Kids robbed of playtime in pursuit of academic excellence

FEARFUL parents are unnecessarily sending pre-schoolers to early learning classes to give them an academic edge.

Pre-schoolers

FEARFUL parents are unnecessarily sending pre-schoolers to early learning classes to give them an academic edge.

That's the warning from educators who say an atmosphere of parental panic has arisen about the expectations on kindergarten and pre-school children since the introduction of national numeracy and literacy testing.

Some schools and teachers are also contributing to a sense that children are "failing" kindergarten, and becoming anxious about how they would perform in NAPLAN tests, which begin in Year 3, say experts who spoke to The Sunday Telegraph.

Educationalist Maggie Dent said: "It's full-on, the pressure is coming from both parents and teachers. There is a perception we need to hurry up and get them smart. With the pressure to get literacy rates up implies what is happening in kindy is not good enough so we need to do more to hurry them up."

The fear has led to a proliferation of early learning centres aimed at getting pre-schoolers ready for the pressures of kindergarten. "It's robbing children of their childhood and parents are wasting their money as children are not developmentally ready at that age for formal learning."

Parental and teacher expectations have changed since the introduction of NAPLAN in 2008, although the syllabus and formal requirements have stayed the same, said educationalist and former kindy teacher Marcelle Holliday.

"Teachers are feeling pressured to do more, it's a change in culture. It's a whole of society concept that school is so important we have to up the ante on everything," Ms Holliday said, adding that early learning centres were not the answer. "It's like feeding children on vitamins instead of real food."

Benchmarks for kindergarten include beginning to develop reading, recognise sight words, write simple sentences, count to 30 and count backwards from 20.

Jenni Connor from Early Childhood Australia said many teachers felt pressured to do more. "The whole idea of that first year of school is to be relaxed and enjoy school.

I would still want children to be playing and doing creative art. Teachers may feel under pressure to relinquish good practice," Ms Connor said.

Oyster Bay's Belinda Thompson sends her son Kaydn, 4, to an early learning centre once a week because her older children struggled in kindergarten and she wants to do the best for him.

"Xander, my older son, hated kindy," the 37-year-old said. "He was bursting into tears. I don't want my kids at the top of the class, but to feel comfortable and not inadequate."