Reception year pupils ‘let down by poor teaching’
RECEPTION teachers are failing one in three five-year-olds by focusing on playing and not being able to teach reading, writing or maths properly, a major Ofsted report has found.
The schools inspectorate found that newly qualified teachers had a “particularly weak” understanding of the three Rs, which led to “poor teaching and a lack of understanding about progression”.
In its first study into the Reception curriculum, Ofsted found that nearly half of disadvantaged children fail to meet the expected standards of development by the time they enter Year 1.
Some head teachers interviewed by Ofsted said Reception teachers tend to downplay the importance of reading, writing and mathematics for the under-fives in favour of “play-based pedagogy” and “child-initiated learning”.
“For too many children, the Reception year is far from successful,” the report said. “It is a false start and may predispose them to years of catching up rather than forging ahead.
“In 2016, around one third of children did not have the essential knowledge and understanding they needed to reach a good level of development by the age of five,” it said.
The report added that the disadvantaged children are “far worse” off, since “only just over half had the knowledge and understanding needed to secure a positive start to Year 1.”
Most school leaders felt that new teachers were ill prepared to teach mathematics and literacy to children in Reception, the report found. “By the end of Reception, the ability to read, write and use numbers is fundamental,” it said. “They are the building blocks for all other learning. Without firm foundations in these areas, a child’s life chances can be severely restricted. The basics need to be taught – and learned – well, from the start.”
Gill Jones, Ofsted’s early education deputy director, said that Reception teachers should read stories, poems and rhymes out loud to children and encourage them to join in and learn them by heart.
“[This] will introduce them to new vocabulary, language structures and ideas,” she said. “This is the essential knowledge that children need to open up the rest of the curriculum.”
Purnima Tanuku, the chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association, agreed that children need more support in literacy and maths. She said she welcomed the report’s recommendation that the Department for Education should intervene to raise the profile of early mathematics teaching.
However, Neil Leitch, the chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said it was “disappointing” that the report focuses on the “narrow” skills of literacy and mathematics.