Teachers' union says government cuts are causing Wigan children to fall below national standards

Teachers’ union the NASUWT says the Government’s failure to tackle increasing social inequality has led to “dire consequences” for some young children’s educational progress.

But Wigan Council said despite millions of pounds of cut-backs in funding the borough’s performance has seen the fastest rate of improvement in the region.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile is an assessment of a child’s development at the age of five, typically done at the end of their Reception year.

A teacher assesses a child’s ability in literacy and maths, their social, emotional and physical development, and communication skills.

They then give them a score from one to three across 17 learning goals, with the highest number indicating that they have exceeded expectations.

Department for Education statistics show the average score for the lowest-attaining 20% of children in Wigan was 19.9 in 2018-19, compared to a median of 34.0 for all children.

It means those struggling the most scored 41.4% lower than the average for all pupils – ​the widest attainment gap since comparable figures were first published for the 2012-13 academic year.

The median is a measure used to exclude extreme values which could skew the average.

Across England, the same gap has crept up over the last five-year period, to 32.4% last year, although this was still lower than the 36.6% in 2012-13.

A Council spokesman said: “Despite having to make savings of £160m since 2010 due to the cuts in central government grants, PHE England statistics show that the percentage of Key stage One pupils in the borough meeting expected standards is above the national average for reading, writing and maths.

“Since the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage in 2013, there are more children now ready for school in Wigan compared to previous years. Our improvement has been the fastest rate of improvement in Greater Manchester with our good level of development rising from 38% to 68% over this period, we are also close to the regional average in overall numbers of school ready children.

“Despite Early Years Foundation Stage data declining slightly in 2019, it is evident there are programmes in place to address this and the high percentage of children who do not achieve an expected level of development at the end of Reception go on to meet the standard by the end of Key Stage One.

“Speech, language and communication has been a consistent focus and two speech and language therapists are now working as part of the Early Years Team to support the Early Years Sector, including Health visitors with training opportunities.

“Our integrated way of working connecting Council and Health teams with our Schools and Early Years Settings means that children and young people in Wigan receive developmental assessments and health checks regularly and support to help them develop well and be ready for school.

“As a result of this, in 2019 the gender gap in Wigan decreased to 13.4% from 17%, narrowing the gap between Wigan and National.

“We have also improved the position of children who access free school meals, as we set out to do when we began reorganising early years services, this has increased to 50.7%, the highest percentage since 2013.

“The number of children with special educational needs and disabilities achieving a good level of development also increased to 19.9%.

“This reflects the commitment in Wigan to ensuring that all children receive the best possible start.”

Chris Keates, acting general secretary of the NASUWT, said: “The Government’s failure to take action to address widening social and economic inequality is having dire consequences on the educational progress of children from an early age.

“The Government has driven austerity policies that have resulted in deep cuts to early education, intervention and family support, increased rates of child poverty and the teacher supply crisis which are impacting on all children, particularly those from the poorest backgrounds.”

She added that the DfE figures highlighted the need for investment in education and services for children and families to be made a priority.

Liz Bayram, chief executive at the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, said she recognised that the hard work of those in early years education meant the majority of children are reaching their full potential, but added that “most is not good enough”.

She said: “Children living with disadvantage, be that poverty, special educational needs and disabilities or other issues continue to be left behind.

“The Government needs to redouble its effort to ensure these children enjoy the full benefit of a high-quality early education in the same way that their peers do.”

A Department for Education spokesman said: “We are reforming the Early Years Foundation Stage framework to improve outcomes for all children at age five, especially disadvantaged children.

“We also know children’s earliest years before school are important, which is why we launched Hungry Little Minds – a three-year campaign to help parents support their child’s early language development, to set them up for school and beyond.”