ABSTRACT
The importance placed on academic achievement clearly underpins current policy and the research agenda that is reflected in conference themes and newspaper headlines. ‘Under5s prove to have the write stuff’ was the headline of a report in the Times Educational Supplement in 1999 reporting that ‘The number of four-year-olds able to write their names when they start school doubled between 1997 and 1998’ (Cassidy 1999). ‘A Curriculum for Babies’ was a conference theme (RNIB 2000) and a satirical cartoon even appeared in the Times Educational Supplement (2000) showing a nurse/doctor handing the new-born baby over to the mother saying ‘Congratulations… It’s an accountant.’
