Best Start In Life Strategy 2026 to 2029

Bold Start, Bright Futures - Our Plan to Improve Child Development and Health Outcomes from Birth to 5 

The first 1,001 days are critical in shaping a child’s development, making early support for health and wellbeing essential. In Coventry, inequalities persist across neighbourhoods, with disadvantage continuing to impact children’s outcomes and school readiness. This highlights the importance of supporting parents’ well-being, relationships and confidence from the earliest stages.

Bold Start, Bright Futures is our commitment to ensuring that every child in Coventry begins life with the strongest possible foundations. Our vision is that every child will be safe, healthy, curious, confident, and ready to thrive at school by age 5.

Together with families and local partners across health, education, social care, the voluntary, community and faith sector, (VCFS) schools and early years providers we will build a joined up ‘no wrong door’ system that identifies needs early, responds quickly and removes barriers, so that disadvantage does not determine destiny. 

This Bold Start, Bright Futures plan sets out how, by 2028, we will reach our statutory target of at least 72.3% of children achieving a Good Level of Development (GLD) at the end of Reception, with a faster rate of improvement for disadvantaged children. This Strategy is aligned to the Government’s ‘Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life’ Strategy with the ambition to unite early years and family services, alongside the 10 Year Health Plan which sets out a modernised, prevention first model of healthcare.

This plan responds to:

Learning from COVID-19

• the impact of Covid-19 was significant for young children in Coventry. Whilst the acute phase of Covid-19 is in the past, its legacy effects remain visible in Coventry’s early years outcomes, particularly across the 2021 to 2024 cohorts who were born during or immediately after the pandemic. These children had reduced access to health visiting, fewer developmental checks, disrupted social experiences and higher family stress, all of which continue to shape EYFS patterns today. The Coventry GLD data trend clearly reflects this legacy. Communication & Language remains one of the city’s widest national gaps (4.0 pp in 2025), consistent with well documented post Covid increases in Speech, Communication and Language needs (SCLN) and reduced early vocabulary exposure

Parent and provider feedback:

• families have asked for simpler access to services, quicker support and consistent quality of help across partners
• families have asked for more support with emerging special educational needs

Achievement data over time, related to the ‘Good Level of Development’ (GLD), progress made to date and current inequalities:

• local area data analysis and community insights underpin the Strategy and Local Area Plan