Children unready for school - what can we do?

I am so pleased that you also think there is scope for input from older people to act as keyworkers in families who could do with extra support in this way, Imperfect27.
However, I do accept that 'recognising families that need this support - and realising that they do' - is a huge part of the problem' .
Absolutely right - as is everything else you have said.

The tick list of school ready skills - would be hugely helpful and give confidence to approved volunteers, if a scheme could be set up.

It appears that communication/sharing (appropriately) of information between schools/nurseries and the children and families departments of social services still has a long way to go. But if measures to make matters better in this regard are not in place, there will be no incentive to improve this, it seems to me - and the social services departments will continue to spend most of their already stretched resources on firefighting i.e. preventing cruelty and serious neglect.

I have emailed Andy Burnham's office to see if he thinks funds could be found to harness the skills and goodwill of older people in this way - if there was such an initial investment, we could probably save the public sector a lot of money, as well as improve children's life chances.Will let you all know if I get a response!

If the problem was always there, but has simply increased, this could be down to the larger poulation here now, plus the problem perhaps with young children from virtually non English speaking parents.
In any case, not all four year olds are the same, some are ready, some not.Five seems quite early enough to me, to attend school all day.

Isn't Home Start, or Sure Start a voluntary thing, non reliant on funding?

Cassandra count me in! I worked in nurseries and set up / ran mums and toddler groups for two decades before a late career in teaching. We do need to close gaps in practice and understanding between nurseries and schools and young families do need support networks as.

I am currently looking for a change in career and realise I have a lot to bring to the community sector. Maybe this could be my new direction! I would be very interested to know what response you get and would be happy to contact him myself as a.n.other voice. Can you pm me details?

As pensionpat says, many parents wouldn't be able to understand Imperfect's list of requirements.
From my experience, you could add 'able to use a knife and fork'. If they stay for school dinners.
Another idea would be to raise the age of compulsory schooling to 6 (as in France), but that would be very unpopular. Also would depend on sufficient preschool preparation..

Imperfect - your list sends shivers down my spine. Why "should" a child be able to do these things? Can we not cut these babes a bit of slack and let them be children?

Sure start, family centres, parenting classes have all been decimated by the austerity agenda. I worked in one former mining area where the money put into early years during the Blair years resulted in a new community school. On the premises were a library, the midwifery and health visiting services, a duty member of staff from the local children's services team and a family centre. The family centre ran all manner of groups for families and their staff also went out to do practical work in families. This could start at 7.30 am or 5 - 7.30 pm to help establish routines, good eating etc. I worked in a Sure Start Family Centre in another very deprived area and its Imo a tragedy to see this important work in the bin.

Luckygirl it is a long, wordy list, but in summary it simply means children should be able to:

* follow simple instructions e.g. sit, listen,
*express their own basic needs: I need ...a drink / the toilet ..
*interact positively with other children and adults - sharing and taking turns
*be interested in and able to talk about the world around them
*sustain enough focus to learn new things
show interest in books

This shouldn't be daunting - it should be the 'norm' - in fact, simply a 'baseline' of expectations which means they are ready to learn. It should be completely shocking that such a growing number of children are not developing these key skills. The government has made noises about the 'ideal' of having a trained literacy practitioner in every nursery, but so much more needs to be done in terms of funding support pre-school.

Interesting that the first point on that list is

School readiness:
✔ Between the ages of four and five, children should be prepared to be separated from their parent or main carer.

In other words these are aspirations for a child's first year at school as many children start school just after their 4th birthday and all before their 5th.
Many schools struggle because they are also trying to teach literacy and numeracy skills. Ideally perhaps the first year in school should become more play and practical skills orientated. There are many countries where children start formal teaching much later than we do.
One of the problems with nursery schools (and I don't mean this as a criticism) is that they are led on things such as toilet training by parents. If parents are unable or unwilling because of work commitments or other things to start toilet training it never happens.

I used to take GD1 to a SureStart centre when my DD lived in London in 2011/12. It ran "Play and Stay" sessions plus baby play sessions, a book club and really encouraged parents/careers to interact with the children. It also acted as a source of benefits advice to parents and provided links to employment and training.
It was excellent. I know they have struggled with funding since then.
All these 'school ready' skills should be simple, but especially with younger 'just fours' and stressed parents not always easy to achieve.

Never mind the 'school ready' check list, we need one for parents to ascertain whether they are 'child ready'.

Born after the war we kids had none of the resources they take for granted now, TV, toys, charity shops and yet the parents can't get things sorted. Parents are lazy!!!!

I accept that some kids are emotionally not school ready, my grand daughter is having a struggle to settle in this week, but really, not toilet trained ? People need to apply their parenting skills a good deal more. Not able to hold a book? Books are 20p in charity shops and although libraries have had some cut backs there are still splendid ones out there, mums and toddler groups etc.

We don't need government programes to show people the way, we maged well enough without them up until the laziness became socially accetable.

Children are seen as accessories or an imposition by too many people, they have no rights to be born and then no rights to be properly cared for. How hard is it to toilet train someone, they have years get it done, unless the chid has a disability. Parents ought to be fined if their child is not able to do the basics.

I find the attitudes we have developed towards children very disconcerting, they are just dispensible in every possible way. Don't want to be pregnant, abortion on demand, don't want to look after them, expect the state or a charity to step in, want to keep a career going, put them into a nursery asap.

We value them so little and they are our own children.

We had one toilet at our house shared between 15 people, always spotless it was. Poverty is not an excuse.

I understand your list Imperfect - I just do not agree that we should be pushing children to achieve these things at some arbitrary age; and that we should single out these things as aims.

Home Start, on the other hand, is a volunteer led support for parents who request help. Often manned by grandparents!
For example a family new to the area might want advice on settling in and finding community groups. A family with a special need child might want emotional support. A family with triplets might need practical and emotional support. The volunteers receive quite a lot of training.
They have to raise money in the community and apply for grants and lottery money to keep going.
They aren't in every area of the country, but people (such as grans) can set one up in their area. A friend and I did look into setting a HomeStart group up in our area, but our own family childcare issues took over!

When my daughter went to play school, it was on the condition that she was toilet trained, as were all the other children. It was a great incentive!

I feel myself getting angry about this. If the initial post is suggesting more money is put into it, I disagree. In some areas of life, I think we've lost the plot. I worked in a primary school for many years and I could see this coming. It's nothing to do with poverty, and much to do with investment of time, love and attention by the parents. Simple things like eating properly, using the toilet, dressing, are considered by many to be not worth focusing on. Rather high days and holidays, celebrities, fashion, technology, are...even when we're talking about young children. As in other areas of life, we've lost the ability to look at basic values and skills and intellectualised and glamourised key issues. No value is given to the simple things of life.. I don't think all parents are like this but when it's on the increase, I think schools, nurseries etc.need to flag it,up as a huge thing that needs addressing(by the parents not the schools).

The reason that children are "unready" for school is simply because school starts too early for many children, and it is in the nature of many children that they should reach these goals later.

I agree with Iams's comments about family support centres; they were invaluable for helping parents who were struggling with their role - they received support in the form of friendships and contact with other parents; and good parenting was modelled for them by the staff.

So obviously all of us parents are rubbish now maybe the grandparent generation needs to remember they raised this generation of parents. I for one am very aware of my responsibilities.

I think 4 yrs old is too young for children to start school. A whole year, starting at age 5 gives children all the extra time necessary to learn more of the essentials skills needed for them to cope. Back in the day 5 was the starting age for proper school and anything before that would have been nursery classes. Some children are more ready than others but you will always have a mixture of quick learners, slower learners, some with far more confidence than others. Everything seems rushed nowadays. I believe in some of the Scandinavian countries children don,t start school there until around the age of seven. While I think that is too late, four is too soon.

This is what Sure Start was set up to address and it was working.
Dismantling it was an act of vandalism.

re looking at books.
In my working days the parents of most of the children referred were unable to read.
I hope that reason can't be given now.
ps if I'm around next year I would like to take part in the scheme mentioned by Cassandra, but only with language stimulation and books.

Imperfect27, andanyone else interested, the email address I used was:
[email protected] If anyone has a better one, let me know!

radicalnan, I do understand what you are saying and sympathise with a lot of it - but sometimes it is not laziness or lack of money which make it difficult for young parents to cope. I worked as a housing officer in very deprived areas at one time and saw single mothers isolated without any family to help;or wives deserted by their husbands suddenly left to manage everything after aforementioned husband had cleaned out the bank account and disappeared. One husband I never met was a gambler in well paid work, who had never claimed benefits, but whose family were hungry and cold because he was paid on Friday and all his earnings were gone by Sunday.All this sort of thing can cause clinical depression - even if it does not lead to dependency on drink or drugs - and it is this illness a lot of the time that results in children neglected, bills left unpaid, and if not addressed leads to eviction and homelessness. And of course there are those trying to cope with intimidating or coercive relationships, if not actual violence. In such circumstances children do not get the right sort of attention.

and.......message to Jaycee5 - act of vandalism to dismantle Sure Start - couldn't agree with you more!

I heartily echo Imperfect27's post.

Many baby buggies face away from the mother, so there is little interaction when they are out walking.

Additionally, I believe the mobile 'phone has culled much mother/child communication: many mothers are looking at their 'phones whilst pushing a child on a swing, for example.

I realise it is easy to say that 'in my day' was better but I truly think it was! My poor children sat in a big pram (as when they were first born, I did not (OK, my husband may say 'still cannot') drive. I had to walk everywhere and my poor children were chatted at every step of the way as I pointed out pussy cats, house numbers, trees, changing cloud formations etc., whatever I could see - and they looked, listened and learned plus we had a great relationship.

Has the car/forward-facing buggy/mobile 'phone changed all of this? I think they have. It is no wonder that some children are lacking the necessary skills when starting school.

In poorer areas, the Sure Start scheme sounded a wonderful idea and I think it is a shame that funding for this has been curtailed to a fair degree. We have to start somewhere to tackle the cycle of poverty (and yes, mobile 'phone and forward-facing buggies are ubiquitous in all sections of society) and this type of scheme is a beginning.

Non English children usually catch up exceedingly quickly and the parents are usually very supportive and grateful for the education

Luckygirl, I did not mean to imply that you could not understand the post - I took your very good point that the list was overlong and not user - friendly; it was good exercise for my brain to see how to simplify it!

We do expect children to start school 'very young' and pressures to meet later targets means that formal learning is being introduced ever earlier. However, the people I have worked with who lead Foundation Stage have all been passionate and skilled about encouraging children to learn through play. What they are encountering are children who cannot even play!

Thanks for the info Candelle, I will be writing.

There are many, many reasons why families do not thrive - poverty is only one of them. I set up a parent and toddler group for a community 21 years ago. It was in an old tin hut on an estate where many families lived on benefits and as a nearly free service, - we charged 50p a week, but with free drinks and biscuits all round, I thought we would be inundated with young mums 'in need'.

After a few weeks of no-one at all turning up and a bit more publicity, it was kick-started by the arrival of 4 mums with babes in arms who had all driven across town to get there. They all came from 'the posh part', but were all very isolated and lonely as husbands were away working in London and did long commute hours. From there membership grew and the group still thrives today, but we never did see much of the families 'in need' that I had hoped we could outreach to, even though health visitors promoted the group to every new mum.

If, from birth, we cannot get people to come to such services, we have to think of other ways to support them for the sake of the whole family. I think a 1:1 befriending approach is probably the way forward. I have done this on a voluntary basis. Sometimes it can be disheartening / worrying to see so much need - beyond what many would think of - sometimes, you know you have done something worthwhile.