Babies born in England during the Covid crisis have been slower at developing key language, cognitive and social skills, and the veteran education policymaker Sir David Bell is warning that rapid intervention is needed to stop those children being left further behind.
More than 80,000 children born in 2020 or 2021 did not reach one or more of the key measures of progress for their age group last year, according to official data highlighted by Labour’s education team, including 60,000 very young children who did not develop communication abilities usually seen in children their age.
