - for example, about what they did at the weekend - when they may not all be developmentally ready for this task.

They may not yet have the oral language needed to say a full sentence aloud. They may also lack the physical control or letter knowledge needed to write it.

In this position, children often toil unhappily at the task and quickly start to feel that writing is a slog and something they dislike.

In these instances, it would make more sense for the school to focus on helping children with their oral language development. Speaking in sentences and using a rich vocabulary to talk about their experiences and feelings will help them a great deal with the process of composing what they want to say before they write it down, in later years.

Likewise, they will benefit from a focus on physical development, allowing them to build the core strength and dexterity needed to write.

Research evidence also points to the importance of learning the correct way to form letters before beginning to write at length.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) recommends this in its Preparing for Literacy guidance report as an important step on the road to a fast, fluent and efficient handwriting style. The alternative is that bad habits, like poor pencil grip and incorrect letter formation, become embedded, needing to be unlearned later on.

The recommendations of both the DfE and Ofsted therefore make sense. And yet I know, from speaking to educators and school leaders, that these recommendations have led many to believe that we should not be encouraging children in the early years to write at all.

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Why we need workforce reform in the early years

Early years practice has changed significantly over the past few decades.

Today, schools report that they have many more children arriving into Reception who are not ”school-ready” - whether in terms of their learning or their personal, social and emotional development - than ever before.

Yet the early years workforce has not significantly changed to adapt to those different needs.

It’s not because there isn’t evidence to suggest what might work better: robust research studies such as the Effective pre-school, primary and secondary education project show that better levels of staff qualification in the early years are associated with better outcomes for children.

Meanwhile, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)’s guidance on the deployment of teaching assistants offers many findings we can sensibly apply to the early years.

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Why SEND reform depends on the early years

The number of children described as having special educational needs and disabilities in the early years is rising fast. Research in 2023 by Dingley’s Promise, the national organisation that supports children with SEND in the early years, found that around eight in 10 settings reported a significant increase, and more than half stated they did not have “any more spaces” for new children with SEND.

It is common to hear of children being put on part-time timetables because their setting or school is unable to meet their needs for a full day. This means that the children who need early education the most have the fewest hours, if they are not being turned away completely.

Many early years educators, meanwhile, are genuinely overwhelmed as they try to meet a very wide range of needs. All of this is contributing to a sense of “crisis”.

It’s a sentiment that mirrors perceptions of SEND across the education sector. The Department for Education has recently described the SEND system as being “on its knees”, and will set out how it plans to address this in a White Paper later this year. 

SEND in the early years

The early years foundation stage (EYFS) shapes children’s earliest learning experiences. As such, it is arguably the point at which the SEND crisis begins - and it is, therefore, an area worth looking closely at when considering overall solutions.

Indeed, a recent evaluation of the Sure Start programme by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that a higher rate of identification of developmental difficulties when children were younger, together with better early support, was associated with lower levels of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in secondary school.

Despite this, it is still common for children in the early years to receive lower levels of funding and support than older children. We need to reverse that, with fair funding for the early years. 

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Bridging Research and Practice: Lessons from ShREC and REACT in Early Childhood Education

 A new collaborative project in East London is boosting children’s early language development through evidence-informed professional development.

Initial challenges had revealed the need to balance language strategies with emotional wellbeing. The result? A streamlined, research-based framework delivered through an iterative process.

These approaches improved adult–child interactions and created a collaborative 'third space' where research and practice inform each other.

Find out more about lessons learned from this valuable experience.

Julian Grenier and Lynn Ang

Supporting children’s early language development is a key aim for early education and childcare. Research evidence tells us that better vocabulary at age 5 is associated with improved progress in learning to read, better exam results aged 16, more likelihood of gaining a degree, and even better health at age 42 (Shuey and Kankaraš, 2018).

That’s why a group of us working in an economically disadvantaged area of East London felt it was a moral imperative to do more to help children develop stronger language and communication skills in the early years. Child poverty is strongly associated with poorer language development: could making improvements to the quality of early education and care help children to succeed against the odds?

What does the curriculum review mean for EYFS?

Education is a connected system, so what happens in one phase inevitably shapes the next.

Although the early years foundation stage (EYFS) was outside the scope of the government’s curriculum and assessment review, its findings have clear implications for early years.

Today, the latest EYFS profile results were published, showing that while the proportion of children reaching a good level of development has gone up, results remain below the government’s 75 per cent target. With this in mind, here are four key curriculum review areas worth interrogating:

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7 books to improve your early years provision

The early years are about to get a significant boost as a result of the government’s new plan to give every child the best start in life.

As part of this, the Department for Education has set a target for 75 per cent of children to achieve a good level of development at the end of Reception by 2028. This means that it’s more important than ever for schools to focus on mobilising the best available evidence to improve both quality and equity in early years.

Here are seven books that share powerful research and, crucially, offer practical steps for putting evidence into action.

1. The Intentional Teacher: Choosing the Best Strategies for Young Children’s Learning by Ann S. Epstein

In her book, Ann Epstein argues that teaching in the early years should be “intentional”, with teachers acting with “knowledge and purpose” to ensure that children “acquire the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school and in life”.

As she explains, “intentional teaching does not happen by chance; it is planful, thoughtful and purposeful”.

She argues for a balanced approach to early years pedagogy, noting that “rarely does learning come about entirely through a child’s efforts or only from adult instruction”.

Of course, that presents us with a challenge: how can we develop “intentional” teachers across the early years workforce?

A recent paper by Dr Sandra Mathers is particularly helpful here. In it, she explains the importance of educators’ explicit understanding of the pedagogical strategies they use. For example, while it’s useful for an educator to have a range of approaches to support children’s communication, it’s their explicit understanding of why they might use a particular strategy that leads to children making better progress.

As Mathers concludes, “although there is value in knowing ‘how to do’, explicit knowledge of ‘how and why’ matters more”.

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Why school leaders need to spend more time in the early years

 “Do you really want to spend your time wiping noses and bottoms?” This is what my former headteacher asked me, back when I first decided that I wanted to teach Reception.

That off-hand remark illustrates how some school leaders still view the early years: as a strange, “other” world that is somehow less important than what comes after it.

Yet by the end of Reception, disadvantaged children already trail their peers by 4.6 months - a figure that represents nearly half the 10.6-month gap we see at the end of key stage 2. 

Leaders who treat the early years foundation stage as an add-on, who do little more than hop into lessons for a 15-minute phonics check from time to time, miss so much that is important about this stage of education: guided play, teaching that scaffolds children’s learning, child-led exploration and the everyday moments that build children’s language and confidence.

Read on (£) in TES