The Department for Education has published a summary of the Early years foundation stage profile results in England in 2017. The results show modest progress in a few key areas, but also a slight widening of the gap between the lowest attaining children and all children.

The EYFS profile (EYFSP) summarises and describes children’s attainment at the end of the EYFS, usually in reception. It gives:

• the child’s attainment in relation to the 17 early learning goals (ELG) descriptors
• a short narrative describing the child’s three characteristics of effective learning

Practitioners’ assessments are primarily based on observing a child’s daily activities and events.

Key findings from the 2017 results include:

• 70.7 per cent of children achieved a good level of development, an increase of 1.4 per cent on 2016 (up 19 per cent since 2013);

• 69 per cent of children achieved at least the expected level across all early learning goals, an increase of 1.7 per cent from 2016 (up 20 per cent since 2013);

• The average total point score has remained the same as 2016 at 34.5 (up 1.7 points since 2013);

• Girls continue to do better than boys, but the gender gap has decreased for the three key measures;

• The gap between all children and the lowest attaining children has widened slightly in 2017, though it is still significantly lower than in 2013;

• Nearly all local authorities improved on last year’s performance, but there continues to be significant variation between local authorities.