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.

Deprivation could be a confounding variable in assessing the effect of experienced kindergarten teachers though. Better areas with less disadvantaged children might well be able to attract more experienced kindergarten teachers especially given the funding model in the states whereby the schools/kindergartens are funded by their own district meaning lower funding in poorer districts.

I definitely agree these factors are involved but there's something else too. So the non-verbal, seriously and obviously intellectually disabled children from the mainstream nursery / professional jobs families I was talking about upthread all actually came from parents aged early thirties at the most (we were early 20s), full term births, no IVF (although all c-sections weirdly!), etc etc.

I've never been one of these "environmental toxins" people but I'm starting to think there's something in it.

I wonder how many of these kids have parents who work from home whilst also ‘caring’ for them to save on childcare? People always harp on about how looking after their child whilst working doesnt affect there work - which in my opinion means they aren’t giving the child the attention and skills that they need and so are probably spending a lot of time on screens, not being taken to the park or other activities during the day so reduced physical activity and socialisation.

My eldest was in nappies until he was 7 but not due to lack of trying or parenting, he had medical issues that affected his toilet training. My other 2 were toilet trained quite early.

One of the countries with the biggest class sizes - significantly larger than England - also has the best educational outcomes; Singapore. Class size is too simplistic a measure as there a too many confounding variables. For example if you look at Scotland the smallest class sizes are in rural schools where mixed age classes, local employments opportunities, family expectations etc are all likely to have a bigger impact.

I was trying to find the very large international study carried out about ten years ago looking at class size - it concluded that variation in size between 15 and 30 children had no significant impact on attainment once confounding variables were excluded (which presumably included the presence of pupils with SEN)..

Children being neglected by parents is hardly a new phenomena.

That's good to hear @Littoralzone

There are clearly many factors at play

Children would previously have gained skills by being in the world though even if parents not particularly attentive to needs. So they would have to walk alongside baby sibling in pram building muscles. They’d have interaction in shops. Plus playing with other children.
I’m in an affluent area and many children have very little interaction with real world. Driven in big cars everywhere. Activities all very child focused. So driven to soft play, happy meal from drive thru and home on tablet then bed. Not getting opportunities to do small age appropriate things eg paying in shops, getting own drink etc.

Yes, but the response shouldn’t be simplistic either - that it is ok to increase class size. Having a class of 20 or 30 might not make much difference to a bunch of streamed children with good motivation, no ASN, no deprivation factors etc but in most schools as class sizes increase so do the number of children with characteristics that do impact learning and need additional input.

I definitely think people are very nostalgic about the past and view it as time where there was lots of parental interaction and everyone lived in the park and read books all day long when that just wasn't the case. Kids watched TV and had busy working parents, and were smacked and were expected to occupy themselves. I think this hysteria over the decline of children's abilities can be ridiculous. There will always be kids who have poor attention spans and kids who potty train late. I think if anything our school systems expects children to be far more grown up than they are in infants.
Also on a separate note the criticism of kids being on tablets when all homework is on apps is also enormously unfair.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/02/soft-spaces-out-stick-fighting-in-dutch-call-for-the-return-of-risky-play

I thought of this thread when I saw this article this morning.

Play is very orderly and sanitised. It also becomes dull while children are still in primary school. It's not that suprising that Roblox and Fortnite are more stimulating and exciting than the toddler friendly play area at the local rec. Stimulating play areas suitable for across childhood are rare

Veering away from the age group in focus on this thread, I find with older children at high end of juniors, early secondary that there is extremely limited options for stimulating, informal physical play. Unless you have ££ to pay per person for ninja warrior, water park sessions etc. There's formal, competitive sport, but very little affordable casual options for spontaneous fun. They're also too young for adult fitness options such as gyms. Current trends on children's independence means that they're often not considered old enough to play out until they're too old to play.

I've found expectations in Scouting/ Guiding to be useful at benchmarking reasonable expectations. They have well-established frameworks in line with appropriate development, and that's helped to not infantilise my children too much.

It is still part of the wider trends in raising children and keeping children physically and mentally healthy as part of their ongoing development.

Ageing fathers is more of a negative effect generically than ageing mothers which is probably more of a positive effect better off financially more patience etc.

Also on my own experience there is currently or has been for a few years dire care in labour babies being born with sepsis etc.

I’m sure there are other factors involved and there were always children born disabled because of genetic abnormalities that are totally random. The point is that the instance has increased because of the factors I mentioned which has increased demand on services.

My experience of TV in the 80s was that children's TV was limited. In the week there would be schools programmes and a slot for pre-schooler programming, then the after school slot until 5:30. Other TV was adult based and there was more emphisis from the BBC on the inform and educate than the entertain. More child-centic morning time on weekends and holidays.
The appeal of watching TV all day was low.

There wasn't the volume of high-paced, inane content that can be accessed through satelite/ digital and online (e.g. youtube) services. Some years ago, I bought some DVDs of BBC drama/ book adaptions I loved as a child and the pacing was very slow compared to current production styles.

Appropriately filtered TV/ screen time has its place (Cbeebies was a life saver during a hard pregnancy and long winter with a 2 year old!), but excessive screen time to the detriment of other activities, and low quality content is an issue.

With the young people I work with, their demographic hasn't changed in the past 20 years, but attention spans, impulse control and general "worldliness" has changed at a cohort level.

A comment I had from DS's teacher at a y7 parents evening was that it was lovely to teach someone who had interests other than gaming (and he certainly does love his gaming) but other than that (and football) a lot of boys that age have no wider interests in life, and that limits their creativity and skills for that subject. (Not helped by the SATs focused KS2 curriculum and culture)

Ha ha yes TV in the 80s in our house you were told to move and TV turned over as soon as somebody older walked in!
TV in the summer cut off by the test match which was on all day.
Playing out cos parents were at work come home at tea time. No supervision, no phones.

It’s not necessarily parental interaction though. Children used to learn from just living life and interacting with people.
I’m a girl guiding leader and we are finding junior age/secondary age children just aren’t used to getting own food/drink, speaking to people, road sense etc.
We obviously supervise and everything is risk assessed. But some parents literally do everything for their dc. We’ve had some truly eye opening emails from parents complaining about things.

I think it would be helpful if nurseries were directed to practice with buttons, socks, shoes, toilet training, threading and other physical learning... instead of phonics, numbers, colours and other "education" tasks. For parents, fitting in every aspect children need to learn outside childcare hours is difficult at ages 2/3; the nursery we had kept busy starting formal education at 2 but didn't teach any of the skills a 2yo should actually be learning and it all takes longer with the inconsistency of nursery taking over tasks. Learning phonics is easy enough for older children, there's no need to push it earlier and earlier.

Do you get the ones aghast that you're still doing outdoor activities In The Rain!!!
(Yes, it's just drizzling... bring a coat and wear sturdy shoes...)

My SEN DC went to a small nursery age 3 where they had time for him to learn to change his shoes - he could do it but it took him time. He then went to a school nursery age 4 (in retrospect a bad move) where they had a small space for changing shoes, 20 children, two adults and a rush to get outside together. The overwhelming environment and speed meant he was no longer able to change his shoes - not only could he not keep up, he struggled with the noise and crowd and lost confidence in his developing skills.

Yes @BogRollBOGOF.
Honestly things that weren’t even on my radar as remotely controversial. My dc is only 18 so I’m not that out of touch.
Our trip emails are now like war and peace and spell everything out. Some parents must think wtf it’s bloody obvious but they don’t see the emails.

@2025NewUserName there are a few interesting developments regarding babies born by c section. Steroids were given as standard to mothers who were having a c section up until a few years I believe (as babies weren’t having the fluid squeezed from their lungs by the birth canal many struggled to breathe initially and steroids were throught to reduce this). They no longer suggest steroids and links have now been made between this use of steroids and learning and behaviour problems. Similarly, babies pick up important bacteria from the birth canal which influences their gut bacteria. We are only just starting to understand the importance of gut health in our overall health but it seems to have huge impacts of the body as a whole. I think these are both really interesting areas to consider when we talk about rising levels of SEN etc

@Littoralzone that small example is really sad poor soul.

Yes that is a valid point

My children went to a Montessori nursery they didn’t do any phonics etc and said they no longer encouraged them to write their name etc before school. That was fine, but the school my eldest went to wasn’t Montessori and whilst it hasn’t had a long term impact it did make his transition to school more challenging than those who went to the school preschool where there was more of a drive towards academics.

Yes I agree.

I was quite stunned by some of the things my second born toddler were doing in a childcare private nursery. Activities I'd done in mainstream primary, y2 and y3, linked to the curriculum.

They usually have at least one trained teacher as part of their staff.

I felt that it was a result of the pressure to chase Ofsted goals and impress parents (mostly professionals).

My eldest did more of the things I'd expect at a different nursery. What was key there is that he had a qualified nursery nurse. Having worked with some as TAs, there was a difference in their background training. They'd been taught to do observations. They knew about Piaget etc and apply that knowledge.

That training stopped many years ago, I don't think there's any who were trained under that qualification still working now.

I read the report the other day it's shocking, and very sad. The fact they can't turn the pages of a book because they think they need to swipe and tap like a screen is really sad. I fondly remember my mum taking time to read with me each night, doing voices for all the characters etc. It's something I'm hoping to recreate with my own child

I agree being forced to work because of costs doesn't help

I've wondered for a long time if the high use of screens is linked to such a big increase in SEND? I know there's a lot more awareness around SEND now but i watched the mobile phone removal documentary with Matt and Emma Willis and they were saying how focus was being hampered by screen time and these are teenagers, what about developing brains of toddlers

Think there was a truly sad note in the report where the children lacked core strength because they were too busy slumped looking at screens

I can't say I was surprised at the report, more horrified