The Sutton Trust research has found that the education gaps between children of the most and least educated parents when they start school are significantly bigger in the U.S. and UK than they are in Canada and Australia:

"There is a lot of research to suggest that level of education of parents can affect educational outcomes for children but I am personally not in favour of this overtly deterministic view - my approach is that this gap is not self-evident or inevitable - that's where good early years provision and teaching comes in.

“Early years education is crucial in addressing the needs of children from all backgrounds, especially those in care, and enabling them to reduce the gap between themselves and their non-care-system counterparts.

“From what we know scientifically about early disruption to secure attachment, we find typically that children’s chronological age remains higher than their developmental age. Schools are not always well equipped to deal with and understand this rupture, so good quality early years provision is instrumental in giving such children a head start and enabling them to gain a sense of equality with others.

Dr. Gerard Paul Sharpling, Senior Teaching Fellow, Centre for Applied Linguistics

For further details please contact Nicola Jones, Media Relations Manager, University of Warwick 07920531221 or N.Jones.1@warwick.ac.uk