Best Start In Life Strategy 2026 to 2029

Bold Start, Bright Futures - our plan for strong foundations in the early years

Overview of current performance

Coventry has made steady progress in improving early years outcomes over recent years, with a clear upward trajectory in Good Level of Development (GLD) since 2022.

In 2025, 65.3% of children achieved GLD, representing a 4.2 percentage improvement since 2022. This progress has narrowed the gap with national performance to –3.0pp, the smallest gap achieved since 2022 and has almost closed the gap with Statistical Neighbours (–0.2pp).

While this represents meaningful system improvement, Coventry continues to achieve below national comparators overall. This reinforces the need to sustain and deepen a strong focus on high-quality early learning, particularly in areas of development critical to later attainment.

Areas of learning: strengths and persistent gaps

Across the seven Areas of Learning, Coventry has seen broad-based improvement since 2022, with particularly strong gains in:

• Literacy (+3.1pp)
• Mathematics (+2.3pp)
• Communication and Language (+1.2pp)

These improvements suggest that changes to curriculum, pedagogy and early language approaches are beginning to gain traction across the system.

Although Coventry performs more strongly relative to statistical neighbours, outperforming them in five areas in 2025 there are still significant gaps when compared to national outcomes in the areas below.

• Communication and Language
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World

Success in communication and language and literacy is the foundation to later educational success and closely linked to social and economic mobility.

Prime areas of learning

Coventry’s closest alignment to national performance is seen in:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development

Both Prime Areas perform well and provide a strong base on which to build further academic learning.

Outcome trends for key groups of children

Disadvantaged and Non-Disadvantaged Children

Outcomes for disadvantaged children have improved from 46.5% achieving GLD in 2022 to 50.1% in 2025. However:

• Coventry remains below national outcomes for disadvantaged children (–1.3pp)
• non disadvantaged outcomes increased by +5.0pp over the same period, leading to a widening internal disadvantage gap, from 17.0pp in 2022 to 18.4pp in 2025

The rate of improvement is slower than that for non-disadvantaged children. Whilst overall, outcomes are rising, they are not doing so equitably. Universal approaches are not yet closing entrenched disadvantage. Targeted early intervention, particularly around language, parental engagement and attendance in early years education is essential.

Gender differences

Both boys and girls in Coventry have shown improved GLD outcomes since 2022:

• boys: +3.7pp
• girls: +4.7pp

Despite this improvement, Coventry’s gender gap widened from 13.2pp in 2022 to 14.2pp in 2025, exceeding the national gender gap (13.7pp). Boys continue to underperform girls across all comparator groups.

Although Coventry girls now slightly outperform statistical neighbours, boys remain marginally below both national and statistical neighbour benchmarks. Improving outcomes for boys, particularly in communication, literacy and self regulation, is therefore a priority.

White Disadvantaged Boys (WDB)

White Disadvantaged Boys represent one of the most vulnerable cohorts within the system and include a significant number of pupils. Outcomes for this group have improved from 36.4% in 2023 to 41.2% in 2025.

Key points include:

• Coventry has reached parity with national outcomes for WDB
• the gap with Statistical Neighbours has more than halved since 2023

However, White Disadvantaged Boys outcomes remain significantly below those for boys overall (41.2% vs 58.3%). Given the relatively large size of this cohort compared to other ethnic groups, improving outcomes for White Disadvantaged Boys is critical to raising overall GLD performance and reducing long term inequality.

English as an Additional Language (EAL)

The proportion of children with EAL in Coventry has increased sharply, from 32.2% in 2022 to 39.2% in 2025. Over the same period:

• GLD outcomes for EAL children have declined slightly in 2025.
• the gap to national has widened to –4.5pp
• Coventry has shifted from outperforming statistical neighbours to underperforming them

This trend represents an emerging risk. Additionally, data shows differences in children who may be bi-lingual or multi-lingual who access early education at nursery compared to Reception.

In nursery (summer 2025), 7 out of every 10 children had English as their first language (70%), and 3 out of 10 were learning English as an additional language (30%). By Reception (autumn 2025), this changed to about 6 out of 10 children with English as a first language (just over 62%), and nearly 4 out of 10 learning English as an additional language (almost 38%).

Lower take-up of early education among some EAL and minority ethnic families, combined with barriers linked to language, mobility and access to services, requires a renewed focus on inclusive outreach, early nursery engagement and culturally competent provision. 

Children with SEND:

The SEND cohort has grown rapidly in recent years.

• cohort increased from 9.4% (2022) to 12.4% (2025)
• after declines in 2023 and 2024, outcomes recovered strongly in 2025
• Coventry now outperforms both national and Statistical Neighbours

Children with an education, health and care plan (EHCP):

• cohort tripled from 1.2% to 3.6% between 2022 and 2025
• GLD outcomes remain extremely low, with only minimal improvement in 2025
• the gap with national and neighbours has widened

This picture highlights the success of early identification and targeted support for children at SEND Support level, alongside persistent challenges for those with the highest levels of need. Strengthening early intervention, specialist input and inclusive practice at the earliest point remains essential, alongside a stronger universal offer of support for emerging needs.

Children Looked After (CLA)

The CLA cohort in Coventry is very small and fluctuates annually, making trends volatile. Despite this:

• Coventry has outperformed national and statistical neighbours in 3 of the last 4 years
• 2025 shows a strong recovery (+9.1pp), with outcomes above national and neighbour averages Performance varies significantly by gender, SEN status, and placement stability. Where outcomes are strong, they reflect effective Virtual School oversight, stable placements, and trauma informed practice. Embedding consistency of practice remains a key priority

Place based variation: Best Start Family Hubs and wards

Analysis by Best Start Family Hub and geographical ward demonstrates significant geographic variation in outcomes:

• every Family Hub area contains at least one ward below 65% GLD
• areas served by Families for All and Harmony hubs show persistently low or declining outcomes
• St Michael’s is a consistently low-performing ward across multiple hubs

Ward level analysis identifies St Michael’s, Foleshill, Holbrook, Binley & Willenhall as priority areas due to a combination of low GLD and large cohort sizes. Improving outcomes in these geographical wards would generate the greatest impact on citywide performance and equity. Targeted, locality-based investment, aligned to Best Start Family Hubs and partner services will be essential to reducing variation and improving outcomes for children at most risk of falling behind.

Strengths in achievement and progress to build on

• upward trajectory in overall GLD and across most Areas of Learning, demonstrating that system-wide improvement work is beginning to take effect
• narrowing gaps with national and SN comparators for several groups, including disadvantaged pupils, girls, and non-disadvantaged pupils
• outcomes for children receiving SEND Support now outperform national and Statistical Neighbours, reflecting effective early identification and targeted intervention
• White Disadvantaged Boys have made sustained gains, with the gap to national closing over 3 years
• some Best Start Family Hub areas have shown improvement, suggesting that locality-based approaches can drive change when well-targeted
• broad-based improvement across Areas of Learning since 2022, particularly in Literacy and Mathematics, suggests that curriculum and pedagogy improvements are having a positive impact