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Editorial
Late preterm and early term children: the early years at school Neil Marlow Chan and Quigley report the key stage 1 outcomes for the Millennium Cohort based on gestational age at birth.1 We have been aware for some time of the relationship between special educational needs,2 school failure3 and gestational age but this study demonstrates that even as early as school year 3 this effect can be demonstrated. Moreover, they have also divided ‘term’ births into early (37–38 weeks) and full term (39–41 weeks). Consistent with the findings of MacKay et al2 from Scotland, it seems clear that the relationship with educational risk is continuous from full term downwards. This is a high quality cohort with good retention even though in the final analysis only 72% of the participants resident in England were included. Nearly 400 children (5%) were missing their gestational age and the coverage of Key Stage 1 (KS1) reduced the sample by a further 23%, due to schools not recording the data, because children were educated outside the state sector or because linkage was not possible. This group had an excess of families with social disadvantage, which will weaken the relationship and underestimate the prevalence in the population. Furthermore, it is important to remember that this isn’t a conventional examination, but that results are heavily edited by teacher’s experience of individual children in the classroom, in contrast with later national attainment tests. From published data one may have expected the risk to be considerably higher in those
Editorial
Late preterm and early term children: the early years at school Neil Marlow Chan and Quigley report the key stage 1 outcomes for the Millennium Cohort based on gestational age at birth.1 We have been aware for some time of the relationship between special educational needs,2 school failure3 and gestational age but this study demonstrates that even as early as school year 3 this effect can be demonstrated. Moreover, they have also divided ‘term’ births into early (37–38 weeks) and full term (39–41 weeks). Consistent with the findings of MacKay et al2 from Scotland, it seems clear that the relationship with educational risk is continuous from full term downwards. This is a high quality cohort with good retention even though in the final analysis only 72% of the participants resident in England were included. Nearly 400 children (5%) were missing their gestational age and the coverage of Key Stage 1 (KS1) reduced the sample by a further 23%, due to schools not recording the data, because children were educated outside the state sector or because linkage was not possible. This group had an excess of families with social disadvantage, which will weaken the relationship and underestimate the prevalence in the population. Furthermore, it is important to remember that this isn’t a conventional examination, but that results are heavily edited by teacher’s experience of individual children in the classroom, in contrast with later national attainment tests. From published data one may have expected the risk to be considerably higher in those
