One in three children is arriving at school without the basic skills needed to learn, socialise and thrive – and nowhere is the scale of the failure more starkly exposed than in Bradford, where deep inequalities mean a child’s chances are still shaped long before their first day in the classroom.
New analysis from Child of the North reveals a damning picture of early years provision across England, with a widening gap between advantaged and disadvantaged communities.
Nationally, there is now a 9.6 percentage point divide in school readiness, but in Bradford the disparity is far sharper: just 52% of children in the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods are school ready, compared with 86% in its most affluent areas.
Researchers warn that these figures represent more than statistical variation – they are evidence of systemic failure.
“Averages are disguising entrenched disadvantage,” the report concludes, pointing to a city where postcode has become a powerful predictor of a child’s future.
Teacher surveys paint an equally bleak picture. Nearly half of early years professionals believe school readiness is getting worse, not better, with growing numbers of children starting reception unable to use the toilet independently, struggling to communicate or interact socially, and showing signs of developmental delay linked to excessive screen use.
The findings are published in the latest report under the Child of the North’s #ChildrenFirst campaign, Supporting children in the preschool years: a new approach to improving the UK’s health. It warns that early disadvantage does not fade with time but compounds across a child’s life, driving poorer health, lower educational attainment and long-term economic damage.
Professor Josie Dickerson, director of early years, prevention and child equity at Born in Bradford, said Bradford had become an unignorable case study in what happens when inequality is allowed to embed itself from birth.
“In Bradford, the gap is not marginal – it’s profound,” she said. “Children in disadvantaged communities are facing multiple, overlapping challenges, and without targeted support those challenges become lifelong barriers.”
Born in Bradford, one of the UK’s largest and longest-running birth cohort studies, tracks more than 30,000 children and their families. Its data shows that by the time children reach school age, many inequalities are already entrenched – with lasting consequences for health, education and employment.
What makes the findings more uncomfortable, researchers argue, is that Bradford also demonstrates that this outcome is not inevitable.
The city has pioneered a system-wide early years approach that links data across health, education and social care through the Connected Bradford programme, uses predictive modelling to identify children at risk, and holds public services collectively accountable for outcomes.
“This isn’t a lack of evidence problem,” Dickerson said. “We know which children need help and what kind of support works. The real question is whether we have the political will to act early enough.”
The report was produced with partners including Bradford’s Prevention and Early Help Systems Board and Health Determinants Research Collaborative, supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. Its recommendations have fed into the government’s Opportunity Mission, which aims to break the link between background and future success.
Baroness Anne Longfield, founder of the Centre for Young Lives thinktank, said the Bradford data should serve as a national warning. “This is not about individual parenting failure – it is about a system that intervenes too late,” she said. “The first years of life are decisive, and Bradford shows both the cost of inaction and the potential of doing things differently.”
Professor Mark Mon-Williams, who edited the report series, described the situation as urgent. “A third of children are starting school already behind,” he said.
“Unless we adopt a system-wide early years approach, places like Bradford will continue to carry the heaviest burden of inequality for generations to come.”
