Opinion

Good Level of Development at age 5: A headline measure is not enough

Reception Government policy
The government’s focus on family support and increasing the number of children reaching a Good Level of Development at age 5 is welcome, but Matthew Dodd says this cannot fall to schools alone and that we need a clear and comprehensive strategy to make it possible
Target: The prime minster has publicly committed to increasing the number of children reaching a Good Level of Development at age 5 by 2028 - Adobe Stock

The National Children’s Bureau’s vision is for a country where children have the best start in life. This must encompass both education and health outcomes, as well as direct support for their families.

The prime minster has publicly committed to increasing the number of children reaching a Good Level of Development (GLD) at age 5 by 2028. This is assessed during the reception year of primary school, but this milestone cannot be for schools alone to deliver.

We recently concluded our work on the A Better Start project, a 10-year programme funded by the National Lottery where we supported the Lambeth Early Action Partnership (LEAP) – one of five partnerships in England – to work with children and families, policy-makers and practitioners to test new ways of making support and services for families stronger, so that children can have the best start in life.

This programme showed that holistic, consistent, place-based support for children and families led to improved outcomes (see Green et al, 2024). This is what we believe every child needs and deserves.

The government’s focus on early childhood development is welcome news, and the GLD measure is simple and effective in communicating its ambition for children.

However, a headline measure is not enough to ensure lasting change. We need a vision for early childhood that reflects our collective aspirations for our youngest children and their families, and we need the government to take concrete action in a range of ways to achieve this.

First, the government needs to deliver the milestone without losing sight of the intention to narrow inequalities.

To do this, we recommend introducing some level of nuance into the milestone, with local areas identifying and addressing the systemic barriers faced by specific groups of children who might face particular barriers in reaching the GLD threshold. For example, by addressing the challenges faced by disabled children in accessing high-quality childcare and early education.

We need to think about children having a successful start in life, and reaching the GLD milestone, as a collective responsibility that encompasses every aspect of their lives. This is why we want to see increased shared accountability for local system partners, alongside incentives for collaboration.

Local authorities and Integrated Care Boards, working with the early education and childcare sector and schools, should be held jointly accountable for driving this change (provided they are given the resources and flexibility to deliver).

Children’s development is also fundamentally shaped by their family circumstances, the home learning environment, and their relationships with key adults in their lives: we want to see a full national roll-out of Family Hubs from next year, and further investment in a new offer of Family Help (see DfE, 2025).

These reforms should include particular strands focused on improving the home learning environment, supporting speech, language and communication, and the parent-infant relationship.

Educational efforts must be coupled with investment in social security that directly increases family income as part of the child poverty strategy. No lever available to central government will have such an immediate impact on child development as lifting families out of poverty and destitution. Providing an adequate level of social security is an essential investment in children’s early development, and any child poverty strategy that fails to address this will not be credible.

If the old cliché that “it takes a village” is true, then everyone in our “village” can play a part in making sure that every child gets the support and opportunities they need.

It is the government’s responsibility to provide systems and communities with the right tools to do so.

  • Matthew Dodd is head of policy, public affairs and communications at the National Children’s Bureau.

 

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