Early Years (Skills and Learning, State of the South West 2011)

4.4.1 Although compulsory schooling starts at age five, almost all three and four year olds now benefit from some free early education. The entitlement to free early education consists of a minimum of 12.5 hours of early education per week for thirty-eight weeks of the year. In January 2010, there were 107,955 filled part-time equivalent (PTE) free early education places in the South West, 5.5% more than the previous year (Department for Education, Provision for Children Under Five). Most PTE places filled by four year olds in the South West (71%) are in maintained nursery and primary schools while most PTE placed filled by three year olds (84%) are with other maintained, private, voluntary or independent providers.

4.4.2 Children’s development is assessed at age five on the basis of learning practitioners’ professional judgements about their achievements. In 2010, almost three-fifths (57%) of children in the South West were assessed as having achieved a good level of development at the end of their Early Years Foundation Stage (Department for Education, Early Years Foundation Profile Results, 2009/10). This is one percentage point higher than the England average (56%), and nine percentage points higher than in 2007.

4.4.3 A child’s probability of achieving a good level of development at the end of this stage is influenced by a wide range of factors including the presence, or otherwise, of special educational needs, their ethnicity, use of English as first or second language, the material circumstances of their family, where they live and gender. At 4%, children with a statement of special educational needs are the least likely to reach a good level of development at this age, with children with less severe needs also considerably less likely than average to reach this level. Three-fifths (61%) of children with no identified special educational needs, by contrast, were judged to have achieved a good level of development.

4.4.4 Other characteristics associated with particularly low levels of development include belonging to the Black ethnic minority group (39%), having a first language other than English (41%), being eligible for free school meals (41%) and living in one of the region’s most deprived neighbourhoods (42%). Boys (48%) are also much less likely to achieve a good level of development than girls (66%). Black children in the South West are less likely to achieve a good level of development than average for Black children nationally, and, unlike other ethnic groups, have not improved over the last three years.

4.4.5 Geographic patterns include more favourable levels of attainment in rural areas and, in particular, villages and isolated dwellings and hamlets and in more prosperous areas. Attainment levels vary by as much as 26 percentage points across the region’s local authority areas with the highest levels in East Dorset (73.4%) and the lowest in Torridge (47%).