The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and Public Health England have published their annual statistics on child development outcomes. The statistics found a decrease in the development of children between 2 & 2 and a half years old (OHID and PHE, 2023).

Read the Nursery World story on this report here.

The data, taken between 1 April 2022 to the 31 March 2023, focuses on five main areas of development: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social skills. The statistics generated each year are often compared with previous years to highlight any potential trends. This year, it showed a decrease in the amount of children at or above the expected level of development compared to the year before. 

The key findings

Overall, 79.2% of 2- to 2-and-a-half-year-olds in 2022-23 were meeting the developmental outcomes in all areas. A 2.5% drop from the previous year (81.1%).

A breakdown of this overall percentage into each of the five areas of development showed that:

• Communication - there was a 1.2% decrease in children at or above the expected level of development compared to the previous year. (85% in 2022-2023, compared to 86.5% in 2021-2022).
• Gross motor skills - there was a 0.6% decrease. (92.8% in 2022-2023, compared to 93.4% in 2021-2022).
• Fine motor skills - there was a 0.6% decrease. (92.6 % in 2022-2023, compared to 93.2% in 2021-2022).
• Problem-solving skills - there was a 0.9% decrease. (91.8% in 2022-2023, compared to 92.7% in 2021-2022).
• Personal/social skills - there was a 0.8% decrease. (90.3% in 2022-2023, compared to 91.1% in 2021-2022).

How can you support children within your own practice?

It is important to acknowledge that the fall in expected levels of development may follow this cohort of children throughout their school careers. As a practitioner, you need to ensure that you are providing high quality provision across the whole setting and strive to increase children’s developmental outcomes.

The first step in working towards this goal, would be to complete an initial baseline assessment on each child to provide a clear picture of their current stage of development. This will highlight any areas that may require more support and plan activities to specifically target any gaps. However, it is important to focus on play and learning opportunities which target the prime areas of development:

• communication and language
• personal, social, and emotional development
• physical development

These are the foundation blocks of learning and development. Young children need to acquire key skills within these areas to enable their development to progress.

After several weeks of implementing specific activities to support a child’s development, you should re-assess using your observations. This information will enable you to plan the next steps and help identify any potential underlying SEND needs if progress has not been made. It is important that children can access high quality educational provision. Part of that high-quality provision is maintaining records of your planning, observations, and assessments of a child’s development so that you can support them effectively.

Other recent data has indicated that more children are presenting with additional needs and developmental delay post-pandemic, with this trend set to continue (OS, 2023). The challenge you will face as a practitioner is being able to judge why a child is not reaching the expected level of development. It could be due to an overall delay associated with this cohort of children, the impact of the pandemic or because there is an identifiable SEND need. 

It is also important to work in partnership with parents/carers and suggest activities that they could do at home to extend their child’s opportunities for learning outside of the classroom. Any suggested activities that you share with parents/carers should be manageable and require little resources as they are more likely to engage with them. From my experience as a parent, I dread my children coming home from nursery or school with big activities to complete which require resources that I do not already have at home. Here are some of my suggestions:

• Walk around the shop, talk to your child about the different foods that you can see to support their communication and language development.
• Play a game of eye-spy with your child and take turns to support their personal, social, and emotional development.
• When you are at the park or out on a walk with your child, encourage them to move in different ways, such as hopping, climbing, crawling, and walking up and down steps to support their physical development.

Conclusion

National Statistics and official government reports may feel out of our realm of daily practice. However, they serve as valuable indicators of potential issues which could be impacting our sector. This latest set of statistics identified a significant developmental issue in 2-year-olds. This is an issue which cannot be ignored and something that we can start working towards changing in our practice. As practitioners, we need to draw on our knowledge and skills of working with children to implement high quality play opportunities to support and promote their development. Striving to close the developmental gap may seem like a big task, but you should not be expected to tackle it alone. Strengthen your partnership working with parents/carers to encourage them to extend play and learning opportunities and increase knowledge and understanding of child development. Finally, if you feel a child may require more specialist support, draw upon the knowledge of other professionals and make referrals to other agencies.