This blog post is based on my recent article published in the British Educational Research Journal (Kay, 2023). Using data from semi-structured interviews with two teachers, the paper addresses the tensions between teachers’ professional beliefs and knowledge, and the school readiness agenda in a reception classroom in England. Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), contradictions are identified as a way of illuminating these policy–practice tensions.
School readiness has become a dominant discourse in early childhood education (ECE) policy frameworks at a global level. Ensuring children are ‘ready for school’ is seen as a way of breaking the cycle of poverty and narrowing the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers (Kay, 2018). The policy push to ready children for school has led to a focus on more formal outcomes – such as Mathematics, Literacy and Phonics (OECD, 2017), resulting in a shift from play, child-led and adult-led activities, to formal approaches with teacher-led activities (Ofsted, 2017). In England, this shift has been marked by the emphasis on the Good Level of Development (GLD) as a measure of school readiness, assessing children’s competence in key developmental areas at the end of the reception year. The ‘high stakes’ nature of the GLD has led to what Roberts-Holmes (2015, p. 307) refers to as a ‘replication of the primary school performance culture’.
Utilising Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), the research highlights the contradictions between policy-imposed readiness and teacher beliefs. Drawing from Engeström and Sannino’s (2011) work, the paper categorises these contradictions as dilemmas, double binds, critical conflicts and conflicts, using specific linguistic cues for identification. This approach not only points out the tensions but also offers a nuanced understanding of the policy–practice divide.
