School readiness survey - surprising?

[GirlfromtheNorthLondonCountry]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jan/30/some-children-starting-school-unable-to-climb-staircase-finds-england-and-wales-teacher-survey

Is it really the case that 4 year olds (absent disabilities) are unable to climb stairs or sit on the rug because of too much screen time? It just seems so extraordinary to me.

I drive past a different primary school on the way to dropping my child off and the sight of some of those kids is heartbreaking. Some little boys around 6-8 who have so much excess fat their cheeks are literally billowing out until they're almost level with the tip of their nose. Triple chins. Massive wobbly gut when they run. And little girls of 3-4 who are so overweight they have huge tummies and must need to wear a training bra already.

It's child neglect, plain and simple, to raise your child obese. There needs to be far more intervention very early on to prevent things getting as bad as they are. GPs should be counselling obese patients to lose weight before trying for a pregnancy (even into the overweight range makes a significant different in reducing a lot of the risks of conceiving while obese), and health visitors should be providing healthy eating advice, gym vouchers, subsidised classes, to obese parents and monitoring the weight of their kids.

Sadly the kids pay the price, then grow up into obese adults who go on to have obese kids and around and around it goes. I can't imagine how hard life is when you're already obese in early childhood and don't fit into a standard classroom chair or can't even run halfway across the hall in PE.

Cop out.
The children aren't home alone with both parents out of the house at work. One of them is in the house with the child. Take 5 minutes off cooking/washing/etc. and be a parent.

You see this all the time on MN. Particularly the line about "they wouldn't even be at school in most of Europe" which is wheeled out as an excuse for a 4 year old not being toilet trained. Or "they all get there in their own time" - not if you're completely passive about it they don't!

*Also forgot to add potty trained at 2 and that took a couple weeks of dedication it must be quite hard if you have a job and the kid is in daycare wearing a nappy because the daycare won't want to risk accidents on the floor. I think I saw someone on here once say they booked annual leave just for potty training and it didn't even work.

@Galashiels it definitely is more complicated to do potty training while your child is at nursery. My second child would get distracted or be too shy to ask to go to the toilet and so had a lot of accidents, going on for months rather than weeks.

My kids had a childminder, and potty training was so simple I can't even remember it! I can see the advantage of a nursery in terms of reliability, no problems with carer sickness, but if you have got the flexibility to make alternative arrangements/work from home, childminders have a lot of advantages,

Yeah, I agree with this and it's linked to my earlier posts about not encouraging independence - there's this odd view that children can't be expected to DO anything.

Someone once told me she was doing "baby led potty training". I didn't know what to do with my face! (and her DS was almost 4 and not potty trained!!)

the Europe thing also makes me laugh becuase i have quite a few nieces and nephews growing up in continental Europe and they might start actual school a bit later... but they are a LOT more independent from much earlier and certainly are expected to get themselves to and from school alone from quite young.

DS (13) quite often gets himself to one of his sports activities by bus or train. There are a few other players who do the same, but a surprising number who never do including a couple who live close to us. I have casually suggested they go together... but that went into the void so I've never suggested it again.

There’s also a trend for very instagram style houses and everything matching and pristine.
Drawing, painting, playdoh etc all build motor skills but can be messy.
Lots of volunteer run toddlers groups fell away in Covid and never restarted. So opportunities for crafts and socialising aren’t there in same way.

@MereDintofPandiculation I can imagine... I was interested in using a childminder, and initially tried to, but couldn't find one locally that could do the days I needed. I think that's why a lot of people end up going with nurseries too, they're more likely to be able to cover the hours you need.

Unfortunately you have to take some time off work to do it.

My children’s nursery was very supportive of potty training.

I was pregnant and had my dd in 2020 I had Covid and was really unwell . She also had Covid at age 2 and declined cognitively a lot after that although was already delayed but it made it a lot worse

@Capacity70 sorry to hear that. Out of interest do you think your DD’s post Covid decline was temporary?

Me and DH have both worked full time since DD was 9 month.

She was 5yo and in yr1 when covid lockdowns happened, neither of us were entitled to furlough and we were in an enhanced lockdown area so schools were closed March - Sept, then closed again Xmas - Easter.

Despite that DD is high achieving at school, not attached to a tablet, socially adept. It's a cop out to blame Covid.

Yeah it was hard, we basically had to flex our shifts to do 2-3 hr shifts across 7am-10pm so one of us could be interacting with DD while the other was working. We explored all the local nature walks, grew a load of veg in the back garden, created schoolwork from online resources, turned the living room into a fort, did every craft activity we could think of, set up FaceTime calls with her friends where they basically showed each other their toys for 2hrs....

It is very possible to be an engaged parent even if you're busy.

@NewYearStillFat I initially did take time off to do it and started it off in the holidays, but I couldn't take months off. Neither of my kids got it that quickly

No, not the case here. DC had just turned to 2, moved into the age 2-3 room and nursery said right time to start toilet training. They purposefully ensured that all children were toilet trained before going into the preschool room at 3. Please let go of your belief that nurseries are responsible for this issue.

You know, I hate the idea of saying that by age 3 (say) they should be doing XYZ. Mainly because I remember someone doing the big eyes at me and saying “Ohhhhh, you don’t do classes with him?!? That’s a shame, they are really important for his development…” (my son was a mutant who loved extremely long naps and the classes took place while he was sleeping - I did do stuff with him).

BUT it is important that children are out of nappies by the time they start school. Mainly because it is embarrassing for the children - and means they will have a harder time socially. In reception, children start going to each other’s houses for dinner and to play … but that isn’t practical if they are still in nappies. Most of the children will be toilet trained (although may have the odd accident), be able to queue up for lunch and some will have already started reading. A child who screams, snatches and is still nappies is going to find it difficult to get on with their peer group.

That's good to hear. Its not a strongly held belief of mine I'm more just pontificating like I said I have no experience of working full-time with a baby or toddler. Embarrassing to admit I was an unemployed teen mum till DC started school but I had unlimited time to teach my child everything that the kids mentioned on this thread can't do. Couldn't afford an iPad either I also think iPad kids are a big issue.
I guess if you work full-time you drive them to nursery and back they never do any exercise shocking to read some of the stories on this thread if they're true.

What on earth does "doing classes" have to do with signposting developmentally appropriate milestones?

Hurting someone's feelings is absolutely not a reason for people to be told what appropriate behaviours are. We should be more overt about saying school starters (indeed rising 5s) should be able to toilet, use cutlery etc, and asking parents why it isn't the case, if their child arrives at school unable to do those things.

Look, I'm not disagreeing that there's an ideal standard. But this thread is about declining levels of school readiness across the country. So if we're to have a productive discussion about why that is, we have to think about the possible reasons. To my mind it's lazy thinking to just say "simple! Parents nowadays are just lazy."

Do you think today's parents love their kids less? That they just can't be bothered? Is there some kind of generation-wide brain malfunction that means today's parents just don't have the skills their predecessors did? Or is it possible that some aspects of modern society are making this stuff harder for large swathes of the population?

I am not arguing that lazy parents don't exist - obviously they do. But I don't think they make up the majority. I think most parents are trying their best and there are barriers preventing them from teaching their children X Y and Z (not to mention that different parents have different ideas on what things need to be prioritised, but that may be for a different thread!).

We should be discussing what those barriers are, in my opinion, rather than just (lazily!) assuming that parents are just being lazy.

(I've now said lazy so many times it doesn't sound like a real word any more 🤣)

And yet these parents are still taking their 3 year olds to swimming classes, so they're clearly not doing nothing.

Obviously there are, and always have been, a small number of just inexcusably crap parents, but I do think there is also a bigger picture here.

I've got another theory, neglectful parents have always existed but in the past the parents made them go outside and they learnt to play with other children and build their physical motor skills (obviously this wasn't perfect kids got kidnapped hit by cars, did naughty things etc) nowadays neglectful parents just let them game or play on the iPad all day so they don't really learn anything.

And yet, if you and DH were both working in a supermarket, with no flexibility, in a temporary housing b&b room with no garden with just smartphones rather than a laptop for online lessons and no spare cash for crafts etc, life would have been very different for your daughter.

You were fine, so no one else can say they were badly affected? Really?

You had two capable parents in the house, who were willing to coordinate their time to look after one child. Even in that situation you said it was hard.

Can you seriously not imagine what it would have been like if your partner was disengaged/abusive, you were single, you had three children instead of one, or you had a chronic illness? It seems like a weird thing to have to remind an adult of, but not everyone is like you and some people have tougher situations.

There are charities like Wrap for craft supplies

Sounds awful though having to live in one room

Fair enough, but that wouldn't account for e.g. fewer kids now being potty trained by the time they start school, unless back then the toddlers were potty training each other in the local park!