After a year of controversy, media interest in the Primary 1 Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs) in literacy and numeracy ground to a halt last summer after publication of David Reedy’s independent review. In it, he concluded that “a moment of assessment” for five-year-old children does not conflict with the play-based learning prescribed in Curriculum for Excellence’s early level (for three- to six-year-old children).

For most Scottish adults, including many in the educational establishment, this probably sounded very reasonable. After all, we know from research that the poverty-related attainment gap is already well established at 5 years of age - so presumably the sooner schools start trying to close that gap, the better. The SNSA is a diagnostic assessment and it seems fair to assume that data about each five-year-old child’s potential for success in literacy and numeracy will help teachers plan for more rapid progress. So, when Education Scotland is also wholeheartedly promoting play-based learning in P1, what’s the problem?

There is still a considerable body of opposition to the “P1 tests” - as they are often called - and the critics include many teachers who work with P1 children. A 184-page survey of their views, commissioned for the Reedy Review, was published on the Scottish government website in late August. When Upstart Scotland - the early years charity behind the Play Not Tests campaign - analysed these, it found that one-third of respondents were strongly opposed to the SNSAs, another third were generally negative, and only 3 per cent had voiced support. Clearly, for teachers who know a thing or two about five-year-olds, that “moment of assessment” is far from negligible.

As a founder member of Upstart Scotland, I’m hoping that by listening to P1 teachers’ concerns, rather than ending the debate about the P1 tests we can open up a much wider discussion about early childhood education, and thus start to address many other problems currently besetting Scotland’s children and young people.

Scotland has always been out of step with the rest of Northern Europe in early childhood education, as a result of our very early school starting age, which meant that widespread demand for preschool childcare did not begin until about 30 years ago. Curriculum for Excellence’s early level was an attempt to bridge the gap between a rapidly growing preschool sector and the rest of the education system, but it is split right down the middle: the first half happens mostly in nursery settings, the second in primary schools. There are considerable differences between nursery and the first year of school, not least the staffing ratios (1:8 in nurseries; 1:25 in P1) and staff qualifications (various “early childhood practice” qualifications in nurseries; primary teaching degree in P1).

Most Scots also have deeply embedded cultural expectations about the type of educational activities appropriate in nursery and school, especially in regard to the explicit teaching of the three Rs. So, although the “experiences and outcomes” for early level apply across the 3-6 age range, their interpretation changes significantly once children turn 5.

Ethos and expertise

At the heart of the P1 tests controversy, therefore, is the question of the most appropriate educational ethos for five-year-old children. Should it be based on developmental principles, as early childhood practitioners are trained to believe, or should it be part of the drive to raise standards in literacy and numeracy that currently informs Scottish educational policy? Upstart Scotland argues that, in terms of practice at early level, the views of early childhood educators should be accorded as much - if not more - attention than those of educationalists who have little experience of working with young children.

Yet, early years experts were not consulted about the introduction of the P1 SNSA - the educationalists who developed the SNSA specialise in literacy, numeracy, assessment and data analysis, not early childhood education. Reedy, who led the independent review, is a primary literacy specialist, and the International Council of Education Advisers (ICEA), which supported Scottish government throughout the development process, includes no one with specific early years expertise.

In Scottish educational circles, it seems that early childhood ends on the day children start school.

Over the past 20 years, there’s been growing recognition of the significance of early childhood experiences, in terms of both educational success and long-term health and wellbeing. In 2005, this led the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to publish a General Comment on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). It defined early childhood as the period between birth and 8, and ECCE as “more than a preparation for primary school. It aims at the holistic development of children’s social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs in order to build a broad and solid foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing.”

This is why people with expertise in early childhood care and education are so opposed to the P1 SNSA. As research has repeatedly shown, the introduction of national assessment has more than “momentary” effect. It influences classroom practice as a whole because it focuses teachers’ attention on the subject to be assessed, leading to the phenomenon known as “teaching to the test”. This is likely to be exacerbated in Scotland, as the early level experiences and outcomes have now been supplemented by detailed skills-based “benchmarks for attainment” in literacy and numeracy, to accompany the P1 SNSAs.

Skills-based teaching and assessment of literacy and numeracy is not consistent with developmentally appropriate, play-based pedagogical practice, as understood by ECCE specialists. In terms of literacy skills, for instance, a research review published by the British Early Childhood Education Research Association (Becera) in September 2019 included this paragraph: “The evidence on the desirability of a focus on literacy outcomes during the foundation years [3-6 years] in pursuit of longer-term educational attainment indicates that this may be detrimental for many young children who have not yet secured their language outcomes.

“As stated earlier, the evidence (Dockrell et al 2010; Payler et al, 2017; Pascal, Bertram et al, 2017; Pascal et al, 2018) shows that children need a securely developed understanding of spoken language, vocabulary and listening comprehension skills, which are derived through routinely experiencing diverse vocabularies embedded within language-rich environments of songs, nursery rhymes and stories with ample time for adult/child and peer-to-peer interactions before progressing to a focus on literacy outcomes.”

Early childhood educators’ objection to assessment of P1 children’s literacy and numeracy skills does not mean they object to national assessment of the age group as a whole. If Scotland is to close the attainment gap, we clearly need information about children’s development, not just to inform P1 teachers about the needs of individual children in their classes, but also to help local authorities provide intervention projects that support schools in the most appropriate ways for all children’s overall development.

For instance, in Canada and Australia, where compulsory education does not begin until children are 6, the developmental level of five-year-old children is assessed using a tool called the Early Development Instrument (EDI). This is a checklist filled in by kindergarten teachers, covering five areas: social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive skills; physical health and wellbeing; and communication skills - that is, the whole range of social, emotional, cognitive and physical developmental factors that underpin later educational success.

Carol Campbell, a professor at the University of Toronto, is one of the Scottish government’s council of international advisers. In September, she told the Scottish Assessment Forum in Edinburgh that educationalists in Ontario are currently revising their assessment system and showing great interest in the SNSA methodology. I later sought her out to ask whether this meant a revision of assessment methods for five-year-olds. She replied that the EDI is still the recommended tool in Ontario, as in the rest of Canada, and there are no plans to change it.

Another speaker at the assessment forum was Geoff Masters, chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research, the company that developed our SNSAs. I asked him whether Australia is likely to swap the EDI for a more SNSA-like assessment for five-year-olds - it isn’t.

Widening debate

So the educational establishments of both Canada and Australia have no plans to abandon the “holistic development” of this age group and home in on literacy and numeracy skills. Perhaps that’s because, in both countries, the people who make decisions about what’s best for five-year-olds have expertise in ECCE?

Ironically, Scotland also looked at adopting the EDI some years ago. It was successfully trialled and adapted to Scottish norms in East Lothian in 2012, and a report from the University of Strathclyde concluded that “the tool’s simplicity, usability and low cost all readily lend themselves to community-wide implementation across Scotland”. In fact, East Lothian was so impressed by its effectiveness that it repeated the county-wide use of EDI in 2016, and some of the projects it inspired still flourish today.

I’ve been unable to discover why the Scottish government decided not to introduce the EDI nationwide, but I suspect it was the same mindset that led to the decision to start literacy and numeracy assessment in P1. Thanks to our very early school starting age, decisions about the assessment of five-year-olds are made by primary educationalists, not early childhood educators.

Yet, according to the UN definition, five-year-olds are only about halfway through their early childhood. As I argued in an Upstart Scotland blog - “The Importance of Being 5” - a great deal of social, emotional, cognitive and physical development is still to happen. Quite apart from the pedagogical arguments for a more holistic approach in P1, children’s experiences at this developmental stage have profound implications for their long-term mental health. Indeed, it was the growing crisis in children’s mental health that led in 2016 to the founding of Upstart Scotland, which is a campaign for a relationship-centred, play-based kindergarten stage (from age 3-7), based on the Nordic model.

As well as the rapidly expanding body of evidence on the significance of positive, supportive relationships in developing long-term resilience and wellbeing, researchers are now linking mental health problems with the decline of active, self-directed outdoor play (particularly play in natural surroundings). For most 21st-century children - especially those from low-income households - opportunities for this sort of play are severely limited, so three or four years in a Nordic-style kindergarten would provide a good kickstart in the wellbeing stakes. The Nordic nations are currently world leaders in the wellbeing charts - as well as performing rather better than the UK in international surveys of educational achievement.

Scotland urgently needs to talk about five-year-olds - because when a country fails to get the early years right, the rest of its educational system is built on very shaky foundations.

Sue Palmer is chair of Upstart Scotland, which campaigns for a play-based kindergarten stage in Scottish education so that children do not start school at 4 or 5. She is also a former primary headteacher and an author whose books include Toxic Childhood Full references can be found at tes.com

This article originally appeared in the 22 November 2019 issue under the headline “We need to think again about five-year-olds”