Nursery World - Building 'academic resilience'

Donna Gaywood explains how a landmark study provided insights for herself and her team to develop key steps to achieving 'academic resilience' – along with an assessment tool which she believes can raise the educational outcomes of children affected by disadvantage.

Observation of children at play, is needed to elicit their voice

A 2018 report compiled by the Education Endowment Foundation suggested that the largest gap in children’s long-term attainment is between those children who are entitled to free school meals and those who are not (other than children who have Special Educational Needs or Disabilities.)

These differences in educational attainment are evident at the end of the Foundation Stage and tend to endure until children are 16 years and beyond. ‘Nearly half of early years providers believe that the attainment gap between disadvantaged young children and their peers had widened since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic’ an Early Years Alliance (2021) report found, which suggests that the impact of poverty is not going away.

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