Is Scotland set to follow Norway with a shift to kindergarten for the early years and a school starting age 6/7 not the present 4/5?Just 12 per cent of countries send five-year-olds to school. Almost all are former parts of the British Empire, clinging to a model devised to release women from childcare as quickly as possible, so they could work in Victorian factories instead. Child welfare played no part in plumping for the present school age. That’s why Ireland and Cyprus (former British colonies) recently moved away from the British model to the European norm of 6/7.It’s high time Scotland joined them, because all the evidence shows children learn vital soft skills like sharing, communication, cooperation, creativity and confidence through play long before they can finally control motor functions sufficiently to sit still and start formal education. The urge to stuff the three R’s into 4 and 5 year-old brains may be understandable in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world – but it’s not rational, helpful, productive or kind. It prompts social, emotional and mental health problems in some children forced into formal learning prematurely and 'failing' tests simply because they aren’t ready. Certainly, at five and seven Britain’s ‘force-fed’ kids are ahead in literacy. But by 9, play-based European kids are soaring ahead – and stay ahead for the rest of their school careers and lives.Added to that, many Norwegian kids attend outdoor kindergarten. Here NH Director Lesley Riddoch talks to Turid Boholm who set up the Bukkespranget Barnehage (literally ‘child garden’) with support from local parents in Arctic Tromsø. Lesley visited in the winter darkness of January to see how kids ilearn, play and eat outdoors, even in the freezing Norwegian winter. Turid describes how the kindergarten brings parents on board and produces confident children able to take care of themselves and of one another.

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