Academic year 2018/19

Early years foundation stage profile results

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See all updates (1) for Academic year 2018/19

  1. Corrected wording on how the percentage inequality gap was calculated.

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Department for Education

Introduction

These statistics provide national and local authority level details on the achievement at the end of the early years foundation stage profile (EYFSP) from 2013 to 2019. 

The EYFSP is a teacher assessment of children’s development at the end of the early years foundation stage (the end of the academic year in which the child turns five years old, this is typically at the end of the Reception year). 

The publication which was first released in October 2019 on GOV.UK (opens in a new tab) covers the:

  • percentage of children achieving each assessment rating in the early learning goals
  • percentage of children achieving at least the expected level in the prime areas of learning and in the specific areas of literacy and mathematics (a good level of development)
  • average total points score (APS) across all the early learning goals (the supporting measure)
  • percentage of children achieving at least the expected level within the communication and language, and literacy areas of learning.

Users may create breakdowns by reporting year, outcome and gender within the ‘create table’ tool at the bottom of the page. 

The ‘create table’ tool can also provide national figure breakdowns by ethnicity, special educational needs, and free school meal eligibility status for 2017/18 and 2018/19. 

Additional data

Underlying data in CSV format for years 2017/18 and 2018/19 has also been released on this platform within the download associated files section. 

The additional tables provide national and local-authority-level information on EYFSP attainment by pupil characteristics, specifically:

  • gender
  • ethnicity
  • eligibility for free school meals
  • special educational needs
  • English as a first language
  • month of birth (national level information only)
  • deprived areas

Data  for earlier years can be found at GOV.UK. (opens in a new tab)

Related information

Releases in this series

View releases (12) for Early years foundation stage profile results

Methodologies

Headline facts and figures - 2018/19

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    View tables that we have built for you, or create your own tables from open data using our table tool

  • Data catalogue

    Browse and download open data files from this release in our data catalogue

  • Data guidance

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  • Download all data (ZIP)

    Download all data available in this release as a compressed ZIP file

Additional supporting files

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Key measures

See the Methodology section for definitions of the key measures.

The percentage achieving a good level of development and the percentage achieving at least expected in all early learning goals (ELGs) continue to rise, although the rate of improvement has slowed in recent years. The average point score remains the same as last year. 

Good level of development

71.8% of children achieved a good level of development in 2019, up slightly by 0.3 ppts on 2018.

Achieving at least expected in all 17 early learning goals

The percentage of children achieving at least the expected level across all ELGs was 70.7%, up by 0.5ppts from last year.

Average total point score

The average point score remains the same as last year at 34.6. 

For context, a child achieving the expected level on all 17 ELGs would score 34. One ELG being either ‘exceeding’ or ‘expected’ would move that child's total point score up or down respectively by 1 point. 

 

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Early Learning Goals

See the Methodology section for definitions of the key measures.

In 2019, Numbers was the only ELG where there was an increase in the percentage of children achieving at least the expected level compared to 2018. For 14 individual ELGs, there was a small decrease in the percentage of children achieving the expected level. 

Despite this downward trend across individual ELGs, 0.5ppts more children achieved at least the expected level across all their ELGs. 

The Reading, Writing and Numbers ELGs continue to have the lowest percentage of children achieving at the expected level or above. The largest improvements from 2013 were for Writing and Numbers.

Within the communication and language and literacy areas of learning 72.6% of children achieved at least the expected level of development across all the early learning goals up from 72.4% in 2018 and 56.9% in 2013.

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Average total point score

See the Methodology section for definitions of the key measures.

The most common total point score is 34 points (Fig C) with 28% of children achieving this score. 

The spread of total point scores shows the level of variation in achievement (see Fig D):

  • 43.8% of all children achieved a total point score of more than 34 - achieving ‘exceeded’ in at least one early learning goal (ELG) - up from 35.6% in 2013 and the same as in 2018
  • 28.0% of all children achieved a total point score of less than 34 - achieving ‘emerging’ in at least one ELG - down from 45.8% in 2013 and 28.4% in 2018.
  • 6.3% of all children achieved a total point score of less than 20, up from 6.0% in 2018 but lower than 6.9% in 2013.
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Gender gap

Key measures by gender

Girls continue to perform better than boys in all three key measures with 77.6% of girls achieving at least the expected level in all early learning goals (ELGs) compared to 64.0% of boys.

Girls’ performance has plateaued in 2019 with no change to average point score or the percentage achieving a good level of development compared with 2018. The percentage achieving at least the expected level across all ELGs has improved by 0.1 ppt.

Since 2018 there has been a 0.8 ppt increase in the percentage of boys achieving at least the expected level and a 0.5 ppt increase in the percentage achieving a good level of development. Their average point score remains the same as 2018 at 33.4.

This means the gender gap has decreased for the percentage achieving at least the expected level and the percentage achieving a good level of development. The gender gap for average total point score remains the same,  (see Figs. E1 to E3).

Early learning goals by gender 

Girls continue to perform better than boys in all of the ELGs. The gender gap for the percentage achieving at least the expected level is largest in writing (12.2ppts), reading (10.1ppts) and exploring and using media and materials (10.1ppts). The gap is the smallest for technology (3.1ppts).

The gender gap has increased since 2013 for four ELGs: self-confidence and self-awareness; shape, space and measures; the world, and technology but has decreased or stayed the same for all the other goals.

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Gap for lowest attaining children

This section looks at the total average point score gap between all children and the lowest 20% of attaining children to determine if the gap is narrowing.

How the percentage inequality gap is calculated

The gap is calculated as the percentage difference between the mean average of the lowest 20% and the median average for all children.

The average total point score for the lowest attaining 20% has decreased slightly from 23.2 in 2018 to 23.0. However, it is up from 21.6 in 2013. 

The average total point score for all children has not changed from 2018 to 2019, remaining at 34.6. This is up from 32.8 in 2013. 

The inequality gap has increased by 0.2ppts from 2018 to 2019, now an 11.6 percentage point gap. 

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Local authority variation

The majority of local authorities improved on last year’s performance in the three key measures. The variation between the highest and lowest performing local authority is reducing over time. There continues to be significant variation between local authorities with:

  • those achieving a good level of development [1] (opens in a new tab) varying from 63.1% in Middlesbrough to 80.6% in Richmond upon Thames
  • those achieving at least the expected level in all learning goals [1] (opens in a new tab) varying from 61.4% in Middlesbrough to 80.3% in Richmond upon Thames
  • the average point score varying from 32.1 points in Middlesbrough to 39.0 points in Richmond upon Thames
  • the attainment gap between all children and the lowest attaining 20% of children [1] (opens in a new tab) varying from 22.1% in Richmond upon Thames to 45.5% in Middlesbrough

[1] (opens in a new tab) Excludes City of London and Isles of Scilly due to small numbers of schools.

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Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics have been independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Accreditation signifies their compliance with the authority's Code of Practice for Statistics which broadly means these statistics are:

  • managed impartially and objectively in the public interest
  • meet identified user needs
  • produced according to sound methods
  • well explained and readily accessible

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Early years foundation stage profile results statistics and data:

Early Years Statistics Team

Email: earlyyears.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Simone Cardin-Stewart

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

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If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Telephone: 037 0000 2288

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