More five-year-olds achieve good level of development
Jess Brown
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
More five-year-olds are reaching expected levels of development than ever before, the Department for Education (DfE) has said.
The number of children who achieved a good level of development has increased by 5.9 percentage points over the last year.
A DfE report on early years foundation stage profile results shows that this year 66.3 per cent of children achieved a good level of development by the end of reception compared with 60.4 per cent in 2014.
The early years foundation stage profile was introduced in September 2012, and is based on teacher observations throughout the year.
Children are judged to have reached a "good" level if they hit expectations in terms of communication and language, personal, social and emotional development, literacy, and mathematics.
Despite improvements, concerns have been raised around the gap in attainment between girls and boys.
The proportion of girls achieving a good level of development was 15.6 percentage points higher than boys in 2015. The gender gap had been 16.3 percentage points in 2014.
“Girls continue to perform better than boys in all key measures,” the report states.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said that while it is good to see the gender gap narrowing, the difference in outcomes remains significant.
"There is more work to be done to tackle this trend," he said.
"At a time when so much focus is on the delivery of ‘childcare’, these results are a timely reminder of the importance of early education, and the provision of quality learning opportunities that support young children."
Imelda Redmond, chief executive of 4Children said she is concerned that the gap between the results of the lowest performing and overall average results is "worryingly wide".
The statistics show that the gap between all children and the lowest 20 per cent of attaining children has decreased from 33.9 percentage points in 2014 to 32.1 per cent in 2015.
“If we are serious about improving social mobility it is vital that we tackle the attainment gap as early as possible in a child’s life,” she said.
Childcare minister Sam Gyimah said: “It is great news that more children than ever before are achieving the expected level of development in the early years, because parents should be confident that while their children are out of their care, they’re not only happy and having fun, but at the same time developing important skills – building confidence with numbers and letters – to ensure they fulfill their potential."
