Children starting Reception face 'the most challenging school start for generations'
Katy Morton
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
The charity Nesta warns that children starting Reception this term will need more support due to the number of hours of early education they have missed in the coronavirus pandemic.
New analysis by the 'innovation agency' finds that on average, four- and five-year-olds starting school this month missed more than a quarter of their early years education due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It reveals that in 2019, the average four-year-old spent 25 hours a week at nursery – around three full days – in the year before they started school.
In comparison, it estimates that children starting Reception this month will have only spent an average of 18 hours a week at nursery – just over two full days.
Louise Bazalgette from Nesta, who leads projects aimed at improving school readiness for disadvantaged children, warned that children starting Reception are ‘likely to need additional support to help them adjust to the school environment and catch up on what they have missed due to nursery closures.’
She went on to say that with only £80 per pupil in catch-up funding from the Department for Education (DfE), it will be ‘challenging to support the wide range of needs pupils may have.’
Nesta’s analysis is based on Department for Education figures for nursery attendance during the pandemic and 2019 baseline levels calculated from the 2019 Childcare and Early Years Survey.
According to the research, nursery attendance fell dramatically at the start of the pandemic, recovering gradually after the first wave but never returning to pre-pandemic levels. From the start of the autumn 2020 term to the end of the summer 2021 term, the overall average attendance was 73 per cent of previous levels.
The innovation agency’s data scientist, Izzy Stewart, said, ‘We found that the pandemic affected nursery attendance across the board, with no clear link between an area’s socioeconomic indicators and attendance. We also didn’t find any strong correlation between infection hotspots and poor attendance, suggesting that the effect was largely down to behavioural factors.’
Catch-up funding call
The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said the report backed the call for education recovery spending to start in early years.
Director of policy at communications Jonathan Broadbery said, ‘Underfunding combined with low attendance could be disastrous for providers and children across the board. That’s why we back MPs’ calls for top-up funding and an increase in the Early Years Pupil Premium. The fact that the Government is adding recovery funding to the Pupil Premium in schools but not supporting early years in the same way is making this gap more significant.’
The Early Years Alliance concurred, saying that ‘more support is needed for early years professionals to tackle the significant impact of the pandemic on children’s early development.’
Chief executive Neil Leitch urged the Government to use the upcoming Spending Review to ensure the sector gets the ‘funding and support it needs and deserves’.
