Recently it was revealed that the Department for Education (DfE) is monitoring the social media activity of leading early years experts.
This came to light when Ruth Swailes and Dr Aaron Bradbury were told in March this year that they were ‘unsuitable’ to speak at a conference launching a DfE Stronger Practice Hub.
Who in their right mind would find Ruth and Aaron unsuitable? They both have outstanding track records as practitioners and advisers and both are inspirational speakers.
They are also the editors and authors of the bestselling ‘Early Childhood Theories Today’. Unsurprisingly the organisers refused to run the conference without them.
After some negotiation, DfE agreed Ruth and Aaron could speak but only with a senior Government official present!
As a result of this Ruth applied for a Subject Access Request (SAR) which compelled the DfE to release any documents mentioning her name.
Others have done the same and discovered, as Ruth did, that DfE are monitoring their social media and noting anything that might be construed as critical of Government policy or of Ofsted.
Dr Mine Conkbayir and others have had their conference inputs censored. Conkbayir was described to conference organisers as "disrespectful of the DfE."
So, what on earth is going on in DfE?
We can only speculate because the department itself has refused to explain.
A big clue is the DfE’s attitude to ‘Birth to 5 Matters’. To give an example, another well-known early years conference speaker, Dr Sue Allingham, received an email including in large red type the DfE stipulation that ‘Birth to 5 Matters’ should not be mentioned.
For the avoidance of doubt…Birth to 5 Matters is non-statutory guidance produced by the Early Years Coalition.
There is another non-statutory guidance document called ‘Development Matters’ which was produced by DfE.
As both are non-statutory (not compulsory like the EYFS statutory framework) practitioners can choose to use either, both or neither. Nobody, including DfE and Ofsted, should therefore be pressurising practitioners into using either nor implying that either document should not be used.
I was involved in working with Government on national guidance for many years and I never saw attempts to censor speakers nor encountered such paranoia about whether people are criticising policy or using a non-statutory document.
But then we have never had a Government as disrespectful of the majority of its citizens as this one!
Nonetheless, early years organisations and experts have continually tried to help Government - for example with their ‘reforms’ of the EYFS.
Widespread concern about the impact on children of the 2021 EYFS, as well as DfE’s lack of consultation on the new version of Development Matters led to the Early Years Coalition of major early years organisations coming together to commission a practitioner survey and a literature review to support DfE (both of which they ignored).
The coalition felt there was no real way forward with DfE and produced a collaboratively written alternative to Development Matters – Birth to Five Matters.
Birth to 5 Matters has been far more popular than DfE expected but Development Matters is also widely used.
Ruth, Aaron, Mine and Sue were never going to imply that people shouldn’t use it. So why the censorship? The short answer to that lies in the widespread cross-Government culture of governing by ill-informed diktat and ignoring experts (whilst at the same time fearing them).
Back in 2010 Government officials tore down the ‘Every Child Matters’ signs in the DfE offices and ushered in the decimation of Sure Start, children’s centres, nursery schools and cuts to every other service.
For 13 years we have endured their disregard for human rights and the poverty and social fragility their policies have brought for children, families and practitioners.
But we do not have to endure it in silence or assume that if we don’t criticise things will get better.
Healthy debate has hitherto always been part of good policy formation. I salute the courage and determination shown by our colleagues in calling out DfE because ‘Every Child (Still) Matters’.
