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Nearly a third of children are not ‘school ready’ when they start reception, with many not toilet-trained, a national survey has claimed.

 

The State of Education survey – carried out by schools support service The Key – reviewed 1,100 primary school leaders and revealed that many youngsters had a lack of social skills, delayed speech and lower-than-expected literacy and numeracy skills.

 

Respondents estimated that just over 30% of reception children were arriving at school at this lower-than-expected level; that’s 194,003 children out of 636,761.

 

The research suggested that mobile technology was in part to blame, with one head teacher saying: “Four-year-olds know how to swipe a phone but haven’t a clue about conversations.”

 

Another school leader asked: “Why, in the 21st century, are children arriving in school nurseries aged three or above without being toilet trained?”

 

Fergal Roche, chief executive at The Key, said that the arrival of under-prepared children is adding a huge burden to the already heavy workload of school leaders.

 

“To lessen this load, more should be done to ensure children are arriving at school with the skills they need to learn,” Fergal said.

 

“An agreed definition of what ‘school-readiness’ means could be the first step to helping schools, parents and early years practitioners identify what national or localised support is required to meet this growing issue.”