Child Development

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate for this debate. As someone who studied his degree in education at Chester I think it appropriate that I should speak now.

We all know that children’s early experiences are important in affecting health, behaviour and development outcomes. In their first three years children develop physically, cognitively and emotionally at a faster rate than at any other time in their lives. We need to respond to and support children as they learn to walk and run, speak and communicate, relate to others, play and explore the world. We need to provide children with the balance of child-initiated play and focused and structured learning to ensure that they enjoy learning to read, write, use numbers, think mathematically, explore their world and become creative. For children, the interaction with their environment, especially with their parents, ultimately determines how these characteristics are manifested as they grow and develop into complete adults.

All research—I repeat, all research—has shown that nurturing in the form of parents or carers spending sufficient quality time with their child leads to happy, healthy and successful children. Parents—yes, parents; surprise, surprise—are the key to helping the child’s development, self-discipline and positive character traits. Of course it is important for parents, particularly working mums, that schools have breakfast clubs and after-school clubs, and sometimes even Saturday clubs at the local school. However, often a young child can be in school from 7.30 in the morning to 6 at night, five days a week. They have a daily diet of often 10 and a half hours of school without their parents, and of course parents often come home from work tired and exhausted after a hard-working day. Maybe we need to accept that pattern in the complex society in which we live, but any maternity or paternity tax break or incentive scheme which gives more time for parents or carers to be with their child must be welcomed. Children love the opportunities that parents have to interact with the school.

I want to talk about three important ways that schools can support child development but, first, let us recognise the part that successive Governments have played in the approach to child development, their understanding of the importance of early years and the need for high-quality early years provision, which is well funded. It is hard to believe that less than 10 years ago the pupil-weighted budgets gave half the amount for under-fives as for secondary children.

Often the problems that children face in their schooling, and indeed in their personal development, are down to a failure to identify those problems at an early stage and for the child to be supported with the necessary professional guidance and resources. Early intervention does work but only if we have the resources to make it happen. Often the best-intended bureaucratic processes get in the way and provide delay after delay when early intervention should mean what it says. That is why the pupil premium has the potential to be really important in this field, giving a school the additional finance to just get on and support the child without having to wait. I do have concerns about the pupil premium—not with the policy itself; more with how schools use the additional resource. Do we allow complete freedom of use or do we earmark it? A school with, say, falling rolls might well use the money to plug budget deficits rather than support children with developmental needs. There is real evidence that many schools see it as just an additional budget line rather than using it in a targeted manner, which can really make a difference to children.

Secondly, thank goodness we have recognised that child development in schools cannot be about constant form-filling, endless reports, assessments, profiles and observations, with paperwork on top of paperwork. It has to be about quality teacher or teacher assistant time with the pupil. Yes of course we need a record or profile of an individual pupil’s progress but it needs to be light touch and the teacher should not become a slave of the recording process.

Finally, young children develop through play, and children develop at different rates. Yes, we want our children to be able to read, write and be numerate but we do not want to put them in a learning straitjacket. Some children are not ready for a formal educational approach but of course some are. Let us recognise and understand that. Let schools be equipped and supported to develop the learning to suit the child and the child to suit the learning. We need to understand that some children are not ready to access the national curriculum. We need a personalised learning approach.

Child development is of course important not only to the child but to the family, community and society in which we live. Policymakers must not be dogmatic or demand a one-size-fits-all or “we know best” approach. They must constantly be prepared to listen, to understand and to support.