Half of all children were not ready to start school in 2021, according to this research carried out by YouGov of almost a thousand primary school teachers and staff, in partnership with early years foundation, Kindred2.
According to researchers, the majority of new pupils were developmentally very far behind expectations for their age - for instance, not toilet trained, struggling to socialise with other children, express themselves or understand basic instructions.
88% of primary school teachers and teaching assistants reported having to spend additional time with those not achieving their developmental milestones, with the result that they have less time for the rest of the children in their class.
This has huge implications for the children concerned – behind and playing catch up from the very first day of school - and for the country; research demonstrating the social cost of failure to intervene early enough is over £16bn per year.
Research shows that 40% of the attainment gap evident in GCSE outcomes at 16 are established by the time children go to school. Starting school behind their peers has a huge impact on the life chances of the children, their school peers, teachers and the wider economy: developmental progress at 22 months serves as an accurate predictor of educational attainment at 26. We know that if children are behind at age 5 in their vocabulary, they are 4 times more likely to have reading difficulties, 3 times more likely to have mental health problems and twice as likely to be unemployed as an adult.