Says it all really....

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has recently undertaken a large sample survey of abilities of 5 year-olds in schools in England at the end of their first year in school. In fact their sample was 230,000, or about 42% of the entire age group.

The findings are appalling:
- 25% of boys cannot write their own name, after one year in school, and 15% of girls.
- A similar percentage of boys have difficulty holding a pencil correctly.
- In educational development, boys are behind girls when they arrive at school.
- Even after one year in school 30% of boys, and 23% of girls struggle to recite the alphabet.
- At the same stage almost 20% of boys and 15% of girls cannot count to ten.

There are many reasons why boys lag behind girls, but more important are other questions:
What is happening in families before school and in out of school hours?
Why is the government pressing ahead with all sorts of non-basic topics when remedial attention is so obviously required by so many. Do they really need sex education, for instance, when so many lack basic literary and numerical skills?

The much despised middle and professional classes, who prepare their children before school, and inculcate a willingness to learn, must have counterparts in other sectors in society, or there will be very limited social mobility. Children who begin with the identified disadvantages will fall further and further behind others and eventually become benefit-dependent unemployables like their parents.