Schoolchildren's anxieties revealed
Primary schoolchildren's lives beset with 'deep anxieties', report claims
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Friday, 12, Oct 2007 08:10
There is a "deep anxiety" among primary schoolchildren and their parents about the world they are growing up in.
A new report says children are "being forced to grow up too soon", while tests at primary school level are placing undue stress on under-11s.
According to Cambridge University's Primary Review, which claims to be the biggest enquiry into primary education for 40 years, children, parents, teachers and community leaders are "ambivalent" about national literacy, numeracy and primary strategies.
"Outside the school, witnesses were worried about the condition of family life, the decline in mutual respect and social cohesion, the dominance of antisocial behaviour, materialism and the cult of celebrity, and the growing crisis of climate change," the report's authors write.
Primary Review director Robin Alexander said that the government was facing a "battle for hearts and minds".
"On the one hand, the government cites educational expenditure, test results and Ofsted inspections to show that its initiatives are delivering the necessary improvements," he said.
"On the other, commentators of varying political, journalistic and academic hue read the same information rather differently, sometimes even suggesting contrary trends.
"While this pattern of claim and counter-claim is predictable, the unease about the present and pessimism about the future which we uncovered as we travelled round the country and talked to many people both inside and outside education cannot so easily be explained away. If things are going so well, why are people so worried?"
A spokesperson for the Department for Children, Schools and Families meanwhile emphasised the report's acknowledgment that "every generation has its stresses, and schools themselves are safe havens and a 'beacon of light".
"We reject the pessimism that now is a bad time to be a child," the representative continued.
"The vast majority of children go to better schools, enjoy better health, live in better housing and in more affluent households than they did ten years ago.
"There is an unrelentingly negative view of young people in this country, where the problems of the few eclipse the achievements of the many. Over 70 per cent of media stories about young people are negative, so it is no wonder that most young people tell us they feel stereotyped, criticised and undervalued."
Commenting, the National Union of Teachers' general secretary Steve Sinnott said: "The picture painted by the Primary Review is of primary teachers who are able and willing to tackle the fears of youngsters pessimistic about climate change and violence on the streets, but who are bombarded by needless and oppressive accountability measures such as tests, targets and tables."