Poorest children ‘may never catch up with peers’

POVERTY is having a devastating impact on the education and development of the youngest children in Wales.

Tens of thousands of under-fives are living in poverty. About a third are falling behind at age five and may never catch up with classmates, a report published today reveals.

Nearly half of children in poverty who are behind at age five remain in the lowest performing group at age seven, 11 and 14, says Save the Children.

Across Wales, almost one in three or 200,000 children aged up to 16 live in poverty – of those more than one in four (28% or just over 50,000) are under five, the charity’s latest analysis from last November shows.

The charity says the figure “has remained stubbornly static for the last decade and is the highest rate of child poverty of any country in the UK”.

It added: “By the time they start school, children experiencing poverty are often already falling behind their better-off peers. As they get older, this education gap widens and can leave them at an unfair disadvantage. It is a huge challenge for children, teachers and parents.”

Even government schemes set up to help them may not be reaching some children, Save the Children says.

Its study shows an average 45% of children living in income deprivation in Wales are not even eligible for Flying Start – the Welsh Government programme for families with children under four in disadvantaged areas of Wales.

Flying Start is described by the government as “one of our top priorities in our Tackling Poverty agenda”.

Save the Children’s report Little Pieces – Big Picture, launched at Millbrook Primary, Newport today, shows that by age five, about a third of children living in poverty (30-35%) are already falling behind across a range of key milestones such as language skills and problem solving, compared to one fifth (20-21%) of their peers.

The research also shows that falling behind in the early years means it’s more likely children will struggle throughout their education. Nearly half of children who were in the lowest performing group at the beginning of primary school were also behind at ages seven,11 and 14.

But when “we get it right in the early years” it can help children stay ahead throughout their education and into adulthood, the document adds.

“While acknowledging Welsh Government has committed to supporting children and their families by announcing plans to grow and develop a highly skilled child care workforce and offer a range of initiatives providing several hours of free child care to many families, Save the Children is still concerned that access to high quality early years provision and support is still often left to chance for too many children in Wales,” the charity said.

“Often services are not available to all families in every area of Wales with new analysis showing that nearly half (45%) of children living in poverty in are not eligible for Flying Start, the early years programme for families living in disadvantaged communities in Wales.

“Further support is also needed for parents who are facing increasing pressures from changes to the economy and the welfare system and to those who are using informal child care or nor accessing formal early education services, to help them give their child the best start during their early years.”

Save the Children is calling on the Welsh Government to:

Deliver a single, simple and coherent system for high quality early education and care;

Establish sole ministerial responsibility for all aspects of early childhood education and care, including Welsh language provision, and in tackling the attainment gap; and

Ensure equal access to high quality early childhood education and care for all children in Wales with a specific focus on providing additional support to children living in poverty.

Louise Davies, head of Save the Children in Wales said: “We all want children to have the best start in life, to be happy and have every opportunity to begin their learning journey positively.

“We know how vital early childhood is for a child’s development and the role it plays in shaping the kind of people we grow up to be. But sadly too many children in Wales, particularly the poorest, are already struggling by the time they start school and that, crucially, many never catch up.

“In Wales we have many parts of the jigsaw available to provide a great start in a child’s life, but there are pieces missing or misplaced making it difficult for us to complete the bigger picture.”