If you ever hear me speak, you’ll know I’m a fan of knowledge rich but also a fierce advocate of childhood rich. If we have children who leave key stage one not knowing traditional stories, games, rhymes or not having taken part in rich opportunities to play, explore & develop, is this not just another deficit?
In education we are often well versed in the language of deficit and disadvantage and the approaches, thinking and actions that aim to eradicate or counter its potential effects; indeed cultural capital and associated barriers to its acquisition underpin many approaches in many schools, but rarely is the unique human experience of childhood or a lack of access to its traditions and experiences included in this discourse and action.
The primary experience is never, has never and should never simply be about academic knowledge. This is a key developmental window for children and as such the curriculum and associated pedagogies need to respect and reflect this. As I have said and written many times before, primary is the timeframe in which children move from the edge of toddlerhood to the cusp of adolescence. Children in this critical early developmental window need carefully curated and protected access to approaches which not only develop the academic but also the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and creative. These elements are not at odds or in conflict or a jockeying for position with academic content, they are essential aspects of human development.
Knowledge rich therefore should not mean childhood deficient. There are schools who do balance this delicate and essential interplay beautifully- high academic outcomes blended with age appropriate pedagogies and timetabling which reflects the needs of younger children, as well as a rich induction into the joys and culture of childhood.
Childhood cannot be redone. You don’t get a second go at being five, or seven or nine but your experiences, learning and development during these early school years shapes your attitudes and outcomes for many more years.
I work with pupils and colleagues across all phases. Their work is unique, their contexts different. The only constant in any school experience is the child, and their experiences need tailoring to their age and stage. What works at 14 won’t necessarily work at 5. And, even if we can get some aspects that work with older students to work with our younger ones, just because we can make younger children work in ways similar to their older peers, we need to revisit the thinking of, “Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should.”
Championing knowledge rich on its own, without “childhood rich” as the counter balance, is counter productive. Childhood experiences, texts, rhymes, games, activities and play provide not only firm foundations for future learning but many of our cultural references in later literature, discussion and life.
There is also the sometimes conflation of knowledge rich with complexity or difficulty. Yes, knowledge is important, but there are questions about the associated level of complexity. Knowledge rich doesn’t mean “difficulty and complexity” rich. Therefore there is the need to acknowledge the seemingly simpler knowledge and concepts with which younger children may be grappling and recognise that often, even in the most seemingly simple content, there are layers of complexity which involve deep and multi layered levels of thinking and subsequent associated curricular time. There is no race to have complexity drawn down from later years groups or to champion what to us as adults sounds impressive or complex; there are more than enough challenging, foundational and underpinning early concepts with which children need to develop proficiency and mastery through repeated exposure to and associated appropriate pedagogies.
Placing knowledge rich as somehow superior to childhood rich because of both its implied and inherent complexity is therefore always there as a potential backdrop to primary practice. Championing ever more complex content at an ever younger age or placing it ahead or above the cultural capital of childhood can skew what we perceive to be the lens of success. It is often seemingly impressive to hear younger children speak about what traditionally may have been perceived to be or has actually been content from older age groups. But, my question is always, what was taken out to put acquisition of that there? There are always choices to be made about both curricular content and pedagogy but my questions are always “Why this? Why like this? Why now? What was left out in order to put this in? Why do we do it this way and not another way?”
It is not up to me to decide what appropriate cultural capital is for a five or six year old or what knowledge they should or shouldn’t know but I would urge schools to look not only at what they are teaching but also what they’re not teaching. What are we leaving out and why? In the race to push more and more academic content earlier and earlier into the finite nature of a school day, what aspects are the curricular casualties?
We also need to be mindful that our current youngest children are likely the most deficit in play. Not only are our new 2024/25 intake our “Covid babies” who spent their infancy in lockdown, but our current KS1 and up to our new 2024/25 Year 4 had their early childhood experiences, pre school, and associated development opportunities significantly disrupted. Whatever deficit models we want to explore within our curriculum or our associated data, one thing we must bear in mind is that the children in these age brackets, by the very nature of the period of time they lived in during their crucial developmental window, will have been, by comparison, deficit in the play and childhood experience opportunities afforded to the bulk of their older peers. This is, when we consider our curriculum and associated pedagogies, crucial. If we are to ringfence and champion the unique state of childhood then we also need to ensure that we provide adequate opportunities not just for curricular catchup but an immersion in all things childhood rich.
I would also urge anyone who’s a champion of knowledge rich to also be equally knowledgeable about child development and pedagogy for EYFS and KS1 and the associated reasoning why excellence in teaching for younger children also often looks so different.
I have been teaching in primary now for 27 years. Some of my first classes have children of their own in primary schools now and I have seen many things come, go and come back around again but what has remained and never changed is that childhood is crucial, special and fundamental to success. By championing children and childhood we also champion the academic. They are not mutually exclusive but a delicate and essential interplay.
Ultimately we all want children to succeed, to have choices as an adult, to be well rounded, healthy & proud of their achievements. But let’s develop that from informed standpoints that are rooted in a deep understanding and respect for both the academic and the unique state of childhood.
Thinking Flexibly 