A group of academics and authors has written to the Telegraph to criticise the "schoolification" of early childhood, suggesting instead there should be more focus on imagination, play and physical development.

One of the signatories, Sue Palmer, who wrote Toxic Childhood, explains that there is a "pressing down" of a "mechanical target-driven" model of education on very young children before school age.

It is "upsetting", she says, that there is such an emphasis on teaching children to write before the age of five. The "schoolification" of young children is "counterproductive", she adds.

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