There's a simple reason why children are starting school without skills and the government has to answer for it

The Sure Start centre I went to on my estate brought diverse communities together as well as isolated teenage parents. But who is lending a helping hand to struggling and depressed parents now?

Sure Start centres like these used to bring parents together for much-needed support and gentle help in parenting (Alamy)

For the first five years of my son’s life, we lived in a little house on a council estate in Putney, and there was a Sure Start nursery on the estate where all the mums would take our kids on a Thursday. We’d get the babies weighed, make Play-Doh creations, sit and natter, play with the kids and have a proper sing-song at the end. We went on outings, got to know each other, and it was a support hub for mums, who all came from very different backgrounds.

Quite a few of the parents were single and, what with it being an estate, many really struggled financially. They didn’t have to pay for Sure Start. Everything was free. The squash and snacks for the kids, the advice, the care, the friendships and the outings to the park, all for nowt.

One mum was very young, just 18 years old, and she had two toddlers. She was almost catatonic with tiredness and – I’m guessing, though I’m not a doctor – depression. She would just sit in a corner and watch as the rest of us played with her babies. The staff had an eye on her and talked to her about what was going on: her fears, concerns. She trusted them. It was simple, informal support over cups of tea.

In time, she came out of her shell, out of the fog she was in, and engaged. She was clearly a lovely mummy to her children. By the time they all started school, this mum was confident, smiling, and properly enjoying her kids. She and I hung out a little. There’s no other place I imagine our paths would have crossed like that and where we would have found enough common ground to become friends.

There was a Somalian mum who couldn’t speak English and was alone all day with her baby. Through nods and smiles and helping set up the snack table, she became one of our gang. Nothing improves your language faster than making friends with the locals. The Somalian lady turned out to be a world-class natterer.

The Sure Start initiative was launched by Tessa Jowell in 1998 precisely to ensure parents who were alone, isolated and who needed parenting help had somewhere to go. Through the community, they could learn parenting skills that sitting endlessly at home alone with the kids and watching TV would never teach you. The young mum had company now that motherhood had separated her from her teenaged friends. I became a single mum when my son was two and found myself catapulted into a painful, unfamiliar place. Although devastated, I had this place to go where I was supported and able to get emotional respite on my doorstep.

Sure Start acknowledged the importance of early years development. What goes on in the first three years of your life is critical and affects the chances you have later in life. Of course a child who is read to, engaged with and parented without harsh punishment is going to get a better start in life than one who is plonked in front of a screen by a depressed, distant, stressed parent who doesn’t know that screaming into a two-year-old’s face isn’t going to make them behave better.

Rather than vilify and judge parents like this, the Sure Start team would steer parents into praising children, giving them incentives, instilling consistency. Unless they are dreadful people who are willfully abusive, parents want the best for their children and some go about that in the absolute wrong way – so the parenting programmes Sure Start led were an enormous help. I saw it work.

In the case of some parents, this support was vital for their mental health – and of course their children benefited. Other parents, like me, came for the free biscuits, but stayed because the environment was enriching for us and our children. I saw social divides being bridged through these centres which were in pram-pushing distance.

Since 2009, though, cuts to social services means that the government has tiptoed around and quietly closed 1,000 Sure Start centres. They’ve shut down the chance of a free support network which considerably enhances the lives of preschool children. That also means shutting down the chance to spot early signs of neglect and abuse and giving support to struggling parents.

I wasn’t surprised this week when Ofsted head Amanda Spielman warned that the number of four-year-olds starting reception class who are unable to dress themselves, wash or speak properly is rising. It’s unclear whether many of those children who don’t have enough of a vocabulary when starting school lag behind because English is not spoken at home. Those children very soon become bilingual, which is only ever a marvellous thing. (I learned English in about two seconds once I started school. Children are brilliant linguists.) But for others, it seems they simply don’t have words because no one has spoken to them much.

Spielman’s findings are of course worrying, and you don’t have to be a genius to consider that Sure Start closures might have something to do with the fact that some children are not keeping up with their peers. We were not meant to parent in isolation but some do and, quite frankly, don’t do it properly. That’s why they need help.

What Spielman flagged up hasn’t appeared from nowhere. People haven’t suddenly changed and decided they are going to stop teaching their children to say “please” and “thank you” and wiping their own bottoms. There are people in society who need help with all that from the very start, and we are seeing what happens when we take community support away from those who need it the most.