71.5 per cent get 'good' Early Year Foundation Stage results

71.5 per cent of reception pupils have achieved a ‘good’ level of development this year, according to the latest early years foundation stage profile results, an increase of 0.8 percentage points on 2017.

The amount of pupils achieving the expected level across all of the government’s early learning goals increased from 69 per cent in 2017 to 70.2 per cent this year.

Girls continue to do better than boys, but the gender gap has decreased for the percentage achieving a good level of development and other key measures.

There is a 13.5 percentage point gap between the proportion of girls and boys who achieved a good level of development in the EYFS, down from 13.7 percentage points last year.

The average total point scored increased from 34.5 to 34.6.

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.