school entry for pre-reading and early number concepts measures than was the case for total
cognitive ability score at entry to the pre-school study.2 This may reflect the positive impact of
pre-school experience and its ability to help reduce the inequality in cognitive development
already evident at entry to pre-school. Nonetheless, such background factors remain powerfully
associated with variations in young children’s language attainment. One implication of this
finding may be the need for more intensive work on language enrichment for young children who
show poor language development at the start of pre-school. The analyses of attainment
demonstrate a significant positive impact of pre-school, in comparison to no pre-school, for all
children on all outcomes including language. This impact remains when background influences
are controlled. Thus we can conclude that pre-school has an important role to play in combating
disadvantage and giving children a better start at school.
Additional analyses were conducted for the sub-group of children identified as ‘at risk’ of special
education needs (SEN) [see Section 10 of this report for more details], defined as those showing
very low cognitive scores at entry to the study. It was found that children who are multiply
disadvantaged (in terms of a range of child, family and home learning environment
characteristics) show much better attainment than similarly disadvantaged children in the home
sample at the start of primary school (age rising 5 years). Again this finding points to the positive
impact of pre-school experience on cognitive development for particularly vulnerable groups of
young children.
Baseline assessment instruments at the start of school have important consequences. The
analyses reported here show that the choice of school entry measures can have equity
implications. Differences related to children’s gender, EAL and ethnic background are more
likely to be identified in measures of language and pre-reading skills than in non-verbal
attainments. It is important that accurate measures of children’s attainments at school entry are
obtained covering a range of attainments so that different areas of strength/weakness can be
assessed and children receive additional support, or, by contrast, sufficient challenge. A focus
on mainly language based measures for school reception assessment may disadvantage some
children of particular ethnic/language backgrounds, whereas non-verbal assessments that are
less language based may provide additional information about such young children’s skills.
Nonetheless, it remains important not to ignore or minimise the existence of language or pre-
reading differences because of their potential relationship with later attainment and progress in
school. It is crucial that school entry assessments are used formatively to assist teachers in
planning a programme to meet individual needs.
When children’s cognitive progress (change in attainment) over the pre-school period was
analysed the impact of child, parent and home environment characteristics was found to be much
smaller than when attainment at any one time point is explored (see Technical Paper 8a).
Background characteristics showed a strong relationship with prior cognitive attainment
(measured at age 3 years plus), and prior attainment is used as the baseline for measuring
progress. Nonetheless, a number of characteristics continue to show a statistically significant
influence on progress over the pre-school period, particularly for language and pre-reading. For
example, girls make greater gains in pre-reading, early number concepts and non-verbal
reasoning than boys over the pre-school period. Children from larger families (3+ siblings) made
less progress than singletons (i.e. only children) in pre-reading and language. Children whose
mothers had educational qualifications made more progress in all outcomes. EAL children
showed greater progress in pre-reading but not in language (reflecting their lower cognitive
attainment at entry to pre-school especially in language). Children from higher SES families
made greater progress compared to children from lower SES families in all outcomes except
spatial awareness / non verbal reasoning. The home learning environment also showed
significant positive impacts on cognitive progress in pre-reading, early number concepts and
language.
2 Measured by the British Ability Scales II, which cover both language and non-verbal skills.
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