Keir Starmer "sick and tired" of hearing about children who aren't school-ready

[Kirova]

I get the point he's trying to make, of course, but it seems like a stick to beat parents with (and particularly mothers, of course). There's no sense in saying you want all children to be in the same place when they start school. Apart from anything else, some are nearly a year younger than others in their cohort, so clearly they are not going to be in the same place.

My youngest daughter was born premature, has a significant hearing impairment and various other difficulties. She will soon be two, and while she's doing brilliantly, I doubt she'll be "school-ready" by the government's current definition when she is four.

Not sure what my point is exactly, it just seems like another absurd over-simplification on the theme of failing our children, state of the country, etc.

A child with special needs may have problems but it is quite possible your child will still be school ready as she is only two now. I can understand Keir's point of view - so many mothers of children without any special needs just can't be bothered to toilet train them, they apparently see it as a teacher's job. You can imagine how thrilled teachers are about that, changing nappies etc. It is a lack of discipline and education, previous generations were told that if their kids weren't trained they weren't allowed into school. Obviously with infants there is the odd accident but still being in nappies at 4 or 5 years old for no good reason is another matter.

Where are the fathers?

Unfortunately that is the reality of parenting now, even harder.. Even with all that, it is still the responsibility of parents not the teachers to toilet train.

Obviously they aren't bothered either.

This is precisely what Sir Keir Starmer said to Laura Kuenssberg about children yesterday (28.9.25):
"We said that we would roll out childcare. This is childcare from 9 months to 4 years - for parents and carers, that's thousands of pounds saved. For children, it's a game-changer. I'm sick and tired of stories about 4 year olds arriving in Reception - some reading quite well, others virtually in nappies. So, we're going to change that and make sure every single child gets to the starting line in education in an equal position."
Hardly controversial is it? The truth is, it doesn't matter what he says as far as the people who don't like him are concerned - they won't like him no matter what.
He hasn't yet said how they will do this, but the desire to improve the situation really isn't one he should be criticised for when Labour has only been in power for 14 months following 14 years of Tory austerity. No doubt his Govt's plans will have to include increased funding, but given the Tories decimated funding for all public services (e.g. SureStart from 2010) Labour have got to find a lot of money to stop the rot. It just seems that so many people have very short memories and aren't prepared to give them the time.

He never used those words, you are misquoting him

Well that's just daft. UK children go to school far too young anyway ...

They're aiming for 75% of children to be school-ready by 2028, so I read that to mean they will accept that 25% won't be and will need extra help.
I think it's completely reasonable to have this as an area of focus, those PPs who work in early years education have clearly set out the impact of non-readiness, and OP I don't think you should take this as parent-bashing. You're clearly aware and are doing everything you can - I'm sure the intended audience is those who just aren't.

Those figures are a bit misleading though, they come from this study (the 2023 version):

https://kindredsquared.org.uk/school-readiness-survey/

In particular, the question about whose responsibility toilet training is was incredibly poorly worded, this is taken directly from the parent survey:

Who do you think is most responsible for a child's development of each of the following skills?
[...]
Toilet training (that is, toileting 'mishaps' occur frequently rather than occasionally)
Completely Parents: 50%
Mostly parents: 36%
An Even Split: 11%
Mostly school: 2%
Completely school: 1%

Then the question about the numbers of children not able to do certain things, again it's worded similarly. This is from the teaching/school staff survey:

Thinking about the following behaviours, what percentage of children starting in Reception in your 2023 class (teaching staff)/in a typical 2023 class (non-teaching staff) Are not toilet trained (that is, toileting 'mishaps' occur frequently rather than occasionally )

The results group percentages as 0-10%, 11-20%, 21-30% (etc) - it's not clear whether the survey respondents could respond with an exact percentage or just tick one of these boxes. 24% is given as the mean (average) response, although if you just look at reception class teachers, it's 20%. There's also a bit of a weird spike with teachers with between 2-10 years of experience reporting much higher rates than teachers who are newly qualified or have more than 11 years experience, which makes me think the teachers' perception of this issue is themselves skewed by the media obsession with children supposedly starting school in nappies.

There is another section of the survey which gets reported in the press all the time as "OMG parents don't think this thing is important!!" but again it's misleading. I will try to find it.

YABU.

In a class of 30, many children will be at different stages for different reasons. Every policy, procedure and practice has variables.

A Reception child in nappies for NO reason other than they haven’t been toilet trained is not acceptable.

This isn’t about you and your parenting.

Sorry, that was in response to the poster who asked for percentages on how many children are "not school ready" and the person who replied with two articles claiming 24% are not toilet trained.

The problem is this has always happened. When my DS was accepted for state nursery he had to be clean and dry, know some numbers and have decent fine motor skills so he could eat a snack independently like cut up apple and take off and out on his coat. He had an interview of sorts at home. I was shocked that there were some children that didn't have any of this. Then some of those weren't ready for school to the extent of regularly having accidents (they didn't have SEN) which takes the teacher's time away from teaching everyone else.

Would increasingly the school start age to 6 (average in europe) help? Would maybe give more space to develop at different times snd individual needs to take in consideration. Ive felt that kids in uk go to a school so young.

I don't know if childcare is necessarily helpful though, is it?

It seems to me that what is lacking is not childcare. It's parent support (as in sure start) and proper screening and support for any child who needs help to catch up with development such as speech and language therapy.

Maybe I'm remembering wrongly but back in the 00s it seemed like loads of children had speech therapy for a short time and then they continued on into nursery/school as usual and some did continue to need further support because it turned out they were autistic or had some other issues, but many of them only ever needed a bit of support with speech and then they were fine. MN was full of these stories of 2-3 year olds who were biting/hitting at nursery or toddler group or throwing ginormous extended tantrums, and then when they got help with their speech the communication improved and so did their behaviour.

Now it seems like MN is full of stories of children who have had concerns raised but been told they must languish on a waiting list sometimes for years. This is unacceptable. Of course it causes problems for them starting school.

Maybe Keir needs to look at the education system and wonder about expectations. Children now start school at 4 not the term of their fifth birthday. The jump from reception to year 1 is huge.

I'm sick and tired of Kier Starmer and this Labour shambles. Period.

YABU.

1. He’s not the only one sick and tired of it, I’m sure the teachers are as well.
2. He’s not saying all the children “have to be in the same place”, he’s saying they (and their parents) have to meet minimum standards. That’s different.

And finally you’re pulling the exact same trick left wing people do to shut off any sensible discussion of curbing the benefits bill. We get a parade of genuinely disabled people to illustrate how cruel and inhuman it would be. Whereas in fact, they - and in this situation your daughter - are wholly unrepresentative of the people we are talking about.

The vast majority of kids not ready for school have no excuse (other than they have terrible parents).

It definitely is true! I have two friends who have left the teaching profession after teaching for years because they were sick of changing nappies of five year olds and spoon feeding children at lunchtime. Children who cannot sit still or stay in the classroom, won’t do as they are told and who scream and cry because they can’t have their own way all the time.
Im not including children that have real problems, but ones that are coming from home with parents who clearly can’t be bothered to teach their children anything!
It’s having a huge impact on the education that other children are getting and on the mental health of teachers. So yes, the op is totally unreasonable to suggest that it’s unreasonable for people to complain about it. It’s very different being in her situation and no one will judge her for her child being a bit behind.

I'm no fan of Starmer but he is right. The standard of parenting seems to have plummeted - I can only think it's to do with screens.

😮

Your kid isn’t who he’s talking about. It’s the children whose health and development needs are neglected by lazy, selfish parents. That is the hard honest truth whether we like it or not.

I know people love to jump to the idea that more children starting school not toilet trained is because their parents are on tiktok all day, but a bigger factor is most likely that more households these days will have two full time working parents, doing long hours at that, compared to when many of us were younger. Toilet training takes a lot of hands on work with toddlers.

We have never adapted to changes in family working dynamics. Parents have been left to get on with it and many who have been successful prefer to wield it as a flex on others rather to collectively call for better work-life balances for all.

Literacy rates are going down, and this is concerning, but I don't personally think it's necessary for all children to be reading before they start school. Ideally, they would know the phonic alphabet and have some introduction, but learning to read can take time for children. I know parents who said they have 2-3 kids where one learned to read at 3 yo and the others at 6 yo, yet all of them read at a high level. What should be happening though is children being read to frequently, which is going down, not only because of competing tech but many adults who struggled when they were young having children now.

All children unless they’re special needs should be able to use the toilet, count to ten and write their full name….. at the very very least.

He’s not talking about children with additional needs but I fear with how things are, HOW will we know when a child has additional needs? It’s a battle for children to receive a diagnosis and much of it is focused on missed milestones. How are they going to be able to tell the difference between children with actual additional needs and children who can’t use a toilet and can’t talk because they’ve never been taught how to?

I fear all that’s going to happen is that they are going to make the age of diagnosis older meaning children cannot access support until a much older age.

Not on the toileting issue. A quick google suggests Scandinavians typically potty train by age 3-3.5 which is long before children start school in the UK. They may do less formal education between 4 and 6 but they are not neglecting to teach their children basic life skills.