Children are being set up to fail in life with many turning up to school not even toilet trained - Ismail Mulla
When it comes to children and their upbringing, something seems to have gone seriously wrong. The approach to the wellbeing of young people is falling apart on multiple fronts. And children are being set up for a lifetime of failure.
Not long ago, it would have been unthinkable for a child to start school without being toilet trained. Yet in an annual survey of primary school staff by early years charity Kindred Squared found that one in four children who started reception in 2025 were not toilet trained. This figure rises to one in three in the North East.
The charity warned that more and more children are arriving at the school gate “without the basic life skills needed to engage with the curriculum”. And it’s not only preventing children from engaging with the curriculum, with teachers having to increasingly focus on the wellbeing of children, taking them away from delivering the building blocks of lifelong learning.
Staff estimated they are spending 1.4 hours a day changing nappies or helping children who are not toilet trained, and in total lost 2.4 hours teaching time a day due to pupils lacking basic skills.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said “there is very obviously a huge problem with children not being ready for school when they start in reception”.
Staff also report around 28 per cent of children started school unable to eat and drink independently, and 25 per cent were struggling with basic life skills.
Almost a third of children who started reception last year were not able to use books correctly with some even trying to swipe or tap them like a smartphone. It's perfectly understandable if there are children with varying reading proficiencies at that age. However, the idea that they are not even able to use a book correctly should concern us all.
It also points to a very pernicious trend that has crept in, to the detriment of children’s development, that of the smart phone and tablet. It’s not an uncommon sight to see parents with little tots glued to their screens, oblivious to the world around them, including their own child.
Social media is awash with pictures of people and their children, who are almost treated like newly adopted puppies. These children have their lives put on social media, whether they like it or not from birth. Putting aside the genuine concerns of what these social media companies are capable of doing with this material, this addiction to smart phones leads to young children picking up the same habit.
If you sit in the same room as a toddler with a book in hand, their curiosity will inherently lead them to want to see what the artefact occupying your attention is. Sit there gawping at a smart phone and they’ll want the same.
I’ve seen parents hand over a smart phone to keep an unruly child in order. Little effort to instil discipline, just here’s a video, shut up and leave us alone.
And it won’t be long before these children end up with social media accounts of their own. At this point can anyone name one benefit of children being on social media? The argument for staying in touch with parents in case they run into trouble is redundant in the face of endless slop being presented to young minds. My parents gave me a big Nokia 6150 to take with me to school in the early 2000s. It had an aerial on top of it and resembled a brick but it’s purpose was clear, ring when running later after school or should you run into any trouble. Now, nothing less than the latest iPhone will do for some children.
Back to the issue of school readiness. The Government has ambitions for 75 per cent of children to be school ready by 2028. In the latest Department for Education figures, 68.3 per cent of children were judged to have a good level of development by the end of reception in 2024/25.
The warning from Kindred Squared chief executive Felicity Gillespie is eye-opening. She says, “This is no longer just a classroom issue; it is a systemic crisis fuelled by stretched school resources, low expectations, the rising cost of living, and by parents who lack the right information and understanding early enough to truly support their children’s development.”
Parenting can’t be easy and therefore they do need support. Therefore the Government’s Best Start family hubs, which will offer parenting support and youth services, are to be welcomed.
There is also an urgent need to rebuild the health visiting workforce, with children in England now suffering from some of the worst child health outcomes in Europe.