Let them play: Why Scotland needs a kindergarten stage
Scotland prides itself on being the clever country - yet we send children to school at one of the youngest ages in the world. While Nordic nations let play shape the early years, we hand out worksheets and iPads. It’s time to ask whether rushing childhood is costing us resilience, wellbeing and learning itself.
When did we decide that the best way to treat children was to treat them like failed adults?
It’s a question that nags at me whenever I see a four-year-old hunched over a worksheet, or a five-year-old being tested on phonics as though they’re sitting their theory test. In Scotland, we like to think of ourselves as progressive on education – after all, university is free, we pride ourselves on Enlightenment thinkers, and we’ll happily toast ourselves for being ‘the clever country’. But we start formal schooling at four or five – one of the youngest in the world. And it shows.
Because here’s the truth: we have substituted a play-based childhood for a phone-based one, and then we wonder why our kids can’t concentrate.
From the moment a baby locks eyes with you and sticks out their tongue in mimicry – yes, that’s play – they are learning the rules of the world. Play isn’t about the absence of learning; it is learning. It builds muscles, social skills, resilience, imagination, and the priceless ability to manage risk. A child who climbs a tree and falls learns not just gravity, but recovery.
But in Britain, we have decided to accelerate everything. Push literacy earlier. Push numeracy earlier. Push responsibility onto parents earlier. And when children inevitably struggle, we push diagnoses earlier too. Childhood has become a treadmill we set in motion before kids can even tie their own shoelaces.
Meanwhile, countries like Finland, Sweden, Canada, Estonia and the Netherlands all delay formal schooling until six or seven. Their children spend those early years in kindergarten: playing, eating together, exploring outdoors, making sense of themselves and others. And wouldn’t you know it? They outperform us academically later on. They’re calmer, more resilient, and they rank consistently higher on measures of child wellbeing.
Scotland, by contrast, has imported a Victorian model designed less for children’s development and more for producing compliant workers on industrial schedules. The empire needed clerks, not curious minds. We never let go of that.
It’s not just abstract theory. Neuroscience tells us that the brain develops in stages. The frontal cortex – the bit that regulates attention, impulse and planning – matures much later than age five. Pushing formal schooling too early is like demanding a sapling hold up a roof. It doesn’t make the tree grow straighter; it just snaps the trunk.
That’s why so many teachers report an epidemic of poor focus, anxiety, and low resilience. They’re not imagining it. Sue Palmer, former headteacher and founder of the Upstart movement, calls it ‘toxic childhood’ – a perfect storm of early pressure, digital overload, and consumerist culture. Instead of building resilience through play, children are marinated in stress, screens, and constant comparison.
The American Academy of Paediatrics once recommended no screens before age two. In Britain, many toddlers have their own iPads. We have normalised giving a child a glowing rectangle to pacify them instead of letting them be bored, invent, explore, and – heaven forbid – make noise.
We are raising children who can swipe before they can climb, who can scroll before they can share in play.
Palmer makes another sharp point. For generations, child-rearing knowledge was passed down through families – mothers, grandmothers and communities. That ‘women’s wisdom’ has been eroded by work patterns, social atomisation, and consumer culture. Parenting has been professionalised, commodified, and judged. You’re no longer simply raising a child; you’re ‘parenting’ like it’s a lifestyle brand.
And when families are squeezed by austerity, housing insecurity, and precarious jobs, the easiest childcare is a screen. The cheapest food is processed. The safest choice is to keep them indoors. Childhood shrinks, and stress swells.
When researchers ask why Dutch children are the happiest in the world, the answers aren’t mysterious: less pressure, more independence, more outdoor play, more trust. In Finland, primary school kids eat fresh meals around tables with flowers on them, learning conversation as much as arithmetic. In Ireland, an early-years programme focuses on oral and practical learning until age six, and wellbeing has soared. Estonia – once near the bottom in child wellbeing rankings – overhauled its early years by borrowing Finland’s play-based methods. Within fifteen years, it rocketed to the top.
“We are raising children who can swipe before they can climb, who can scroll before they can share in play.”
Meanwhile, Britain clings to its stopwatch schooling. We boast about getting children into classrooms earlier, as though the act of sitting at a desk is the definition of progress. We’re complacent about childhood, as if muddling through is good enough. We mistake inertia for wisdom, and neglect for tradition.
All of this would be academic if it weren’t so urgent. Because right now, our children are suffering. Rates of childhood anxiety, depression, and eating disorders are rising. Teachers report a collapse in focus and resilience. Employers complain about young people who struggle to adapt, communicate, or cope. And politicians, baffled, wonder why a generation raised on stress and screens is not thriving.
Well, here’s a clue: if you turn childhood into an exam hall, don’t be surprised when adulthood feels like detention.
We can do better. And we don’t need to invent a new model – we just need to look north. Scotland has long envied Nordic social models when it comes to healthcare and welfare. Why not education too?
That’s what the Upstart movement has been arguing for: a kindergarten stage in Scotland, from ages three to seven, based on play, outdoor activity, social learning, and healthy food. Not chaos, not neglect – structured freedom. A culture that respects childhood as its own stage of life, not just a waiting room for adulthood.
Palmer likes to say: get it right in the first seven years, and then cross your fingers. And she’s right. Early years are the foundation of everything: resilience, empathy, imagination, even democracy. If we hollow them out with pressure and screens, we shouldn’t be surprised when what follows is brittle.
So why the resistance? Why, when Scotland funds universities, bans smoking in pubs, and passes climate laws, can we not imagine letting five-year-olds play? Beneath it all is cynicism – the suspicion that even if we wanted to change, government would bungle it. That’s not a reason to give up. It’s a reason to demand they do better.
Partly it’s cultural hubris – the old imperial conviction that ‘we know best’. Partly, it’s political cowardice: short-term targets are easier to sell than long-term investments. And partly it’s because play looks unserious, while worksheets look like work. But play builds better brains than worksheets do in those early years.
And yes, sceptics will ask: ‘But what about safety? What about standards? What about cost?’ Here’s the thing: rough play doesn’t mean reckless play. A child who climbs a tree under watchful eyes learns judgment, not recklessness. Standards don’t disappear; they arrive later, when brains are ready to meet them. And cost? Well, how much do we already pay in lost potential, in mental health crises, in remedial education for children burnt out before they’re ten?
If you want a nation that thrives, start with its children. Not by drilling them into mini-adults, but by letting them be children. Because the irony is this: if you want kids to succeed in exams, in jobs, in life – you delay the pressure. You give them play. You give them time.
And that’s what every country ahead of us has learned. That’s what Upstart is campaigning for. And that’s what Scotland, if it really is the clever country, should be brave enough to do.
We don’t need to raise school-ready children. We need to raise life-ready ones.
