Meeting of the Parliament 02 October 2019
I thank Labour for the debate and pay tribute to the impressive campaign run by Give Them Time, which has already made a real difference for many of our constituents. We will be supporting the motion.
A few weeks ago, as the minister mentioned, she told the Education and Skills Committee that
“Central Government is very clear that schools should be child ready, rather than children having to be school ready”—[Official Report, Education and Skills Committee, 18 September 2019; c 8.]
but I disagree with that sentiment. What the minister is really saying to parents who are minded to defer children with August to December birthdays is that the Government and local authority professionals know best.
Let me be clear: the Scottish Liberal Democrats want play-based learning to be embedded in the early years and for school leaders to ensure that all children can thrive from their first day in school. However much the learning environment in the early years of school is designed to mirror and be a continuation of the nursery experience, the fact remains that some children will benefit from another year of nursery education. However, some parents are being forced to risk their entitlement in order to do what they know is best for their child. As one of my constituents, Kay Anderson, explained to me “the thought of having to choose between him going to school, where he’d had such a good experience, or nowhere at all was horrendous.”
In many cases, parents who are denied funding for deferral are told that there is no cognitive reason for their child not to go to school, but parents know that the best time for their child to attend school does not depend just on their ability to learn. Parents know how important it is for their child to go through school with their friends, how their child feels before going to, and after coming home from, nursery, how confident their child is and how they adapt to new environments, but that may still be undermined, as another of my constituents said, “all just because of when his birthday is.”
Those are crucial factors that can be missed when arm’s-length decisions are taken, as seems to be happening too often. Let me remind the chamber that the school starting age was set in 1870 to free up cheap labour in factories. We are much more informed about child development now. What is more, as we have heard, it is misleading to speak as if the parents of children who would defer are receiving an extra free nursery year. Those children may have received a year less of early years education than the others who would be in their peer group at school.
Reform Scotland’s briefing “Closing the early years gap”, sets out clearly how some children could start school having missed out on more than 1,000 hours of play-based learning. We are in a situation in which some parents have to apply to receive their full funded ELC entitlement, which is at their local authority’s discretion. That has created an unacceptable postcode lottery and it is not consistent with the Government’s aim of closing the attainment gap. If we must bring economics into decisions that are fundamentally about getting it right for every child, that equation is surely cancelled out by the benefits that will be seen throughout the child’s educational career and beyond.
The right to defer is an important one and the Government must introduce the necessary legislation to allow parents to exercise that right.