10/11/2025
And in the same way, a four year old isn’t half an eight year old.
We miss the common sense and passionate voice of Sir Ken Robinson in the world, but that’s not to say that each and every day we can’t continue to echo his messages and pour positive energy into childhood 👏🏻
As an aside, his quote is also a portal to this question:
What if we ditched the Empty Speak of ‘Reception, ‘Year One’, or ‘Key Stage Two’ and put them in the bin where they belong, and instead transformed our narrative into speaking about ‘four and five year olds’, ‘five and six year olds’ or ‘ten year olds’?
Might this then put an end to the constructed framework imposed on childhood and enable adults to see that there’s no such thing as ‘Year One’, instead there’s the world of five and six year olds?
Now go figure what those children need and deserve….
Shifts in language can have powerful meanings - I know what story I want to tell of childhood and so do you, as one of the Play People - so why not tell it?
Too much of anti-childhood gets easily concealed under year group labels, chief amongst them, the nonsense of the readiness brigade, the dead harvest of the Phonics Screening Check and the absurdity of the word ‘formal’ which is merely code for control, ego and the end of children’s autonomy (and needs calling out for being so btw)
Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments, even if it’s to share some love for Sir Ken ❤️✍🏻
👧🏻👦🏾not🤖🤖
