Do we need to test four year old children?

There is a suggestion in this morning's paper that we should be testing four year olds to see if they have the necessary skills to start school. Yes, it is a good thing if they have some basic skills such as sitting still for a story, listening to it, engaging in an activity related to it. It is good if they can build something with wooden blocks, recognise their name on a peg, hold a pencil or crayon and draw something or even write their name. It is even better if they can relate well to adults and other children and tell them about something they are doing or have done. Of course there are all sorts of skills children need before they go to school. 

But do we really need national testing? It won't end up being about the basics. It will be about whether the child has reached all the "necessary" or even "essential" milestones. It will have parents worried their child is not meeting those. It will put pressure on nurseries, preschools and kindergartens. More and more time will be taken up with teaching those things regarded as necessary. There will be league tables for two year olds before we know it.  Japan already worries about those things. Children are under pressure to perform to get into the right kindergarten to get into the right school in order to.... and so it goes on. I have taught Japanese students at university. They have told me about these things.

I could read long before I went to school. I wanted to read. My parents were also in the position of knowing how best to help me do what I wanted to do. I was fortunate. Most children do not have parents who can do that. Now it is even more likely they will not have the time. When both parents go to work there is very little time for the sort of education children of my generation got. We found out about counting in places like the kitchen when our mothers were cooking. Someone, usually our mother, read a bedtime story. Mine were  read to me by the Senior Cat who put his finger under each word so I could follow the strange squiggles. My mother printed words and stuck them on all sorts of things. There were lists of words on our refrigerator. I was surrounded by words. 

Now a child can have a little screen to interact with instead. How often have I seen a three year old sitting in the child seat of the shopping trolley. Is the parent talking to the child about what they are buying and why? No, the child is playing with a mobile phone or like device. How many times have I heard, "It keeps him quiet and I can get on with it"?

Perhaps instead of testing four year olds we should be testing the parents. We should be making sure they are actually helping their children get ready for the big things in life, things like starting school. If they say they "haven't got time for all that" then perhaps we need to help them find time? 

I don't want preschool league tables. I don't want children who have been taught a lot of woke ideas and who all think the same.  It may be nice to have a beginner class who can all do the same thing at the same level at the same time but is it really a good thing? If they are at different levels they might learn something even more important - to help one another.