The start of all-day kindergarten in Ontario’s schools this month has some educators excited about the added teaching time despite the added strain to the system.
Thirty Scarborough schools now offer all-day kindergarten in the first phase of the province’s five-year plan. Seven more will offer it next year.
Before the start of the program, every two kindergarteners equalled one full-time student. Schools are now faced with double the number of kindergarteners.
“We have schools in certain pockets of the city that are busting at the seams with five, six portables on site,”said Scott Harrison, Ward 19 trustee with the Toronto District School Board. “So when you turn around and introduce all-day kindergarten, you’ve now increased that school by however many kindergarteners are at the school.
“Some schools are scrambling trying to find extra space — coat hooks and cubbies, stuff like that — because now they’re going to be there for the whole day.”
Even with space constraints, the benefits of all-day learning have already been identified, he said.
“The earlier you can get a child to learn, the more they can take in,” said Harrison.
Priscilla Yu, principal of Agnes McPhail Public School in Agincourt, says the program is off to a great start in her school, which currently has two all-day kindergarten classes.
“The fact that the teacher can have more time in the program to consolidate those basic skills through different means, different activities, is a big help,” said Yu.
According to the Ministry of Education, about 600 Ontario schools now offer the program. That number is set to increase to 800 in 2011.
Every classroom will be equipped with a teacher and an early childhood educator who will construct a full-day curriculum of play-based learning activities. However, with a surplus of teachers, this does not mean more jobs for educators.
“Part of the criteria for Phase 1 was low overheard costs,” Harrison said. “In other words, find schools that can accommodate the classes with little to no construction costs, start-up costs, that kind of thing.”
All-day kindergarten is not mandatory and parents have the option of enrolling their children part time. The program is provided at no added cost to families, but before- and after-school programs will be offered at school-specific fees, some of which will be subsidized.
“It’s still early,” said Harrison. “It just started a week ago so I think everybody is still feeling it out.”
“It’s an exciting initiative and I think the ministry and the board have done their best to get this program up to a wonderful start,” added Yu.
Check out my essay “When did education become a race?” at:
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/schoolview/2010/08/30/when-did-education-become-race
In the essay I quote parenting author Steve Biddulph (www.stevebiddulph.com) who was a keynote speaker at the Gender and Student Achievement Conference in Kamloops, B.C. (Oct. 18-20, 2007)
According to Biddulph, full-day Kindergarten for 5-year-olds is too long, and any younger is a big mistake developmentally. In support of Biddulph’s claim, a major review of British primary schools by Cambridge University stated the practice of allowing children to start school at age four was found to be stressful. Yet its authors found that in some countries where students start school up to two years later, many outperform their English peers.
Biddulph says the calendar is a poor guide for when a child should start school as most boys (and some girls) are slower to develop fine-motor and language skills.
But if we followed the Finland model, children would have access to free, full-day daycare (up to age five), full-day Kindergarten (age six), and wouldn’t begin Grade 1 until age seven.
Carl Honoré (www.carlhonore.com) writes in “Under Pressure: Putting the Child Back in Childhood” (2009): “Their [Finnish children] early childhood is spent at home or in nursery programs where play is king. When they finally do reach school, they enjoy short days, long vacations and plenty of music, art and sports.” (p. 122)
“Apart from final exams at the end of high school, Finnish kids face no standardized tests. Teachers use quizzes, and individual schools use tests to track their pupils’ progress, but the idea of cramming for SATs is as alien to Finland as a heat wave in winter. This presents a delicious irony: the nation that puts the least stress on competition and testing, that shows the least appetite for cram schools and private
tutoring, routinely tops the world in PISA’s competitive exams.” (p. 123)