THE Mayor of Manchester challenged services in Greater Manchester to improve the numbers of children who start school ready to learn.

He staged a summit at the Macron Stadium urging the public, private and voluntary sector to share ideas on how to ensure children were ready for school.

The conference heard how not being school ready at the age of five can impact on GCSE results.

“The truth is those 12, 157 are unlikely ever to catch up once they get to primary school and high school , they are never likely to fulfil their potential and probably likely to leave without good GCSE results.

“School readiness and developmental progress at age five is the biggest indicator of the GCSE results people go on to get.

Mr Burnham said he wanted to reduce the numbers of children who are not ready for school by getting the Greater Manchester family — public and voluntary sector, communities and families — behind the same goal and forming a tight team around the child".

Should children start nursery school aged two?

Mr Burnham said: "We can't afford not to, kids will fall through the net and it will get a lot worse so we have to something different.

"If we don't do it, we will all spend a lot more money later down the line in terms of the benefit system or criminal justice system whatever it might be."

He added: "We want teachers to have that back up, so that headteachers likes Ruth Dean and other schools in Bolton have a system behind them that they can call on, in practical terms what might this mean — it might mean if the midwife or the health visitor spots a child who is at risk of falling behind they pick up the phone to someone like Ruth and say this child might be coming to your school and they are worried that they are not going to be ready when they get there, it is about people have different conversations and sharing information perhaps in a different way so we are working as one system behind the child.

"The specific goal I am setting is in Greater Manchester the figures came out yesterday 2017 12, 157 were not school ready at the end of reception, now we have got to get that figure down every single year.