THIS is not an outbreak of SNP Bad. Nor is it a concerted campaign to gub at the Scottish Government over a child-related policy while it’s reeling over the Named Person row. But if Education Secretary John Swinney doesn’t use his common sense and considerable clout to scrap the idea of standardised assessments for primary one children, the opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament should combine to scrap it for him. Every political party in Holyrood opposes the primary one tests – even the Tories and so does the EIS teachers’ union.

Why such fuss over a teensy weensy assessment that isn’t even a formal test? Simply put, because it’s the thin end of a wedge that’s turning the first years of primary school into a force-fed, rules-oriented, formal learning environment where teachers are nervous about play, art and creativity. And that’s precisely the opposite of what every party says it wants for Scotland’s kids.

No matter how much well-meaning politicians insist publishing each school’s “level” of pupil competence won’t create school league tables, it will. No matter how much politicians insist there will be no “teaching to the test”, the use of a formal assessment tool will inevitably heighten anxiety among parents and teachers, and create irresistible pressure to force yet more of the three Rs into children deemed deficient at the age of four – children so young that few have the biological capacity to even sit still, let alone read or add up.

That’s why this is a make or break moment for Scottish education. Our schools can finally walk away from the neurotic “testing to destruction” outlook of the British model and move towards the evidence-driven outlook that’s produced better results and happier children across mainland Europe. It’s decision time. Are we really putting play, storytelling, rhyming, singing and outdoor learning at the heart of early years or falling back on reading, writing and arithmetic – prematurely applied and backed up by formal tests?

It’s a scary choice for Government and opposition politicians, I know. Almost every child expert agrees too much formal learning pummelled into young children is not just pointless but counter-productive as many struggle to adapt to a non-playful classroom regime. But it’s what we are all used to. Britain’s historic contempt for learning through play has helped justify our woeful childcare provision. It’s also churned out generations of parents with one overwhelming concern governing their child’s early years – can he or she read yet?

Never mind that across Europe, the vast majority of children don’t start school or learn to read until six or seven, but tend to catch up and pass their early starting peers in their early teens and generally become more confident readers. Instead, they spend the primary one and two years at kindergarten – gaining confidence, acquiring vocabulary, learning about weight, size and numbers by application to real life and learning crucial soft skills through play. All without the stress created by immersion in more formal learning environments.

Never mind that biological research suggests most children don’t develop the ability to focus their attention until the age of seven, and will simply fidget or panic in classrooms before that age. Never mind all of that – because ours is not a “less is more” culture. Not in food, drink or stuffing information into children. The earlier you start and the more facts and figures drummed in, the more capable, bright and knowledgeable children will be. So kids must be sized up before they begin and then assessed again in primary seven to see what’s happened. It’s all wrong. But even though most adult Scots intuitively understand the importance of play, it’s still seen as an add-on luxury, not the essential medium through which real early learning occurs. So politicians are too scared to grasp the thistle, create a state-supported, play-based system for the early years and delay the age children start school. All because of an enduring and unexamined callousness towards children in Scottish culture and a fear about the likely backlash from parents if any government seems to be “backsliding” in the single-minded pursuit of educational standards.

AT yesterday’s education summit, John Swinney said he wanted to ensure “every child, no matter their background, has the same chance in life”. But that’s impossible – no matter how many special funds are created – until Scotland tackles poverty as problem number one and embraces creative learning for young children as priority number two.

After all, educational attainment is only slightly related to the performance of individual pupils, schools and teachers – but inextricably linked to family income and positive social background. That’s why state schools in wealthy suburbs outperform even expensive private schools and wealthy children in large classes do better than poor kids in small ones.

There is only so much schools can do to equalise life chances when society won’t act to equalise incomes and invest massively in pre-school care – proven to produce better educational and social outcomes over a child’s entire life.

Of course the SNP promised free kindergarten if Scots opted for independence so that economic returns would reach Scottish coffers, not the London Treasury. Sure, that would have been ideal. But here we are in devolved reality with just as urgent a need to turn our social priorities around.

Childcare in most Nordic countries isn’t free but it’s truly affordable – a maximum of £200 per month in Norway and free for the poorest. And close attention in kindergarten allows trained staff to pick up problems with speech and communication – the most reliable and earliest indication of a child with learning problems. Waiting to test in schools is both too late and too formal. The rewards are seen in Pisa tables, which compare educational attainment, and Finland, not Scotland, is regularly at the top.

So what are the Finns doing right? Like their Nordic neighbours, they have genuinely affordable, high-quality kindergarten between the ages of one to seven.

That means Finnish children spend a lot of time learning the soft skills of language, co-operation, problem-solving and teamwork through engaged play, and primary school is not just glorified childcare. Kids there start school able to speak fluently and confidently in their own language and ready to hit the ground running in formal education.

Finns try to avoid externally assessed examinations and keep children in the same school from seven until 14, avoiding the upsetting move that occurs here at the age of 11. They also have smaller schools and smaller class sizes because they’ve found students who are weaker academically flourish in more familiar spaces.

Only three per cent of schools in Finland have more than 600 students, 95 per cent of Finnish kids go to state schools and, of course, Finnish society has nothing like the damaging income polarity of Scotland, which destroys all chance of a supportive home learning environment for many poor children.

But of course, even if schools can only apply sticking plaster, they can do that badly or well.

According to an OECD report in 2007, Scottish schools are: “Not strong enough to counter the negative effects of low social status on education or attainment.”

It said other countries were far better at ensuring children from disadvantaged backgrounds reached their potential. And that’s doubly damning. Scotland has been riven with inequality since industrialisation, so we should be past masters at targeting compensatory resources on predictable problem areas. We are not.

A different outlook is needed to replace the stale, old, measurement-dominated approach that’s governed the early years of Scottish education for so long. Child education expert Sue Palmer sums up that new outlook well: “It’s a biological necessity to have a childhood, not just something nice.”

Why don’t we shape our education around this reality – instead of bending kids out of shape around an old-fashioned and outdated preoccupation with testing?

Sue Palmer’s latest book, Upstart, is published today by Floris.