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. The programme visited schools in Norway, where children enjoy a nursery curriculum until the age of seven years and are allowed to be children with needs specific to childhood.
Staff specialise in early years teaching.
Staff are not passive observers, but act as facilitators. Norwegian children then enter school on a half-day basis and for the next year are gradually introduced to the skills needed to become numerate and literate. Yet by age nine they have not only caught up with their British counterparts but, according to the programme, outperform them. He looked at the long-term effects of teaching methods on young children and found a significant correlation between children subjected to formal teaching methods and higher divorce rates in adulthood, and a greater tendency to end up with a criminal record and change jobs frequently. It was a weakness of the programme that it used this research uncritically, as so many other factors come into play in determining the life outcome of individuals.