Developing independence, curiosity, and communication skills are fundamental to engender readiness for starting school, as well as navigating the challenges and complexities involved in support a child to grow.
The government are clear in their ambition to increase school readiness to a recorded high of 75% of pupils achieving a good standard of development, with 40-50,000 more children ready to start primary school every year by 2028 [1]. It is clearer, however, that more work will be required to support families in achieving this.
Family Support delivered through the current model of Family Hubs appear to be working well, with early indicators suggesting that the Hubs are not only popular with parents and carers that have access to them but have brought improved support for families in the local communities that need it most [2]. Children’s Centres have a long track record of improving outcomes for families in their local areas. Sure Start Children’s Centres, established in 1998, provided Early Years support for families, with the aims of preventing the escalation of family support needs and equalising the opportunities available to families; helping give children the best start to their education. The benefits of access to centres, such those under Sure Start, have been shown to remain with the children supported, all the way up to age 16 [3].
Early Years support is crucial in helping address the multiple and overlapping crises facing families: cost-of-living pressures, time pressures with more working parents/carers taking multiple jobs causing less time available with children, high levels of poverty, and high levels of demand on Local Authority and community services [4]. Especially, following recent reductions to the Family Hubs and Children’s Centre budgets in as many as 49% of Local authorities [5].
We know that levels of school-readiness declined during the Pandemic and are yet to recover, demonstrated in the 2023/24 EYFS return where 1 in 3 children were not school-ready at the age of 5.
School readiness, while measurable to government through the Early Years Foundation Stage assessments, is less clear to families, with schools unable to present a consistent set of expectations for parent to easily understand. From this, conflicting perceptions over the responsibility of ensuring children are school ready have arisen, with half of parents stating they viewed it as the school’s responsibility and schools seeing it as the responsibility of the child’s parents/guardians [6]. Early Years support can therefore bridge the gap and support parents/carers to understand what school-readiness can look like and offer support to enable children’s readiness for full time schooling.
Not only can the Early Years system support the children who have access to the services in their future education, but there may be wider benefits as current reports have estimated that teachers are spending an average 2.4 hours each day away from traditional teaching to meeting developmental delays [6]. Thus, it is in everyone’s interest to support families to increase school readiness and to level some of the disadvantages between children at the earliest stages in life.
Members of the charity sector came together with the Starting Reception definition, which was supported by Local Authorities, and received praise from the Secretary of State for Education as a “vital tool for parents as they navigate the myriad information out there to support their child’s early development” [7].
The government have set out the intended approach to meet the 75% school readiness target through the new Best Start centres, and locally produced Best Start local plans. The joined-up nature of Family Hubs will require co-working from central and local government alongside partners in education and health, working with local communities and families, in order to bring the large-scale improvements in the levels of school readiness. The question is are we ready to meet this challenge?
At Peopletoo we are committed to supporting LAs to help locally define school readiness and put in plans to make it real for parents / carers. If you would like more information, you can get in contact with us around how we can help.
References
[1] HMGov Plan for change – assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6751af4719e0c816d18d1df3/Plan_for_Change.pdf
[2] Centre for Social Justice – Family Hubs: an interim review – The Centre for Social Justice
[3] Institute for Fiscal Studies report – IFS Report The short- and medium-term effects of Sure Start on children’s outcomes
[4] Joeseph Rowntree Foundation- UK Poverty 2025: The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK | Joseph Rowntree Foundation
[5] Fresh Start for Children and Family Support – 67f3d073d59b04bbd92d608c_Fresh Start for Children and Family Support 07.04.pdf
[6] Kindred2 School Readiness Survey School Readiness Survey | Kindred²
[7] Bridget Philipson SoS Education quoted in: Nursery World – New ‘School Readiness’ definition developed to help reach PM’s target