What is school readiness and how is it measured?  

‘School readiness’ is a term used to describe how ready children are socially, physically and intellectually to start formal schooling.  Whilst an end in itself, school readiness should also be seen as a ‘way marker’ for future life chances.  It is an indicator for having had a good start in life i.e. growing up in a nurturing safe environment that enables children to survive and be physically healthy, mentally alert, emotionally secure, socially competent and able to learn.  

School readiness is measured through assessment at the end of the early years foundation stage (EYFS) and known as the EYFS profile. This assessment is based on practitioners’ observations of a child’s daily activities taking account of the perspectives of the child, parent and other adults.  It is undertaken in the last term before a child’s 5^th birthday.  

Children are defined as having reached a good level of development if they achieve at least the expected level in the early learning goals in the prime areas of learning (personal, social & emotional development; physical development; and communication & language) and the early learning goals in the specific areas of mathematics and literacy.  

Recent trends  

There has been a good rate of improvement in the proportion of children eligible for free school meals who are assessed as school ready from 32% to 57% and whilst still below the average, the gap between the overall average and those eligible for free school meals has reduced. The percentage of children eligible for free school meals achieving school readiness is now above the national average.

The journey to school readiness begins with a healthy pregnancy.  There is now overwhelming evidence that the first 1001 days (conception to age 2) are critical in determining future school readiness and that if a baby’s development falls behind in the first years of life, the child is likely to fall further behind rather than catch up with those who had a better start.

Infant mortality, low birth weight babies, smoking in pregnancy and under 18 conception rates are all indicators of healthy pregnancies and potential predictors of future life chances.  Trends in all these indicators have been improving over the long term and will be contributory factors in improving school readiness.  

Local implementation of the GM Early Years delivery model (GM EYDM) has also contributed.  The model was introduced in 2012 and is underpinned by the principles of public service reform and concepts of early assessment and identification of need, intervening assertively and using interventions that have a proven evidence base. It is specifically designed to improve outcomes for children aged 0-5 and improve school readiness.  Local implementation has been progressing steadily.  

The model includes an holistic assessment of women’s health, emotional and social needs in pregnancy; often called her booking appointment; before the end of her 12th completed week of pregnancy. Evidence shows that early, holistic assessment of a woman’s health, social and emotional needs can improve outcomes for both her and the child; late presentation to maternity services is associated with increased rates of neonatal unit admissions, perinatal morbidity, perinatal mortality and even maternal death.

As such maternity service providers target 90% of women receiving their first ‘booking’ appointment before 12 weeks plus 6 days. There are some concerns regarding late booking at maternity services for Bury women attending both Bolton Foundation Trust and Pennine Acute Trust.  This appears to be a Bury specific problem as Bolton and Salford women attending at Bolton are doing so within the target. Further work is currently being undertaken to understand the reasons behind this and what action could be taken to improve the situation.

 Implementation of the EYDM has been enabled by:

• An increase in health visitor numbers as a result of the Department of Health, Health Visitor implementation Plan 2011-2015,

• Introduction of the Family Nurse Partnership which provides intensive long term support to teenage parents,

• Children’s Centre’s provision of early interventions and training to improve parenting,

• Increasing collaboration across organisations.  

The limitations to further implementation are common across all areas of GM and are linked to IM&T challenges, Workforce transformation and financial resourcing.   

Bury’s Locality Plan includes a focus on transformation of provision to an integrated neighbourhood model incorporating universal services with holistic provision for those identified with higher needs. This is anticipated to have further  positive impact on improving outcomes for children and their families.  

Good quality early years education  

The provision of good quality early years education is also a key ingredient in helping children to become school ready.  The Early Years Foundation Stage is the national framework by which early years education is provided and quality assured.

In 2013 the EYFS model was revised and as a result temporarily impacted on delivery whilst training was undertaken.   Following the revision, workforce development was focussed on improving knowledge and skills with more emphasis on ELT Level 6 status in nurseries and High Level Teaching Assistants (HLTA).  Nationally, around a third of staff in early year’s nursery and education settings lacks Maths and English GCSE’s.  Between 2013 and 2015 there was an increase in the number / percentage of ‘Good’ and ‘Outstanding’ Early Years Provider’s in the Borough  

In 2014, phonics decoding, reading and mathematics were identified as key areas for improvement in Early Years education and Key Stage 1 in recognition of the poorer performance in Bury compared other areas across the county.  An action plan was developed and implemented.  20 schools participated in the Early Years Maths Project in 2016/17 and 33 schools participated in the Phonics Maths Project for at least 1 year between 2014 – 2017.  This has driven up performance in these areas with further improvements expected to bring Bury up to the national average in the next year.  

As at September 2017, 96% of eligible 2 year old children in Bury had taken up the Early Learning funding offer.  

In September 2016 the Government trialled increasing free childcare for 3-4 years old from 15-30 hours a week for working parents.  In September 2017 the funding was rolled out nationally and as of the end of the Autumn 2017/18 term, 75% of Bury families who applied for the funding had accessed a place. There are some concerns that the 30 hour offer may widen inequalities between children from working and non-working households.

Wider determinants  

Low household income and deprivation are key determinants of school readiness often manifested through poor language development. It has been demonstrated that children in more affluent families hear on average 30 million more words than lower income peers by age 3.  Early language skills are an early predictor of later problems as children develop.  

The proportion of children in low income households in Bury doubled from 10.5% in 2004 to 20.7% in 2012 in the aftermath of the great recession.  Due to a surge in Bury’s economic growth (in line with the UKs) which commenced in 2013, the proportion of children under 16 years living in low income households then decreased to 11% by 2016.  Nationally there are signs that the proportion of families living in poverty are on the rise again.

Adverse Childhood Events (ACE) also impact negatively on childhood development and school readiness.  The greater the exposure, the great the impact.  Negative impacts continue into adulthood and lead to intergenerational cycles of poor outcomes.  There is currently no available data for Bury on the prevalence of ACE’s.    

There are a range of services in place to support children and families with higher needs and to ensure children are safeguarded for example much work is being done to develop early intervention and Early Help Family Support Plans are in place to support children & their families where there are problems and a Domestic Violence and Abuse Practitioner has been employed since July 2016.  

It is acknowledged that in Bury we need to improve the way in which we identify and provide effective support for families with higher needs and this will be taken forward through the locality plan transformation proposal.

Caveats - Data includes results for those children who were in receipt of a government funded early education place at the end of the EYFS only. Children who are not in receipt of a funded place at the end of the EYFS are not in the scope of the Department's EYFS Profile data collection and therefore not included in the results.   

• Public Health

• Maternity Services

• Health Visiting

• Family Nurse Partnership

• Children’s Centre’s

• Early Years Provider’s

• Voluntary Sector e.g. Home Start

• Primary Schools

• Parent/families

• Children Social Care

• Primary Care

• Allied Health Professionals

• Paediatricians & Paediatric nurses

There is no one intervention that will improve school readiness and the improvements we have seen are likely to be the result of a combination of factors.  The factors listed are considered in more detail below:      

First 1001 days

• Healthy pregnancy

• Monitoring developmental stages and delivering appropriate interventions through the Early Years Delivery Model (EYDM)

• Supporting parents and families 

Early years education

• Supporting  providers to become ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’

• Ensure sufficient uptake of early years education places by promoting the 2 year early learning funding and 30 hours funding for 3-4 year olds 

Wider determinants

• Low income

• Adverse Childhood Events 

Data gaps

• Antenatal notifications
• Ability to collate and analyse ASQ3 data
• Ability to track development  progress at individual and population level
• Referral data and outcomes at child and populaiton level
• Assess data against available confidence intervals to assess if statistically significant
• Collate & analyse all available Early Years EYFS data
• Data from all Early Years providers – need a robust and consistent data collection from all Early Years Provider’s prior to school entry.

Intelligence gaps

• Impact of peer and community cultural and social norms
• Prevalence and identification of people who have suffered ACE’s
• What is going on in Education over and above requirements

• Parenting Programmes (including attachment and parent-child communication)
• Provision of good quality person centred universal and blended targeted services (EYDM) including ACE awareness
• Developing strong communities
• Reducing income inequality

Actions

• Implement whole population approach to parenting
• Work to address IM&T issues with EYDM
• Workforce transformation in context of neighbourhood working
• Asset Based Community Development in context of neighbourhood working
• Consider how to support early years education providers with roll out of 30 hour offer & continual quality improvement
• Understand and address issues of late presentation to maternity services
• Adopt an ‘ACE’ aware approach to prevent and mitigate impact of ACE’s
• Support families moving onto universal credit
• Promote the living wage