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Childcare Bill

Before the Minister responds, I wonder whether the informality of proceedings in Grand Committee will allow me to correct an omission. When introducing this group, I concentrated my remarks on Amendment No. 67 and said hardly anything about Amendments Nos. 69, 71 and 72. I should like to correct that and briefly address them. Amendment No. 69 would introduce the word ““observation”” into the part of the Bill that refers to how children should be assessed. Obviously I believe that the Bill should reflect the practice of assessing children through observation, which is current good practice. The document, Quality and Diversity in Early Learning, from the Early Childhood Forum, explains what practitioners do and comments that it is only by observing children as they live and learn that we can be sure of having enough good information on which to act as we meet our responsibilities. In the EYFS Direction of Travel paper, the Government state that:"““As now, there will be no tests or group assessment for young children in EYFS. Instead, practitioners’ planning for individual children’s development and learning will be based on their continuing observational assessment throughout the whole EYFS””." In the light of that statement, I find it difficult to believe that the Minister would not be able to accept the inclusion of the word ““observation””. Amendments Nos. 71 and 72 extend the spirit of Amendments Nos. 67 and 69 into subsection (5), which states that children should not be taught in set time periods or to timetables. I welcome that and I hope I have completed what I should have said earlier.