An Unsure Start for Young Children in English Urban Primary Schools

Abstract

This article, written by three research-active teachers and their academic partner, registers concerns with the ways the so-called ‘achievement gap’ is portrayed in policy announcements in England. It charts a challenge to the current view that it is the task of urban nursery and primary schools to train children to be school-ready. It portrays a collective professional judgement that some young children from less affluent backgrounds face a range of barriers to their learning on entry, which hampers their success at primary school. Further, it argues these barriers arise from children’s multiple vulnerabilities which cannot be encapsulated by a single category of need such as eligibility for Free School Meals or a Special Educational Need represented in official national-school quantitative data. This article proceeds to report on three inter-linked teacher inquiry projects, which seek to define and identify the range of vulnerabilities faced by some young children and consider intervention measures that will address their academic and social learning needs. The intention is to show that a more refined view of identifying these needs based on a research-informed reading of young children’s multiple vulnerabilities, framed by their social context, will lead to more equitable provision of primary schooling experiences.