Meet Becky. She is 12 years old and was born at 23 weeks’ gestation. She finds it difficult to concentrate, make friends and cope with multiple demands. She also struggles with low self-esteem.

To her teachers in primary, she appeared happy and willing to please. But now, at secondary school, her vulnerability is beginning to show, and she is becoming more socially and academically isolated.

Her situation is not an unusual one. Eight per cent of all births are premature (born before 37 weeks of gestation), which equates to at least two children in most classes. Do you know who they are? Should you?

Teachers are more likely to be aware of the challenges that a child might face in their early education if they are summer born, rather than if they are born preterm. But a greater knowledge of the potential difficulties that preterm children face is crucial in helping us to identify the most appropriate curriculum support.

These children are more likely to have special educational needs than those born full term. On average, children who are premature have lower levels of academic attainment - but not necessarily ability - across all subjects and are most likely to struggle in maths.

We tend to see more difficulties in cognitive rather than physical skills; in particular, with processing speed and working memory. This can significantly affect learning; for example, mental arithmetic that requires holding interim calculations in mind. Hand-eye coordination can also be affected, so the alignment of columns, reading data from graphs or telling the time can present more of a challenge.

So, why don’t we hear more about this issue? Perhaps this is down to a commonly held belief that while a child who was premature may lag behind in their early years of education, they will “catch up” later. But this is not always the case and the gaps can persist into adulthood.

Prematurity can also impact on a child’s social and emotional development, with those born prematurely four times more likely to experience attention problems than children born at full term.

A 2015 study by Professor Dieter Wolke of the University of Warwick, Dr Samantha Johnson of the University of Leicester and colleagues looked at whether delaying school entry enabled children born prematurely to catch up, but they found no evidence to support this premise. Instead, they recommended that more support should be offered to these young people.

Their research also showed that more than 80 per cent of teachers and more than 50 per cent of educational psychologists had received no formal training on the effects of preterm birth on children’s learning.

It’s important to remember that prematurity is a risk factor, not a proxy, for poor learning and should not be an excuse for low expectations. While we should raise awareness, we should also be careful not to label all children born prematurely as problematic learners. They have ability, and we need to find it and support it.

Margaret Mulholland is the special educational needs and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders

This article originally appeared in the 30 April 2021 issue under the headline “Are we too slow to help students born prematurely?”