Good level of development increasing, say EYFS Profile results
More five-year-olds than ever are achieving the expected standards in maths and literacy, according to new figures published today (13 October) by the Department for Education (DfE).
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Profile results for 2014-15 show that more than two-thirds (66.3%) of children in this age group are achieving a good level of development by the end of the EYFS, compared to 60.4% last year.
The new figure equates to an extra 38,600 five-year-olds reaching the expected level of development in maths and literacy, as well as in the areas of personal, social and emotional development, physical development and communication and language.
This year鈥檚 results also show that girls continue to outperform boys under all learning goals, with 74.3% of girls achieving the expected level of development compared to 58.6% of boys.
However, the gender gap for the percentage achieving a good level of development has reduced by 0.7 percentage points since 2014.
The attainment gap between the lowest attaining children and their peers has also decreased to 32.1% from 33.9% last year.
The variation between the highest and lowest performing local authorities also appears to be narrowing, with a 0.5 percentage point increase in average total point score since last year, compared to a one percentage point increase from 2013 to 2014.
Education and childcare minister Sam Gyimah said: 鈥淚t is great news that more children than ever before are achieving the expected level of development in the early years, because parents should be confident that while their children are out of their care, they鈥檙e not only happy and having fun, but at the same time developing important skills - building confidence with numbers and letters - to ensure they fulfil their potential.鈥
Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch also welcomed the results, while warning that more work was needed to tackle attainment gaps between girls and boys.
Chief executive Neil Leitch said: 鈥淲hile we are pleased to see that the gap between boys and girls is continuing to narrow, the difference in outcomes remains significant and so clearly there is more work to be done to tackle this trend.
鈥淭hat said, it is particularly encouraging to see that outcomes are improving across almost all local authorities.
鈥淚t鈥檚 vital that children - regardless of background or postcode - are given the best possible start in life, and so the fact that the variation between local areas is narrowing is very positive.鈥
Neil also reinforced the value of the EYFS Profile as 鈥渁n essential tool to track early progress鈥 and urged the government to reinstate its statutory status, thus adding weight to the opposition against the 鈥渋ll-thought-out, unhelpful and potential harmful鈥 baseline assessment.