The proportion of four- and five-year-olds who are judged as meeting the government’s benchmark at the end of Reception year has increased, government statistics show. 

In 2017, 70.7 per cent had reached the government’s benchmark of a “good level of development”, compared with 69.3 per cent in 2016.

To reach a good level of development, children must have reached the expected level in 12 of the 17 areas in which they are assessed, including being able to count to 20, read simple sentences and take turns when playing.

The same trend was seen in the percentage achieving at least the expected level across all early learning goals - which increased by 1.7 percentage points from 2016.

Girls still outperform boys

Girls continue to do better than boys - but the gender gap has decreased for the three key measures.

The gender gap for the percentage of children achieving a good level of development has reduced from 14.7 percentage points in 2016 to 13.7 percentage points in 2017.

The assessment, known as the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile, is based on teachers’ observations of children.

The government has recently proposed changes to the profile as part of an overhaul of primary assessment.

The proposals include looking at reducing the number of early learning goals and bringing them into line with maths and phonics teaching in key stage 1. There is also interest in looking at some kind of vocabulary measure.

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