There's a pushmi-pullyu situation going on - it isn't new: Mary Jane Drummond sharply outlined this in her article 'Professional Amnesia - a suitable case for treatment' for the primary education magazine Forum in 2004. Pedagogy, provision and structures of education are being led by successive governmental drives and initiatives, which have for decades focussed primarily on concerns for economic growth and global competition. In amongst it all, education is conceived as largely a business of transmitting desired knowledge, and 'preparing for the next stage.' The language of 'achievement' and practices of assessment comes with this territory of 'value-adding.' 'Delivery', 'develop, 'attain', 'targets', 'milestones' are all words which have recent UK - especially English - official descriptors of early childhood (and later) education.
Not only the terminologies, but the organisation, habits and environments are also shaped by this discourse. England has one of the poorest minimal standards for educational environments in Europe – if knowledge transfer is the chief definer of desirable education then smaller spaces are adequate – children need to be uniform, passive, obedient and receptive. Programmes of rote-learning are commercial and are pushed as 'effective' and 'efficient.' The situation is diagnosed by many – Professor Peter Moss, Sir Ken Robinson and increasingly parents who have withdrawn their children from school.
We know that learners are not passive receptors. Children are born lively, curious, dynamic, sociable, expectant, creative – in Professor Colwyn Trevarthen's words 'humans (children) are born seeking relationship.' It follows that the education we construct, with the tools of time, organisation, space, professionalism should support this basic human zest, not constrain from the narrowing external concerns about 'upskilling tomorrow's workforce.' But it is a construct – and the lived reality of schools and early childhood centres is of course very nuanced, with many heads, staff groups, managers, committed to 'getting it right'. But it remains a muddle, and it is draining the natural energies of children, and of educators, and is a worry to many parents.

Our pre-schools, centres, schools can all be places of delight and research for children, for educators, families, communities.