The proportion of reception pupils reaching a “good” level of development has risen again this year, according to the latest early years foundation stage profile results.
In 2018, 71.5 per cent of pupils achieved what the government deems to be a “good level of development”, up from 70.7 per cent last year.
The proportion of pupils achieving at least the expected level across all of the government’s early learning goals also increased, from 69 per cent in 2017 to 70.2 per cent this year.
The average total point score also increased from 34.5 to 34.6.
Girls continue to outperform boys in reception, but the gender gap is narrowing, according to the data.
There is now a 13.5 percentage point gap between the proportion of girls and boys who react a good level of development in the EYFS, down from 13.7 percentage points last year and 16.3 percentage points in 2014.
Meanwhile, reading, writing and numbers continue to be the three “early learning goals” with the lowest proportion of children achieving at the expected level or above, the government said.
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