Report highlights social deficiencies of reception children

Research by the think tank found examples of four-year-olds starting school behind their peers in terms of their social and communication skills.

Its report, Requires Improvement, found teachers are struggling to help these children catch up.

Sir Robin Bosher, director of primary education of the Harris Federation of Academies and chair of a group of educationalists that drafted the report, said: “I see about 10 per cent in each class who are so unsociable that they hurt others, adults and other young children. But they’re unsociable because they’ve no practice at being sociable.”

The report found that by the end of the reception year, six per cent of boys do not know that print is read from left to right and from top to bottom. One in 33 children were unable to recognise familiar works and 12 per cent were unable to write their own name.

Its findings reiterate the CSJ's long-standing calls for earlier intervention to support disadvantaged families.

The report says: “Education must be seen as something that starts long before primary school.”

The think tank's findings echo concerns raised last year by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers that an increasing number of children were starting primary school without being toilet-trained.

Its survey found that 62 per cent of primary school staff had noticed an increase in incidents of children wetting or soiling themselves between 2007 and 2012. The main reason given by staff was that parents were not toilet training children before they started school.