Dear <<First Name>>
 Phew! March came in like a lovely bouncy little lamb for Upstart (see next item, below) but is going out like a very disgruntled lion. Round about 20-3-21 we discovered (thanks to Facebook and Twitter) that almost all Scotland’s local authorities are requiring that P1 should sit the Scottish National Standardised Assessments in literacy and numeracy. Upstart is beginning to growl.
 As we have repeatedly made clear – in blogs, documents and submissions to official bodies (those links are just samples: loads more on the website) – the P1 SNSA is at the least pointless and at the worst seriously damaging. This year, of all years, when children (and teachers) need time and support to recover from the distress and disruption of lockdown, they are a distracting waste of time and (for some children) compounding a year of serious trauma. All the government rhetoric about well-being and recovery (see 'Catching Up or Calming Down' below) is clearly just hogwash. The thing they really care about is DATA .
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AND NOW THE GOOD NEWS!
 Right, now that’s off my chest, I can be bouncy and lamblike. The month started with our tribute to Sir Ken Robinson on March 2nd which was a great success, followed by a second delightful ‘Play is the Way’ Book Group on March 9th. And - mirabile dictu - at the same time as the latter, members of the Scottish Parliament were holding a Member’s Debate about Upstart Scotland, in which MSPs from across the House declared their support for a kindergarten stage, calling for a national conversation on the subject. (I’m afraid that led to a blog asking ‘How can we have a national conversation if teachers are gagged?’ but we were nevertheless grateful for the suggestion!)
 If you’ve time to spare, I reckon all three of the recordings listed above are well worth a watch (but especially the Member’s Debate, for which we give earnest thanks to Beatrice Wishart, MSP). It led to more media coverage of our campaign, in the Scotsman, Times, Herald, Irish News and on STV, as well as a section on BBC’s Call Kaye programme, which turned out very favourable to Upstart. We even made it on to Netmums!
The Book Group also continues popular, and Brett Housego’s excellent films of Book Group 1 (Suzanne Zeedyk and Cathy McCulloch) and Book Group 2 (see above) are now available on the Play is the Way section of the website. Book Group 3 (Marguerite Hunter-Blair and Lisa McCabe) should soon be available there too. Book Group 4 (Prof John Frank and Alan Sinclair on 'Child development 0-5 and how Scotland can support it') is scheduled for 6-4-21. Tickets on Eventbrite. This discussion will include information about the right sort of P1 assessment!
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HURRAH for UNCRC Incorporation ... We Hope ...
 While rejoicing at getting a little media coverage for our own agenda, we were horrified by the media’s lack of attention to the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law.(I snapped the pic below right at the exact moment the Bill was passed!). It happened on 16th March, and there was much celebration all that week in schools, young people’s organisations and Scotland’s third sector…. but almost total silence in the national press.
 The TES marked the moment, and the National followed up with a piece at the weekend, but otherwise it was left to the Dundee Courier to explain what an important development this is for Scotland.
Then, on 25th March, came the appalling news, broken in the National, that the UK government will try to prevent the Bill becoming law. Together gives further details and the situation is yet to become clear, but I’m sure it will raise questions at Upstart’s election hustings, scheduled for April 27th (details on social media as soon as they’re available).
 In the meantime, Upstart sends huge thanks to the Together organisation, Children’s Parliament, Scotland’s CYP Commissioners through the years and the MSPs who took the Bill through Parliament. As long as the Westminster government doesn't stymie it at the last minute, incorporation of UNCRC will make Scotland one of a handful of countries worldwide that have really committed to putting children's needs at the heart of policy. And we heartily believe that, in the end, the best way to bring about lasting culture change is a change in the law. UNCRC incorporation will mean a much brighter future for Scotland’s children.
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WE NEED MORE MEMBERS! Please join – it’s free!
 Upstart has tens of thousands of supporters on social media, nearly 2000 people subscribe to this newsletter and over 3000 have bought Play is the Way ... but, at the moment, we have only 420 members! People don’t see the point of joining when our events are open to all, and we’ve never made much fuss about it.
But now we’re apparently making political progress it’s important to convince policy-makers that we have strength in depth. So please join by clicking this link, downloading and completing the application form, and sending it to our Membership Secretary. And please encourage others to do the same.
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THANK YOU!
An ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who sent donations in response to our plea for funds to pay for our Book Groups etc. We continue to be grateful to anyone who can spare a fiver (or more or less!) to help keep Upstart running. Just click here, scroll down and find the Donate button on the right-hand-side of the page.
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Catching Up or Calming Down
Last month we documented the emergence of the ‘catch up agenda’ in the UK media. We ended the month with a blog by Louise Livingstone of the Montessori Institute, which argued passionately against the catch-up mentality. On March 4th, the Guardian took up the baton with a piece from psychologist John McMullen, in which he said: Yes, our children are resilient. But let’s not test that resilience artificially because we feel trapped in system fixated on only valuing what can be measured.’
 Since then, we’ve heard from Starcatchers on creativity in Product Magazine, the Scotsman on taking learning outdoors, the Herald on the possibility of a ‘lost generation’ and the Edinburgh Evening News saying ‘don’t bother about uniforms’. There was a wonderful piece by psychologist Martyn McGlaughlan in the Scotsman and Dr Michael Grigson of Inverness Academy argued in the Herald that children, not careerists must come first in Scottish education, while John White in the West Highland Free Press urged that ‘when schools reopen we should remember that school is not all about the classroom’. The former Children's Commissioner for England sent a letter to the Guardian about a 'health manifesto for 'investing in children', Children in Scotland launched a well-being budget for children and Education Scotland organised a brilliant Public Health Blether for early years.
So there’s no shortage of advice against the catch-up agenda and in favour of prioritising well-being. Indeed, many comments by Ministers in the Scottish Parliament and the press suggest that children’s well-being and mental health is a top priority. So how come an anonymous teacher recently sent us this message?
Why can't the government understand that they can't have it both ways? Teachers can't prioritise well-being and mental health for five-year-olds, while urging them to attain, achieve, fill in gaps and assessing them against age-related standards which, for many children (if not most) children of this age are completely impossible. In the same way, teachers can't apply genuine principled play-based pedagogy, while also teaching specific literacy and numeracy skills (linked to highly aspirational 'benchmarks') to children who aren't developmentally 'ready'. The two types of practice are incompatible – indeed, mutually exclusive. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
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 THE SILENCE OF THE EXPERTS
Part of the frustration behind that grrrrowl was because there's gagging clause that prevents teachers from speaking up on the P1 tests. This was the subject of a blog we published on 13th March which drew quite a bit of attention on Twitter. Mind you, even when the government gives teachers the opportunity to express their views anonymously, they ignore them. For the 'Independent' review of the P1 tests in 2019, P1 teachers were invited to give their opinions on questionnaires. Only 3% were enthusiastic about the SNSA, 66% were critical and the rest were non-committal. Did you ever hear about it?
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We need to go upstream!
Two articles in the Scotsman on 24th March reminded us that problems with mental health and additional support needs haven’t gone away. And, sadly, it seems things will only get worse as a result of the pandemic. So it’s never been more important to ‘go upstream’ and try to stop (or at least ameliorate) problems before they get out of hand.
 We just read a piece from February 2020 by the wonderful Peter Gray (thanks, Loreen, for alerting us!) about the HeadStart project in the USA. It was started in the 1960s to help narrow the poverty gap and was successful for a while but, as the years went by, became less so. Gray concludes that Headstart’s emphasis gradually changed from ‘care’ to ‘education’. I bet the simultaneous decline of outdoor play contributed too (and am sure Peter Gray would agree – if you haven’t already watched this terrific interview from Stramash, please do).
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A DAY OF PLAY!
Just as we were putting this edition of the newsletter to bed, Upstart received a tweet from Corstorphine Primary School, Edinburgh, asking other Edinburgh schools to join them on 24th May 2021 for A Day of Play to celebrate Outdoor Play Day. We think its a brilliant idea. How about schools in other local authorities helping turn 24th May into a Scottish Day of Play?
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Election 2021 - THEY'RE OFF!
 Electioneering for May's Scottish Parliamentary elections began on Monday 29th March with a great Zoom hustings meeting from Children in Scotland - hustings work really well on Zoom!. This is the first ever Scottish election in which a kindergarten stage for children between three and seven features in two manifestos, the Scottish Greens and the Scottish Liberal Democrats. We hope all the other parties will soon follow suit.
Upstart will be holding our own Zoom hustings on Saturday 24th April at 10 a.m. with Neil Gray (Scottish National Party), Jamie Greene (Scottish Conservatives), Daniel Johnston (Scottish Labour), Beatrice Wishart (Scottish Liberal Democrats) and Ross Greer (Scottish Greens). Invtiation will be on Eventbrite asap and we hope everyone will come along and ask questions.
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NEWS, VIEWS AND RESOURCES
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QUOTE OF THE MONTH
Anyone who follows Upstart's Twitterfeed will be familiar with the amazing Mrs D (@BryonyDate) who has an astonishing fund of quotes about children and learning, and passes them on with her own delightful illustrations. I hope she's keeping a file of them because some publisher somewhere would surely love to put them in a book.
Spring is just around the corner everyone - enjoy the sunshine!
Onwards and upwards,
The Upstart team
Upstart Scotland is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SC047775).
Its principal contact address is The Old Police Station, Isleornsay, Isle of Skye IV43 8QR.
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I recently discovered a super intergenerational organisation (grandparents/children) called 
Rather bewildering 
