Children start school at 5, oh no they don't

Lol my aunt had 9 children . The first 2 were twins. Not much one to one ghere.

When my son was in baby room at nursery ( up to 2 years) it was a 1:2 staff ratio.

Was only 1:8 I think at preschool room which is same age the sahm mum would send kids to playgroup etc. So i want see ge difference tbh

And kids from large families are think are generally more independent as the parents font have time to pander to them and do everything for them so they learn to dress themselves, get a drink etc from an earlier age

Surely any child with siblings have less one to one adult care? If you have twins then when do they get it?

Even SAHP send their children for some hours at pre-school. There aren’t many now who haven’t been to any sort of childcare. It can be a bit of a shock going straight in full time to a reception unit with 29 other children. I didn’t mean struggle academically.

Why do children who have been at home struggle? Nursery is just childcare. Children who are looked after by a parent are often the most confident as they have made very secure attachments and most SAHPs take their children to toddler groups and socialise with friends regularly. They also tend to spend time playing, reading and educatiing their children by taking them to intresting places, talking to them about the world around them and they have had the undivided attention of an adult.

In my experience, children who have spent long hours in daycare from an early age have had less one to one with adults and are less secure, have less general knowledge. They are also more peer focused and care less what their parents and teachers think and more what their friends think as they have learnt that being popular among their peers is an advantage for surviving in a large group. But this makes them less focused on learning from the teacher and listening to adults and they perform less well.

Obviously lots of generalisations there but I don't see children of SAHPs being disadvantaged at all in my experience.

I would think a child who has been in nursery since they were 7m would be fine! It’s the ones who have only been at home that will struggle more.

Yes as the piece says you started as a 'rising 5', which was normal in some areas by the 1960s. But across the whole of england most children were 5 (and a bit).Then rising 5s became more common. Then 4 year olds.

Unfortunately the even earlier starts we have now at 4 don't seem to have helped summer born children, especially boys. And although there's not much good research on this, lots of downsides, again, especially for boys.

I'm pretty sure it was summer term for summer babies where I was. They'd keep them in reception at least a term into the year 1 so everyone got at least 2 terms of reception.

Reception isnt that much harder than nursery, theres lots of free play.

@RubySquid- I believe it varied by county, but yes, in the case of end of July and August babies who wouldn’t be 5 in term time, you were allowed to just miss reception and go straight into year 1 (or middle infants in old naming.) if you turned 5 during the school year, you started at the start of the term before you turned 5, so October baby in September, February baby in January, May baby after Easter etc. some schools would allow parents to hold you back to do reception if you were an August baby but it was optional and didn’t become a right until recently.

Also then there were no class size limits, and catchment schools would just take you, so 40 in a class happened.

Umm I'm August birthday. I'm pretty sure I started Sept at just turned 5. My brother ( Oct 74) also started Sept but just before he was 5

It’s a few years since my son was in primary but in infants they had smaller class sizes. They had three classes for his intake year of 60+ so it was 20 ish whereas from juniors there were two classes of 30 ish. I was worried about it being a big primary but they seemed to know what they were doing so we went with it. Reception is a lot of play and they had a separate fenced outdoor area. I must have read every ofsted report in a 5 mile radius but we went with local as it was a good school and meant his friends would be local. You might decide a village school is better. Maybe make a shortlist, read their ofsted reports and then drop them an email about reception, class sizes etc. you may find some useful info on school websites too.

Mine had been 5 for three months before they started. Oldest, 5months. Scotland, so they are between 4.5 and 5.5 but there’s a huge window of where they can be held back if they aren’t ready.

That article is comlletely wrong. I was born in 1973 and we didn't start school in the term after we were five like that report says. We started school at the start of the term we turned five. So having a January birthday, I started school at the start of the Spring term in January and my brother, being a June birthday, started at the start of the summer term after the Easter Holiday. Everybody did at least one term in the Reception class.

If it had been the case as described in that article there would have been no children starting the reception class in September! But there was!

Yes, it meant no child started school having just stopped being three like they do now, but it also meant that at the start of Year One, the older children were not only advantaged by being older but they had, had a full year at school and had extra teaching compared to the younger children who had only a term of schooling as well as being almost a year younger.

Hello - i was puzzled by this question too as I thought surely English children go at 5? Long read here on the strange story of school starting and how Westminster changed childhood without anyone really noticing (and ended the mum-run playgroup movement along the way).

I'm all for a system that provides centres for little ones to have a fun, play based provision from a young age, but why on earth does the system think structured learning in a formal school uniform is good for three year olds?
I think a lot of this pushing of numeracy and literacy at ever younger ages came off the back of a major study that found the children who had good numeracy and literacy skills by age 5-6 ended up being higher earners later on, despite any behavioural or social issues they may have had. Which sadly ignores that these type of kids probably just have an inherent ability in these areas rather than being hot-housed 😬

4 is really late to start school. Both my children started school the term after their 3rd birthday. I'm in Wales so maybe our schooling system is different here to elsewhere in the UK? If your boy isn't ready, could you hold him back? A few of my friends are teachers and from what i understand, kids have to be fully potty trained before attending school because the teachers cannot change nappies and pull ups.

Sorry posted too soon
Not to mention the financial implications of keeping a child in nursery another year.

The pressure on parents to accept a place in reception is enormous. Schools can not or will not guarantee a school place in year 1 for a child who doesn't attend reception.

Starting after five was the norm in England when I was little (that's why year 1 is called year 1!) And there was a lot of free play and little regimented learning till juniors (this was pre National Curriculum so key stage 2 today)
When mine were small, 5-10 years ago, there seemed to be a general feeling where I live, that if you didn't get your kids in at reception stage as per their calendar age and previous to that doing as many pre-school hours as possible as soon as possible then you were some kind of oddball 😆

I think the average 4 year old would be well out of bottles and nappies by then, but of course all kids are different.

I thought it was the year up till the end of August. My daughter was 4 and 2 weeks as here birthday is mid August. She loved it - My granddaughters birthday is the first week of September so when she went, she was 5 the following week, the eldest in the class, whereas my daughter was the youngest. It is what it is. Barely out of nappies and bottles???

Look for a smaller village school if that's an option for you. The most my daughter had in her class (now year 2) is 20, currently 17. I feel like 30 is a lot too.

She was summer born and made fantastic progress in a class in a class 20 with 3 staff (1 teacher and 2 support staff).