Starting school at three

is apparently now considered to be "essential" for the education and development of all children. 

There were more alarm bells being rung because "a third" of all children are "behind" in the national standards which have been set. This is despite the fact that children in this country already spend more hours in school than children in many other countries.

It is now being said that three year olds should be spending a minimum of fifteen hours a week learning in a "preschool" setting. What the powers-that-be think children are doing for the rest of the time I am not sure. Possibly they will say "just playing" without realising that "play" at that age is a form of work. Give children the right sort of environment in which to explore and they will be learning. 

As a young kitten I spent a lot of time out of doors. I was frequently filthy dirty from playing in the dirt and the mud. All too often I bled from scrapes and falls. I knew how to do things and how not to do things. I found out what worked and what did not work. I played with other children. We roamed the district and found out about fences and gates and gutters as well as all the usual things. We learned to watch for the little traffic there was. We also learned about what adults did with their days because we were permitted to watch and, sometimes, to "help".  In many ways I had what many would consider to be an idyllic childhood. I certainly had a fortunate one. It would not have been like that in the city.

But even in the city I would have had many of those experiences. When we did get there we still saw adults at work. There was a bakery not far from us where the bread was actually made. We went into the butcher where meat hung in great slabs in the cold room. We knew what that sausage machine was. In the greengrocer everything was weighed out. We saw Mum hand over the money and get the change...and I knew to do the same thing from age three and a bit. Now everything comes in packets or plastic bags. The bread is already sliced and the meat is vacuum packed and stacked on shelves. The fruit and vegetables are already packed or they get weighed at the check out and you do not hear their names unless your parent or, more likely, grandparent talks to you as they shop.

I don't think three year olds need to be learning about letters and numbers and coding at a computer screen. They don't need to know about sex differences or climate change. They need to be learning about real life.