Nursery World - Computers and road safety high in child profile

A majority of children in the UK have access to a home computer, spend an average of 12.30 a week and walk to school, according to a statistical picture of children drawn by a report from the Office for National Statistics. The report, Social Focus in Brief: Children 2002, published last week, looks at recent trends in the four key areas of social circumstances, education, health and lifestyle. It found that there were 12.1 million children aged under 16 in the UK in 2000 - 6.2 million boys and 5.9 million girls. About one in five (20 per cent) children in Britain lived in lone parent families in 2001, compared with 12 per cent 20 years earlier.

The report, Social Focus in Brief: Children 2002, published last week, looks at recent trends in the four key areas of social circumstances, education, health and lifestyle. It found that there were 12.1 million children aged under 16 in the UK in 2000 - 6.2 million boys and 5.9 million girls. About one in five (20 per cent) children in Britain lived in lone parent families in 2001, compared with 12 per cent 20 years earlier.

The data for education show that the number of three-and four-year-olds attending schools in the UK has tripled in the 30 years to 2001-02. In England in 2001 the proportion of children reaching the required standard in each core subject of the National Curriculum was generally lower in older age groups. At Key Stage 1, 87 per cent of boys and 90 per cent of girls reached the expected standard in mathematics, compared with 67 and 70 per cent respectively at Key Stage 3.

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