Survey finds ‘alarming disconnect’ over school readiness
Teachers feel that a third of pupils are not ‘school ready’ when they start Reception, with an ‘alarming disconnect’ emerging between parents and teachers as to what constitutes school readiness. The finding comes from the annual School Readiness Survey (SRS), now in its fifth year, conducted by the charity Kindred². The SRS assesses the school readiness of children and their access to education in reception, where no SEND conditions have been diagnosed. Kindred² conducted focus groups and surveys with more than 1000 teachers and 1000 parents of Reception children across England and Wales to understand what school readiness looked like in the September 2024 Reception cohort. (This fieldwork took place in October and November last year.)
They found that while 90 per cent of parents felt their child was school ready, teachers said that 33 per cent of children were not. Teachers reported that 36 per cent of children struggled to play/share with other children, 34 per cent didn’t know how to listen or respond to simple instructions, while a quarter were not toilet trained. Nearly half of teachers (49 per cent) felt that the problem of children not being ‘school ready’ had got worse compared to September 2023, with a further 33 per cent saying it was about the same. (For comparison, in the survey for 2023, 91 per cent of parents said their child was school ready while teachers said 35 per cent of children were not).
Teachers feel that this lack of school readiness is having a significant impact – on average they said that 2.4 hours of teacher time was being lost every day dealing with issues arising from a lack of school readiness. One Reception teacher quoted in the report said: ‘A significant portion of my teaching this year has been spent supporting children who aren’t school ready.’
However, 41 per cent of parents hadn’t heard about the concept of school readiness before their child joined Reception in 2024, while more than a fifth (21 per cent) still hadn’t heard of school readiness before taking the Kindred² survey. In terms of parental expectations, fewer than half (44 per cent) of parents said they thought children starting school should know how to use books correctly (turning the pages rather than swiping or tapping as if using an electronic device). Meanwhile three quarters (76 per cent) felt children should be fully toilet trained before Reception.
There was a feeling among just less than half (48 per cent) of teachers that parents were not receiving the right information to help them ensure their children were ‘school ready’. Perhaps backing up this perception, more than a fifth (21 per cent) of parents said they’d had no visits at all from health visitors by the time their child started Reception.
Both parents and teachers pointed to screen time as potentially contributing to a lack of school readiness. 54 per cent of teachers and 43 per cent parents highlighted children spending too much time on electronic devices as a factor, while 54 per cent of teachers and 49 per cent of parents said that a contributing factor was parents spending more time on electronic devices than with their children.
Commenting on the findings Tiffnie Harris, a primary specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: ‘This study finds an alarming disconnect between some parents and schools about what school readiness actually means. What we suspect lies behind this finding is that many families are themselves struggling with a range of economic and social pressures and there is a dearth of support for them.’
The early education minister, Stephen Morgan, said: ‘Children arriving at school not ready for the classroom takes teachers’ focus away from doing what they do best, which is why we have already started work to extend early language support, deliver thousands of school-based nurseries, and strengthen and join up family services through continued investment in the family hubs and start for life programmes.’
Full report: https://tinyurl.com/m8wkxnj4