The government's Literacy Hour also equates learning with the assimilation of facts learned in a formal way. Instead, four year-olds are entering reception classes in primary schools because there is little nursery provision. Over 1,700 nurseries have been closed in the past two years and parents are worried that if their children do not start school at four, they may not get a place in a school of their choice due to competition. Parents interviewed, who had reluctantly sent their children to school at four years of age, found that the pressured environment of school had a detrimental effect on their children's psychological well being. Quite simply, they were unhappy.
Children learn through play.
Yet this conception is now passed off as an easy option, despite the fact that it is the most efficacious, as Panorama went on to demonstrate. A consideration in this denunciation is that play learning is also more expensive than sitting in a classroom facing a blackboard. They are subjected to the Literacy Hour, which means sitting and receiving instruction as well as writing at a table. Panorama suggested that this formal approach intellectually damaged children and impaired their ability to learn. The effects, moreover, remained throughout life.