The government’s target for 75 per cent of children to be school-ready by 2028 is “risky”, an expert has told MPs.
The Commons Education Select Committee was also told today of a potential danger that children on the brink of meeting the target will be pushed, but that those nowhere near it will be “neglected”.
The government’s early years strategy is moving “in a direction where it’s supporting more advantaged children at the moment,” Dr Tammy Campbell, co-director for early years, inequalities and wellbeing at the Education Policy Institute, said during the committee’s evidence session on how the government can improve support for families in the early years.
The government last year set a target for 75 per cent of children to be school-ready (otherwise known as reaching a “good level of development”) by 2028. Committee chair Helen Hayes asked the expert panel how useful school readiness is as a measure of child development in the early years.
Assessing school-readiness
Professor Eva Lloyd, emeritus professor of early childhood at the University of East London, said: “It is a risky target, because it’s the only target, and there are many issues around measuring this development.”
She said there is a risk of bias in the assessment of school-readiness, and that the majority of children who do not reach the “good level of development” are those experiencing some aspect of disadvantage, and these children could be left behind.
Dr Campbell added that there is a “real danger that, because we’ve got this one single, top-line target, the marginal children will be pushed - the ones who can sort of just make it - and then other children will be neglected, because that’s how targets work”.
The “good level of development” measure is a “blunt tool”, said Lydia Hodges, head of Coram Family and Childcare, and does not leave any “nuance for progress”, particularly regarding children born in the summer or with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).
In the latest figures published by the Department for Education, 67.7 per cent of children at the end of the early years foundation stage were judged to have a good level of development in 2023-24.
The government has been focusing on investment in the early years as part of its . It has distributed £12 million across 65 local areas to build Best Start family hubs, which will offer support and services for parents and children.
Disadvantaged children at risk of missing out
In September it also rolled out 30 hours of funded childcare a week to eligible working parents for children older than nine months, and has announced another round of funding for schools to create or expand nurseries.
However, the sector has warned that disadvantaged children are at risk of missing out if their parents do not work or do not earn enough to be eligible for government-funded childcare.
Dr Campbell was asked at the committee session whether the government’s early years strategy addresses divides for groups of children who tend to fall behind. She said that it does not address “the lack of parity in terms of access to early education and care” for different income backgrounds.
“I mean, it’s directly moving in a direction where it’s supporting more advantaged children at the moment,” she added.
Ms Hodges said that the system “is actually making childcare cheaper for a lot of mums and dads who are already in work, rather than perhaps other families [trying to get] into work”.
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