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How on earth did we get to the point where we’ve got schools saying today that kids are starting school without some of the most basic skills?

And when they say basic, they mean basic. According to the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association, there are five-year-old kids starting school who can’t talk, who can’t feed themselves and who haven’t been toilet trained.

I think I’ve got a partial solution to this problem. Which would mean putting more pressure on parents to make sure their kids are school-ready. 

I’ll get to that. But first, here’s the scale of the problem. Nearly 90 per cent of Auckland primary schools say new entrant students are needing more help than ever before to reach a level where they’re ready to learn.

Massey Primary School assistant principal, Anna Watkin, is one of the educators speaking out today.

She says her school is seeing increasing numbers of children entering the classroom who can’t hold a pencil or recognise their name.

She says: “They struggle with empathy, focus, and even basic things like toileting. It takes at least three years to catch them up to expected curriculum standards.”

And this is not just an Auckland problem. I was talking to someone who said there are new entrants turning-up at the Christchurch school their kids are at who can’t eat their lunch on their own. 

What’s more, parents at their child’s school have been warned that, if their Year One child wets or soils their pants, the teachers won’t be cleaning it up. They’ll call the parents and get them to come and sort it out.
 
But that’s putting the onus on the parents' way too late.

The pressure needs to go on parents' way before Day One at school - and here’s how you’d do it.

I think every child about to start school should be tested for the basic skills you would expect them to have at age 5.

So, they’d be tested to check they can do things like feed themselves and go to the toilet.

You might think schools don’t have time to do all that. But my response is that schools also don’t have the time to deal with these kids once they’re in the classroom, either.

At least by testing them before they start, the school and teachers would have a warning that they’re going to be dealing with kids who don’t know the basics.

If we were going to be really hard on it, we’d tell parents or caregivers to keep their kids at home until they can do these basic things. So, they wouldn’t be allowed to start school until they could prove they were toilet-trained and all of that.

I think that would be going too far. But at least if a child was tested for these basics before starting, schools would have a better idea or a warning of what they’re going to be dealing with.

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