As part of Labour’s ‘opportunity mission’ to give children ‘the best start in life’, Sir Keir Starmer unveiled in December that he wants to see three in four Reception children at a ‘good’ level of development by 2028.
But the early years charity’s annual school readiness report paints a bleak picture of today’s Reception classrooms, where teachers are losing an average of 2.4 hours of teaching time a day as they deal with children’s delayed development.
Forty nine percent of the 1,000 teachers who responded to the survey said that the school readiness problem is ‘getting worse’ and that one in three children are ‘not ready for school’.
The ‘covid-baby’ explanation is ‘becoming an excuse’, reported some teachers from the focus groups. ‘There’s only so long you can blame Covid for that. I’m sorry, but a lot of it comes down to parenting as well,’ explained one senior leader from the East Midlands.
The report highlighted the confusion among parents around what 'being ready' for school means and whose job it is to ensure that children develop the skills they need.
Fewer than half (44 percent) of the 1,000 parents who responded to the survey believe that children should know how to use books – turning the pages rather than swiping or tapping as if it is an electronic device. And only three in four parents (76 per cent) think that children should be toilet trained before starting Reception.
Below are some of the other key findings from the report:
- Toilet training: teachers say a quarter (25 per cent) of children are not toilet trained. But almost half of parents (48 per cent) are not concerned if teachers are spending time on toilet training instead of teaching. A teaching assistant from the north-west said, ‘So much of my day was just spent cleaning up or prompting that child to go to the toilet...And that lost time I could be giving to the other 20 children in the class. It has a negative impact on the rest of the children there.’
- Delays in basic skills: teachers say that over a third (36 per cent) of the class struggle to play/share with other children. A deputy headteacher from the north-west reported an increase in ‘delayed walkers’ with ‘clumsy movements, dropping things, unable to climb a staircase’.
- Communication and language deficits: One in three children (34 per cent) don’t know how to listen or respond to simple instructions. A headteacher from the north-west said that some ‘do not have the ability to communicate their wants, needs, or emotions, leading to challenges in addressing their needs’. Another teacher voiced concerns about children ‘using Americanisms and ‘trash’ language picked up from online content, suggesting a lack of social interaction and engagement with language in real-world settings’.
- Excessive screentime: around half of teachers (54 per cent) and parents (49 per cent) cited excessive screentime as a reason for why children are not school ready. A Reception teacher from the North-West described a case where a child lacked core strength due to spending excessive time on an iPad, impacting their overall development. Another teacher noted children’s limited attention spans. One headteacher observed that children ‘seemed to have never been expected to attend to anything apart from maybe a device or a TV’.
The survey found that 41 percent of parents had not heard about school readiness before their child joined Reception. This lack of knowledge may go some way towards explaining why 90 percent of parents believe their child is ready for school.
But ‘information alone can't be the problem,’ researchers at Kindred Squared conclude. Felicity Gillespie, director of the charity, said, ‘Too many parents are failing to support the development of their children, in spite of – we know – having their best interests at heart.
‘We need to destigmatise how we talk about parenting in these critical years of development and as a nation begin to grasp that we're all learners from birth, and that these early years have a massive impact on all our futures. The role of parents and carers as their child's first educator really is crucial to their later life chances and the success of our society and economy. Our latest annual report highlights that the problems are both significant and stubborn.’
