New discourses of ‘school readiness’ are apparent in an increasing range of early intervention policies. Critics argue that rather than focusing upon the richness of children’s early learning such policies tend to focus upon deficit parenting (Whitbread & Bingham, 2012). This paper critically examines the impact of the ‘school readiness’ discourse upon early years pedagogy suggesting that any such relationship between the early years and compulsory schooling needs to be understood within a wider historical and political context. It is argued that the school readiness discourse focuses upon predetermined performance criteria thus affecting pedagogy (Moss, 2013). In a similar way, the normativity and performativity of schools’ ‘standards agendas’ impact upon practitioners’ interpretations of what counts as children’s play so that interventions become directed to meeting adult-imposed targets (Rogers, 2010). Performativity is used as the main theoretical framing for the paper as a construct to critically evaluate current conceptions of school readiness. The paper addresses the following key questions: How has the concept of ‘school readiness’ been discursively produced? What, if any, are the impacts of this discourse upon early years pedagogy and in particular upon approaches to play?