It takes a lot of effort for ‘Johnny’ to take off his coat every morning when he joins his reception class. That’s because his teacher or a teaching assistant have to help the five year old pull his arms out from the sleeves of his duffel coat. Johnny is not disabled in any way; he simply was never taught how to dress himself.
‘School readiness’ is a catch-all term for some alarming failures. Children who are not toilet trained, who don’t know how to hold a spoon, who can’t sit still. Some can’t articulate properly because at home they are not talked to enough. Others come to school smelling so badly, teachers are spending on average £27 of their own money to buy hygiene products for their charges.
Government must restore parents’ faith in schooling before they can hope to get their children ready for school
Teachers are at their wits’ end: they know that unless things improve their pupils’ outcomes will be compromised. Changing nappies for one child means leaving 20 classmates on their own. A distracted child is often a distracting one: unable to concentrate, they disrupt lessons with their constant movement and chatter. As Anna Edwards, a primary school teacher in the East End of London puts it, ‘if the priority for early years teachers becomes potty training then the knock-on effect across the school is enormous’.
Fortunately, teachers can draw comfort from the PM’s forthcoming speech. On Thursday, Sir Keir will unveil his much-anticipated ‘plan for change’ and set his government a goal with a number attached: he seeks to ensure 75 per cent of children are ready for school as opposed to the 60 per cent now.
To reassure teachers (and teaching unions) that this government is on their side makes good political sense: of the half a million teachers in this country, 350,000 are members of Unison, the public service union affiliated to the Labour party. In the last election, of the 25 candidates with a teaching background, two were Conservatives, three were Lib Dems and the rest were Labour.
But Sir Keir risks failing in his mission. To improve school readiness, the government cannot ignore those in charge of children during those 16+ hours they are not in school: parents.
Mothers and fathers are failing to impart the most basic skills to their progeny. They seem to have handed over the responsibilities for raising their brood to schools. Some of this is down to the over-reach of schools themselves. During lockdown, schools shut their doors on families, deciding what was safe for children. Post lock-down, some teachers have been ‘advising’ students, unbeknownst to their parents, on questions of gender identity; while others ply their students with their political views.
These encroachments on family territory have alienated parents: a recent national survey found 1.5 milion were unhappy with their child’s education; and earlier this year another survey found one in three didn’t think school was a necessary part of their child’s daily routine. Their parents’ sentiments drive children’s absence from school: almost one in five school children is persistently absent (missing 10 per cent or more of schooldays).
They are the ‘ghost children’ who have lost the chance to learn and develop, improving what the rest of their lives will look like. When their parents’ attitude promotes this negative trajectory, government must restore parents’ faith in schooling before they can hope to get their children ready for school.
Helpfully, some schools have understood this already. In the City of London Corporation, ten schools have signed up to pilot a ‘parental engagement toolkit’ co-designed by the Corporation’s education policy team and the Parenting Circle charity.
The toolkits include suggestions such as school-based evenings with local businesses, where bosses discuss CV writing and interview skills that school parents may find useful for themselves as well as their children; parents taking turns in dishing out food in the school cafeteria; and a ‘parent reading corner’ in primary school classrooms, inviting parents to read out loud to small groups. In the Isle of Sheppey, one of the poorest places in the country, Minster in Sheppey primary school and EKC Sheppey school are introducing parenting discussions in their schools: starting off with a staff member leading discussions, within a few weeks the groups become peer-to-peer and self-sustaining.
These schools recognise that parents hold the key to their child’s learning, in and out of the classroom. Starmer must engage mums and dads to deliver his ‘plan for change’ – otherwise it will fail.
