UNPREPARED CHILDHOODS

Some children are starting reception school “unable to climb a staircase”, while others use Americanisms in their speech because of too much screen time

For the past five years, childhood development charity, Kindred², has conducted an annual survey of thousands of teachers and parents to source evidence of the proportion of children that are considered ‘school ready’. The data is then compared to the perceptions of parents.

Lacking basic skills

Kindred²’s latest annual school readiness report was conducted using focus groups and surveyed more than 1,000 teachers and 1,000 parents of Reception children across England and Wales in the September 2024 Reception cohort. The results highlight the scale of the school readiness challenge.

According to the report, teachers report that more than a third (36%) of children struggle to play with other children, while a similar proportion (34%) don’t know how to listen or respond to simple instruction and one in four (25%) are not toilet trained.

Worryingly, the report shows that children are becoming increasingly sedentary and lacking elementary physical skills. Among the comments from teachers included in the report is one from a deputy headteacher in the North West of England: “We’ve had a lot of delayed walkers. Their movements are quite clumsy, dropping things, unable to climb a staircase.”

Another comment, from a reception teacher, reads: “I’ve got 2 children [in my class] who physically cannot sit on the carpet. They don’t have core strength. And when I went to visit one of the girls in July, she’d never been to a nursery, she’d been sat in a corner sofa on an iPad so she hasn’t developed her core strength and it’s really affecting her whole development.”

She’d never been to a nursery, she’d been sat in a corner sofa on an iPad so she hasn’t developed her core strength

Perception vs. reality

There is a huge gap between parent and teacher perceptions of how ready children are for school. Nearly all (90%) parents believe their child is ready for school. However, teachers report that a third (33%) of children who started Reception in 2024 were not school ready. This is the same number who fail to achieve a Good Level of Development each year, indicating that the Reception year is not closing the development gap.

This mirrors the report’s findings of almost half (49%) of teachers saying that the level of school readiness is worse than the previous year, while a further third (33%) say the situation is about the same. Only 18% think the school readiness is improving.

When asked for their views on why they think children aren’t ready, more than half (54%) said it is because parents are spending more time on electronic devices than with children – in other words, they are not playing with their own children.

One of the Reception teachers surveyed for the report said: “When it’s home time, you just see parents on their phone. They are just not interested. The amount of times I’ve seen children so happy and excited wanting to tell their mum and dad, ‘Look what I’ve made!’ They’re just not interested and it just makes you feel so sad for the child.”

Lack of opportunities

The fact that more than a third of children struggle to play with other children is directly related to the way opportunities for play – both at school and away from school – have been reduced in the UK over the past three decades. Data from another report – by the Raising the Nation Play Commission – shows that time spent playing outdoors has declined by 50% in a generation and fewer than three in ten children say that they play out on the street.

As the annual park budgets for England fell by more than £350 million between 2011-23, a lack of investment has also lead to the loss of hundred – possibly thousands – of playgrounds. At least 400 playgrounds closed across England alone between 2012-22, leading led to a situation where more than two million children in England up to age 9 no longer live within a 10-minute walk of a playground.

The School Readiness Report was compiled by Savanta on behalf of Kindred². To download the full report, visit: [www.kindredsquared.org.uk](http://www.kindredsquared.org.uk/)