Watching your children at play is one of life's simplest pleasures.  Especially when they are wee.

It's seeing them learn through play which is so fascinating. I can recall many instances of watching my toddler sons trying to do something but not quite getting it.

You know the kind of thing – trying to move water into a bucket using a pot with holes in it, or to make a triangular block go through a smaller, circular hole.  How long would they continue to do the same thing before they would realise that it wasn't going to work and that they would need to try something else?

Many years on, thinking of the look on their faces when they had those eureka moments can still bring tears to my eyes.

But it seems that we lose this ability to change course and try something different as we get older. We get less flexible and amenable to change and to innovation – even when it is necessary to benefit our children.

A recent Scottish Government study suggests that our children’s numeracy skills are okay but not great. As they get older, their skills appear to decline, in terms of age-related attainment.

And - no shock here - children from the most deprived backgrounds are already under-performing their less deprived peers by the age of eight. That gap widens considerably by the time they are 13.

Some have queried if it matters. The kind of maths skills we place great store on at school rarely seem to feature in our everyday adult world.

But this ignores reality. Many numerical concepts and approaches are so subtly interwoven into everyday existence and activity as to be almost invisible. Problem-solving, risk assessment; estimating distance, speed and time; analysing data and information; working out your finances – all of these require knowledge, skills and confidence acquired in childhood.

Moreover, we are not producing nearly enough maths, computing and engineering graduates for the jobs of the future. Decades ago, Finland cottoned on to the fact that the future success of its economy depended on knowledge and set about ensuring that its society was geared up as a knowledge one as well.

Since the dawn of devolution, we have looked at Finland in admiration and pondered how to emulate its focus. But in truth, we have played around at the margins and failed to take the big decisions and introduce the systemic change required to match Finland's success.

The key was a revolution in educational policy and practice and the results are plain to see.  Educational attainment in Finland is of world class standards and far outstrips what is being achieved here in Scotland.

It starts at the very earliest ages – or rather doesn't. Formal education in Finland does not begin until children are six or seven. Until then, they attend kindergarten and learn through play.  Children are not made to learn their alphabet, nor write letters, nor shape numbers, nor read words.

Each child goes at his or her own pace – those who show a keen interest in progressing to such learning are encouraged. But essentially each and every child learns basic literacy and numeracy from the world around them. When they finally sit down to "learn" to read, write and count, they already have and do not need to be "taught" how to.

The Scottish Book Trust called last week for Scotland to copy Finland and push back teaching children to read until they are at least six. In an excellent article in the Sunday Herald (read here) the trust's Director Marc Lambert, laid out the reasons why. They make perfect sense to me but the evidence of poor literacy and numeracy skills – which are getting worse – also makes the case for a radical shift.

Yet, the need for change is sniffed at by many. Like toddlers, they are determined to ram the square block into the cylindrical hole. Sadly, they refuse to accept that it just won't go.

Until they do, generations of Scottish children will continue to fail, or at least, go without fulfilling their potential. And the desire to create a knowledge society and economy will remain little more than a wistful dream.