Revised government guidance to support teaching in the early years mainly serves to highlight “serious flaws” contained within the new statutory framework, a charity has warned.
The Early Years Alliance, an early years organisation representing 14,000 members, said it was “concerned and disappointed” by the revised Development Matters guidance - the last version of which was published in 2012.
New early years teachers will now be presented with a “narrow and limited view of how children learn and develop”, the charity claimed.
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The non-statutory guidance, published today by the Department for Education (DfE), is designed to accompany the new early years foundation stage (EYFS) framework, due to become statutory in September 2021.
It can also be used by the 2,800 schools which have signed up to be “early adopters” of the EYFS reforms this year.
The document is intended to guide, but “not replace” professional judgement, the DfE said.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: “While we recognise that there was a need to review and refresh Development Matters after nearly a decade, we are both concerned and disappointed by the revised guidance, which mainly serves to highlight the serious flaws contained within the new early years foundation stage framework.
“Early education should be about supporting the needs of each individual child and ensuring that they are at the centre of their own learning, something that was championed in the previous version of Development Matters, but is sadly lacking in this latest guidance.
“As a result, those more experienced early years practitioners will find little in the new document to help improve their practice while, even more concerningly, those who are new to the early years will now be presented with a narrow and limited view of how children learn and develop, and their essential role in supporting this.
“With so many educational experts expressing concerns about the current direction of travel of the early years curriculum, we urge the government to listen, take stock, and acknowledge that it needs to change its approach on this critical issue sooner rather than later.”
Beatrice Merrick, chief executive of the Early Education charity, told Tes: “The publication today of the new non-statutory EYFS guidance for the revised EYFS comes after a period of frustration from the sector that there was no open public consultation on the content and style of the revised publication that could have ensured that it truly met the needs of practitioners.
“The decision to retain the title Development Matters no doubt reflects DfE’s recognition that of the popularity of the current non-statutory guidance document with the sector.
“This document retains the title, but none of the current content. Therefore the sector will need time to digest and familiarise itself with the document in time for September 2021, and make a judgement as to whether it will chose to use this guidance or not.”
She added: “Concerns are likely to focus most strongly on the guidance relating to the Reception year, although there are also issues such as the breadth of the age bands. This was also perhaps a missed opportunity to increase the focus on diversity and inclusion.”
School standards minister Nick Gibb said: “Getting every pupil back into full-time education is a national priority because of the significant benefits to their academic and social development as well their wellbeing.
“These improvements will continue to drive up the standards of early education, strengthening practice while also reducing unnecessary paperwork for staff so that they can spend more time teaching and supporting pupils.
“We cannot afford for the youngest children to miss out at this vital time for their development, which is why we have introduced these reforms to the early years foundation stage and why so many schools are keen to make these important changes from this term.”
