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Daily Telegraph, Tuesday 7 February 2012

The following Open Letter was published in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday 7 February 2012
(the full submitted text is reproduced below)

Today we are launching a new broad-based movement called ‘Early Childhood Action’ (ECA), which aims to galvanise a wide coalition across the early years sector and beyond, to inform and influence the government’s revision of its statutory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. Whilst acknowledging the government’s welcome attempts to simplify this curriculum, widespread disquiet exists about the direction in which the current revision is headed.

In the coming months ECA will draw up an Alternative Foundation Phase curriculum document which will build on the EYFS’s positive aspects, while addressing its key shortcomings. Specifically, the AFP will highlight:

• the central place of young children’s physical development and of imaginative, spontaneous play across the curriculum
• the ‘schoolification’ of early childhood with its over-assessment and excessive monitoring, with normalised ‘measurement’ impeding in particular the progress of boys, summer-born children, and those with English as an additional language and special educational needs
• the controversial ‘Early Learning Goals’, with their premature emphasis on cognitive learning, and the associated adoption of developmentally inappropriate pedagogical practices
• the undue pressures on parents to prepare children for formal schooling according to a system that is too inflexible to cater for the highly diverse developmental needs of young children
• disquiet about commercial influences, and the statutory imposition of inappropriate ICT experiences on to young children
• ways of pursuing equality without imposing a non-discriminating compulsory framework that impacts upon all children, irrespective of their needs.

Early Childhood Action has already gathered the support of around fifty major figures and organisations from academia, early years and the creative arts. Our AFP curriculum will be the distillation of progressive, leading-edge research and experience from across the early-years field, and it will help early years leaders, managers and parents to draw on their own judgement as to which of the two curriculum documents – the AFP or the EYFS – provides the more health and developmentally appropriate environment for our young children.

Yours truly,

The Early Childhood Action core organising group – Dr Richard House (University of Roehampton), Grethe Hooper Hansen (ex-president of SEAL), Dr Jayne Osgood (London Metropolitan University), Sue Palmer (literacy specialist, author of Toxic Childhood), Kim Simpson (Montessori teacher and counsellor/coach)

Open Letter Signatories

Organising Group
DR RICHARD HOUSE (University of Roehampton)
GRETHE HOOPER HANSEN (ex president of SEAL)
DR JAYNE OSGOOD (London Metropolitan University)
SUE PALMER (literacy specialist, author of Toxic Childhood)
KIM SIMPSON (Montessori teacher and counsellor/coach)

Early Years Specialists
ROBIN BALBERNIE (infant mental health specialist)
PIE CORBETT (Literacy specialist and author)
WENDY ELLYATT (Founder, Unique Child (UQC) Network)
SUE GERHARDT (psychotherapist, author of Love Matters)
SALLY GODDARD BLYTHE (Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology, Chester)
PENELOPE LEACH PhD (Birkbeck College, London)
DR ANDREW LOCKETT (Early Years Consultant)
PROFESSOR EMERITUS JANET MOYLES (Early Years and Play Consultant)
LINDA POUND (Early Years Consultant and writer)
DR KATHY RING (Senior Lecturer in Early Years, York St John University)
DR MARIA ROBINSON (author on early child development)
DR ARIC SIGMAN (child health education lecturer)

Other Eminent Signatories
BARONESS SUSAN GREENFIELD (neuroscientist, Oxford University)
ED MAYO (co-author, Consumer Kids)
AGNES NAIRN (Professor of Marketing, EM-Lyon Business School)
PHILIP PARKIN (General Secretary, Voice)
PHILIP PULLMAN (writer)

And there's more

• ECA's Winchester Conference a Resounding Success!
  
  See press and media reports below:
  
  Daily Mail 27_10_12.docx
  
  Nursery World ECA report_26_10_12.docx
  
  Penelope Leach_Colwyn Trevarthen_Nursery World Oct 2012.docx
  
  Susan Greenfield Telegraph feature_20_10_2012.doc
  
  TES article.docx

• A new international manifesto for early childhood
  23 November 2012
  

• Nappy curriculum 'turning play into policing' nursery staff complain
  27 July 2012
  

• Father fights back over school age admissions policy
  11 June 2012
  

• Young children’s need for natural, unforced early learning
  29 May 2012
  

• School Starting Age
  HEAD-START, EARLY FINISH?
  16 May 2012
  

• The revised EYFS: Too little, too late
  10 April 2012
  

• Richard House, "Early Childhood Action – challenging the EYFS curriculum", Juno magazine website
  9 March 2012
  

• Sue Palmer's Nursery World interview
  

• EYE (Early Years Educator) is the leading monthly magazine for the 0-5 childcare workforce, to subscribe, please call 0800 137201 (free for UK callers only), or +44 (0)1722 716997 for callers outside the UK, or visit:
  
  

• Letters to the DT
  9 Feb 2012
  

• Knickers to the nappy curriculum
  8 Feb 2012
  

• Daily Telegraph Knickers to the NC
  8 Feb 2012
  

• Daily Mail
  7 Feb 2012
  

• Nursery World report
  

• ECA report Daily Telegraph
  7 Feb 2012
  

• ECA Published Daily Telegraph Open Letter
  

• PRESS RELEASE ECA
  6 Feb 2012