Boys eligible for free school meals are much more likely than their peers to fall behind at school by age 5.

That’s according to the latest data, which shows that only 43.2 per cent of boys eligible for free school meals (FSM) are achieving a good level of development (GLD) by the end of Reception, compared with 60.1 per cent of girls on FSM, and 67.7 per cent of children overall.

As an experienced early years practitioner, I see how early this disparity between boys (especially summer-born boys) and girls begins, particularly in less privileged areas.

And it’s a trend that we know continues when pupils reach secondary school. It’s well-documented that girls continue to outperform boys at GCSE.

Tackling the early years attainment gap

So, what can schools do to help close this attainment gap at the point where it first begins? At Ark, all our nurseries follow a daily five-point plan to help.

1. Story and rhyme ‘five a day’

At Ark Start, we offer at least five different story and rhyme times every day of the week. This is our equivalent of “five a day” fruit and vegetables.

We know that listening to stories and songs is one of the most important elements of young children’s learning and development. The number of words you hear and the number of books you read or listen to has a real impact.

For that reason, we always start our mornings with a story, which is often the stimulus for the activities we’ll offer children during the day. For example, we might read a story like The Gingerbread Man, and then the children would have the option to make a model of a gingerbread man out of Play-Doh, paint a picture of a gingerbread man or use puppets to retell the story.

2. Outdoor play is always available

In our nurseries all the children have the choice to play indoors or outside. To model how to make that choice, our practitioners might say on a cold winter’s day, “I’ve had a long walk to nursery and I’m feeling cold. I’m going to choose to stay inside in the cosy reading area because I want to stay warm.”

Or, we might say, “It’s a lovely sunny day today and I’ve got my sun cream on to protect my skin, so I’m going to go and play outside.”

Our children are offered time outside throughout the day, because we think it’s important that every child experiences outdoor learning in all weathers, as much as possible.

If we notice that any children keep choosing to stay indoors, then we might encourage them by taking a highly motivating resource outside for them to play with.

3. ‘Choose it, use it, put it away’

We use this catchphrase because it’s memorable, both children and adults can easily repeat it, and it quickly feels familiar.

When we first introduce this concept, particularly to children who are new to nursery, we explicitly teach them how to decide where to play, how to choose toys and use them appropriately, and how to tidy up afterwards.

This gives children key skills - you’ve got to look after your belongings, so you put them away when you’re done with them and before you move on. We find that the children hold themselves and their peers to account on this.

If a child goes to a different area without putting their toy away, we might say, “I can see that you were playing with the dolls and the dolls’ clothes, and I can see that they are still on the floor. Remember that we choose it, we use it, and...” and then the children often jump in and say, “We put it away.”

With the very youngest children, we model the language as we show them how to do it. You might do “hand-over-hand” modelling, so you’d take their hand and help them to pick the item up and put it away.

4. ‘Plan, do and review’

We break play-based learning down into three parts - plan, do and review. We help children to understand and follow this routine by explicitly modelling it to them.

We start what we call our “exploration time” by modelling how to plan for play. For example, if you had a picture prompt of a sunflower in your art area, you might say, “I’m going to paint a sunflower. I need a paintbrush and I need yellow paint.” You’re talking out loud about the steps you need to go through to do the activity you’ve chosen.

You would then model alternative plans within the provision to the children, so you’d say, “You could go into the construction area or you could choose to go to the writing area, and you could do x, y, z there.”

At an appropriate time, you would pause for reflection. You might say, “At the beginning of the afternoon I set out to paint a sunflower, but when I got there, I saw a picture of a dinosaur. I changed my mind and decided to do a dinosaur, instead.” You would then invite the children to share their reflections.

In this way children learn that they don’t have to adhere to the initial plan. It’s about sticking to the “plan, do, review” model, which is the start of teaching children early metacognition skills. This means that when things go wrong, they have the resilience to amend their plans.

The modelling differs depending on the age of the children you’re working with. For younger children it’s less talking and more visual aids and practical modelling. And for very little children, you would physically show them how to play.

5. ‘Time to find out’ sessions

We structure our children’s time in nursery with a fair balance between play-based learning, typically led by a child and perhaps facilitated by an adult, and time where adults lead a session with children to explicitly share a story or to teach them something new.

We call these our “time to find out” sessions. We start each session with a welcome song, so the children know what’s going to happen, and we use a visual timetable, with a picture of children sitting on the carpet, so they know what’s happening now and what’s next.

The younger children would have more time learning independently through play and build up the adult-led time as their attention increases, but this element is, crucially, always there, even with our youngest children.

Consistency is key

None of these practices are particularly complicated or unusual; they are rooted in what we know about quality instruction in the early years. The key is to introduce them early, make them universal and follow them really consistently. Our results show that doing this has a real impact.

By the end of Reception, more than 72 per cent of boys on FSM at Ark schools achieve a good level of development (GLD) - over 20 percentage points higher than the national average.

And across our network of 39 schools, regardless of eligibility for FSM, 78 per cent of children achieved GLD compared with 67.7 per cent nationally.

This is so important because reaching GLD in Reception sets the foundations for better outcomes in Year 6 and beyond.

Sarah Charlton is head of teaching and learning at Ark Start

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