Giving children best start in life

Key role of early years education

HOW CAN teachers be expected to perform miracles in the classroom, and lift the county off the bottom of national league tables, when so many under-fives in this region are failing the most basic reading and writing tests at the time they begin their education? This is the question that goes to the heart of today’s annual

State of the North report, published by the widelyrespected IPPR North thinktank, which cites early years education as the key issue if academic attainment is to improve and pupils are to be equipped with the skills that enable them to prosper in a global economy.

Yet, while the recent political focus has been on the Northern Powerhouse and providing this region with a worldclass infrastructure, this initiative will not deliver its full potential unless more young people from Yorkshire become more proficient at school and start meeting the Government’s basic benchmarks. This is borne out by disturbing data which reveals that just 47 per cent of children from the poorest backgrounds in the North have achieved a good level of development when they start full-time school compared to nearly 60 per cent of comparable children in London.

The size of this disparity cannot be ignored. Is it because nurseries in Yorkshire are not up to standard or could it be that too many parents are abdicating their duty to nurture the learning of their children because they do not realise its importance – or because they struggled with their own education?

Perhaps the Government and LEAs need to find a more effective way of identifying those children falling behind their peers, rather than continuing their ideological war of words over academies, free schools and so on, so remedial action can be taken. Irrespective of their background, all youngsters have the right to the best education possible. Doing nothing is simply not an option – it will simply lead to another generation of young people leaving school with inadequate qualifications and, therefore, becoming an even greater drain on the welfare system because of the lost potential.