Write to your MP

Dear [Find your MP here]

I am writing to you as my Member of Parliament. Are you aware that the Department of Education has quietly published new mandatory guidance that moves much of the Reception Baseline Assessment, a test that 4 year olds take within the first six weeks of starting Primary School, onto touch screen devices, such as iPads?

I share the concerns raised in this letter which was sent to the DfE and DSIT by a group of parliamentarians, headteachers, child health experts and children’s campaign groups.  The DfE’s decision comes just months after Parliament’s Education Select Committee issued a report which concluded that “the harms of screen time … significantly outweigh the benefits for young children”.

I am concerned about the precedent this will set for using digital devices in primary education, and the wrong-headed signals it will send to other parents about device use. For young children who have not been over-exposed to screens as toddlers, screen-based assessments risk being bewildering and distracting, and by reducing eye contact both teacher and child stand to miss important facial cues and interactions. There are no computing requirements in the Early Years Foundation Stage goals, and devices absolutely should not become part of standard classroom practices for such young children, so a skills assessment using touch screen devices makes no sense.

Both in the short term and the long term, sending more devices and EdTech into our schools will serve the interests of the tech industry at the expense of the vast majority of schoolchildren.  The DfE is making a terrible mistake, and it is incumbent on us all to call it out.  Please will you help by raising these concerns with DfE ministers?

Yours sincerely

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