A significant number of children are not ready for starting school as their parents’ smartphone usage is causing them to lack certain social skills.
According to a survey of senior primary school staff members in the UK, young children are starting school with speech problems and suffering from a lack of attention and interaction thanks to parents’ obsession with their phone.
Conducted by The Key, an information service for head teachers, the survey of over 1,100 senior level primary school staff found that 194,000 children are not prepared to start school this September.
The report found that a huge number of teachers are worried about their pupils’ lack of social skills, including “self-help skills” and low levels of reading, writing and numeracy.
"School leaders are already struggling to retain staff and manage their teachers' workload, so add thousands more pupils arriving ill-prepared for the classroom to the equation, and the burden placed on our schools will be huge,” The Key chief executive Fergal Roche said.
"An agreed definition of what 'school-readiness' means, could be the first step to helping schools, parents and early years practitioners identify what national or localised support is required to meet this growing issue."
Director of poverty policy at Save the Children Gareth Jenkins told The Telegraph that too many children are not getting enough support to thrive in their early years.
"Research for Save The Children has shown that falling behind in their early years can drastically limit a child's chances of success later on, affecting results throughout school, and even earnings as adults,” he added.
SHARE to highlight the issue.
