Covid Restrictions Have Left a Generation of Babies and Toddlers Struggling to Crawl and Communicate, According to Ofsted

Young children who’ve been ‘socialised’ in the last two years are struggling with making friends, speech and language and using the toilet independently, Ofsted inspectors have found. The Telegraph has more.

Children are not socialising with each other as much because of communication problems, lack confidence and are shy and anxious, with babies in particular not used to seeing different faces.

There are also delays in babies learning to crawl and walk and some children have regressed, meaning they need help with skills such as putting on their coats and blowing their nose.

Delays in development mean more children are unlikely to be ready for school by the age of four, the report warns.

Amanda Spielman, chief inspector, said the pandemic has created “lingering challenges”.

“I’m particularly worried about younger children’s development which, if left unaddressed, could potentially cause problems for primary schools down the line,” she said.

Ofsted published the briefings, the second in a set of reports exploring how learners have recovered from pandemic learning loss, on Monday.

The report, based on inspections of 70 early years’ providers in Jan and Feb 2022, found some providers said children had “limited vocabulary” while “some babies have struggled to respond to basic facial expressions”.

Children have also missed out on having conversations or hearing stories, with one provider saying that young children seem to have spent more time on screens and have started to use accents and voices from programmes they watched.

Worth reading in full.

You can read the Ofsted report here.

Stop Press: Daily Sceptic alumnus Michael Curzon has written a piece about this Ofsted report for the Express. Well worth reading.