Modern education 'turning children into little robots'

Young children are being turned into "little robots" because primary education has become a mini-version of secondary school, teachers warned today.

Teachers no longer had time to read stories to pupils, listen to their concerns or hear their news from home, said Lesley Ward, vice-president of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

Schools were under so much pressure-to meet government targets that children spentmuch of their day learning maths, science and English in preparation for Sats instead of playing.

Mrs Ward, who has taught in a primary for 32 years, warned the curriculum at that level had become dominated by testing and the drive to boost league table rankings.

She said teachers had more time to care for children when she first started in the Seventies.

"It was lovely, we had time," she said. "If they were upset they used to come and sit on your knee and tell us. Now they can't. We have turned them into little robots that have got to be a certain level by a certain age and it's horrible.

"The problem is with Sats and league tables. It is a mini-secondary curriculum. All the literacy and numeracy in the mornings and everything else fits around that. We have got to fit science in somewhere in the afternoon."

While Mrs Ward believes children are tired by about 3pm, under the Government's childcare policies they can spend 10 hours a day at school. Breakfast clubs often run from 8am and homework sessions, sport and arts clubs last until 6pm.

Experts acknowledge there were problems with education in the Seventies, with thousands of children let down by a patchy system where teachers could do as they pleased.

But Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the balance had shifted too far in the direction of government control. "We have got to keep perspective," he said. "On a summer's day when children would be working hard, we would go out and play a game of cricket. Those sorts of freedoms have vanished. We can't go back to some idyllic notion of what was happening because quite a large number of children were being failed by the system.

"But the pendulum has swung too far. We need to recognise the value of taking time to enjoy and create freedom in the curriculum."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "Of course primary schools need to strike the right balance between learning, play and other activities and the best schools do this well - the last Ofsted annual report said that schools ensure that most pupils enjoy their education. The national curriculum offers teachers considerable flexibility in how they structure the school day."