Education and schooling is (another) something that has been an interest to me for some time, and with children currently going through the UK school system, it's something that I think about quite a lot. I wrote a lot of this article 6+ years ago, and decided this might be a good time to revisit it and publish an updated, revised version of it (some of the links are quite old articles, but I have double checked most of them and they should still hold true).
As usual, whilst I have a variety of incredible thoughts on the topic, and have read a little bit on it, I am by no means an expert (or even that knowledgeable), so feel free to take my thoughts with a pinch of salt.
I very much on board with the importance of the role of free-play in learning, and also of instilling curiosity in children as an approach to ensure future success, rather than more structured didactic teacher and test driven approaches. This is largely grounded in various things I have read on the topic, but as mentioned, there is undoubtedly a lot more depth to the subject matter than I know about.
Can we do better?
If we are looking at the education system, it seems sensible to look elsewhere for success stories to see what we can learn from and improve on in the UK system, and an obvious example would be the Finnish education system. Finland’s often cited education system has consistently been one of the top ranked system in Europe for the about the last two decades, so what are they doing right?
The first notable difference is the age at which children start school: children will attend preschool from an early age, but primary school doesn't start until 7 years old. What this means is that formal teacher-lead instruction on what we would consider core topics such as maths, reading and writing, doesn’t start until the age of seven. Before that, the education system is entirely focused on free, creative play.
This model also ties into research from some neuroscientists who believe that before the age of seven or eight, "[children] are better suited for active exploration than didactic explanation" - claiming that "the trouble with over-structuring is that it discourages exploration". As a dad, I have definitely witnessed this kind of behaviour first hand and it very much supports my anecdotal data on the subject. Trying to explain to a kid any moderately complex process can be a challenge, but, let them watch you perform it a few time and they will often pick it up with much greater ease (using a tech device, playing a video game etc). Furthermore, it seems to me that encouraging exploration and independent discovery should be a key part of any process aiming to instil curiosity in children.
These results were also mirrored in the research by the Lego Foundation, who claimed children should learn through play until at least the age of eight (yes, I know, who’d have thought a report from a toy company would end up recommending more play? But none the less, that article is really spot on).
You might have noticed the trend here - a key age seems to be around 7 or 8 years old.
Comparing this schooling approach with ours, in the UK, children will already have had up to three years of five days a week, full day, classroom based teaching by the age of 7. When my oldest boy turned 7, being young in the year, he was just finishing his third year in school and had already experienced national standardised testing in the form of SATs. It’s quite a contrast between the systems.
But it's not just starting schooling later, either. Even once more formal education starts in Finland, they make sure to keep play an integral part of the school day, and children are required to have 15 minute play breaks every hour. Aside from the potential educational benefits of regular playing, research has also found that outdoor play is linked to healthier and happier children. Also, I don’t know if you have you ever tried to get under 7s to concentrate for more than 45 minutes at a time? This is not something I had ever had to try (because I’m not a sadist, why would I try that?), but wow, did we get found out when we had to homeschool during the pandemic.
Despite this already stark contrast, a lot of the UK has continued to push further away from the Finnish model of success. Several years back, we went to visit a primary school open day for my eldest son, and the head mistress casually boasted that the traditional afternoon playtime break had been dropped in favour of more classroom time. Unsurprisingly, we didn’t apply for a place at that school. Another school open day (and the one we did end up sending him to) spent a lot of energy showing off their focus on joined-up writing, which also blew my mind. Thankfully, there are campaigns in the UK to reverse this, with a “plan for play” proposal launched just this month
Why the difference?
The common thinking behind starting formal schooling earlier is that the earlier they start learning, the better prepared they'll be, and the greater the head start they'll have - and yeah, logically, that feels like that should be correct, right?
But even if the Finnish school system didn't appear to disprove this theory, it's worth considering the difference in benefits of learning by rote/testing Vs independent learning (via play or other means) and the independent curiosity needed for the latter. I'd argue that in the modern knowledge economy, with the quickening rate at which information and understanding is being changed by advancing technology, the most beneficial skill that someone can leave school with is curiosity and the ability, along with the desire, to learn independently. That is, to leave school as lifelong learners. I think it says a lot that a key topic on the Finnish national curriculum is simply “learning to learn”.
You only have to look at the generative AI explosion over the last 12 months and the extent to which that is being talked up as changing the face of work and the number of jobs expected to be disrupted. As AI and other technologies continue to progress faster and faster, its likely the most beneficial thing you can come out of full-time education with will be the ability to adapt and the skill set to independently learn on the job.
Beyond looking at success stories of other education systems, we can look at history. Current incarnations of the education and school systems are a relatively modern thing, so what did we do to learn before then? Of course, families and communities have long recognised the importance of amassing and passing on information to younger generations, if not through formal education, but in many cultures, children learn through imitation and experimentation (which, as I mentioned previously, is easy to believe if you have seen young children grow up around adults using mobile devices and have witnessed the speed at which they become proficient through imitation and experimentation).
It might be tempting to think that whilst humankind were able to learn through such basic play techniques in time gone by purely because what we needed to learn was simpler, and that the as we have progressed as a society it has also demanded people have a greater understanding and depth of knowledge in order to keep up with industrial and technological advances, so the education system has evolved out of necessity.
However, I would argue that the opposite is true - firstly, as pointed out earlier, the speed at which science and technology is advancing means whatever level you leave the schooling system, within a couple of years understanding and techniques for a range of topics will likely have moved on, and your ability to learn independently and keep up with the fast paced changes is going to be essential to success.
Secondly, I would argue that play provides the essential understanding and building blocks for going on to study and understand computer science, engineering and maths. As a computer scientist, I personally think the education that stood me in best stead for going on to learn was playing with toys like Lego and puzzle solving games.
If we look at one of the Key Stage One goals for computing in the current UK National Curriculum:
“use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs”
So Key Stage 1 is 5 to 7 years old - and remember:
Some neuroscientists think 7 year olds are too young to be in formal taught education
In Finland, 5-7 year olds would still be enjoying creative (free) play
Of course, how that government issued objective gets translated to an actionable lesson and experience for kids is up to schools and teachers, and I’m sure they do a great job (absolutely none of this article is a complaint about teachers, teachers are great) - but if it was me, I wouldn’t like to have to teach that in any medium other than play.
I have previously written elsewhere that I think toy train tracks are a great, free-play way of learning about engineering and logical reasoning, and are quite analogous to execution of code. If we just re-frame the curriculum goal in the context of playing with train sets, it becomes simpler: “use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs trains”.
Give the kids train sets, let them build tracks. What happens when a train is added?What happens if we add two trains? What happens if we change the direction of trains? Or change the behaviour of a junction piece?
Being able to reason logically about such behaviours and the impacts of changes made is a very transferable skill that is useful for thinking about a range of problem solving disciplines, including computer science.
And it’s not just computing - there is a growing group of mathematicians who claim that preschoolers are actually capable of understanding calculus and algebra. And not just that, but teaching them maths the way we currently do, it is crushing almost all appetite or future interest in the subject, that is actually an amazing world of wonder and surprise, by taking all the playful fun out of maths and making it a boring case of memorising numbers and patterns - which obviously has the end result of killing their curiosity or interest in going out and independently learning.
Physics is phun
That heading is a nod to my old secondary school physics teacher, as he’d often say that was his favourite joke. I’m not sure its a joke, though. He was an odd guy, but I did enjoy his physics lessons, so good on him. Anyway, the point is I do think he was right, pretty much everything is fascinating.
Years back I took my kids (my kids were about 2-4 years old) to a science-museum-y type soft play place - you might know the kind of thing. Ball pits and soft play alongside building blocks, games based around physics, building bridges, putting human body parts back in the torso etc. Problem was, I’m not sure the kids always got much of a look in..
Be a lifelong learner, be more grandad.
Let us play
Ultimately, I would love it if UK schools embraced free play more, especially if they embraced teaching STEM subjects through play, but I understand that it’s a huge shift and it probably needs to come from the government. The UK state primary schools are still so governed by the national curriculum and expectations around performance that it might feel impossible for any individual school to start to move the dial.
There has been a lot written about the changing attitudes of parents and children towards school following the pandemic, with record numbers of students considered as long-term absent, so maybe now it’s a chance to ask, could schools be better?