Theoretical question.... what age do you think would be best to start Secondary school

[TickingAlongNicely]

Whenever there's a question about deferring school start ages, it does get me thinking about the other end of Primary.
In England, most start Secondary at 11, with some deferred children just turned 12. Theoretically the oldest could be 12y5mo, if an April birth is deferred.
Then Scotland... used to be 11.5-12.5ys as a start date, but now could be 11.5- nearer 13.

I gather Republic Ireland is also 13 for starting secondary.

The US had Middle school (11yo roughly?) And High School (14yo?)

I felt for my DDs that the model of one class and teacher for every subject was outgrown at 11, in their last year of Primary. Plus quite a few are adult height by then. I find it hard to imagine them being at Primary for longer. But on the other hand... does keeping them at Primary school extend their childhood a bit more?

I do think England starts school a bit too young, and it would be better for Reception to be part of Nursery since they are both technically Foundation stage. But this is more about whether we are getting it right at the other end, and which environment would be better for pre-teens

We moved our son to a prep school that goes to age 13. So they move to sensible school for Y9.

I think there’s a reason that traditional boys schools did that - it gives the boys two more years to be real children. They aren’t pressured to grow up early. He loves it and we love it. They do have different teachers for subjects though and a lot of sport and culture so things you might normally get more of in secondary school.

It's 13 in New Zealand and I think this is about right. 11 is too young.

I think 11-12 is ok but how secondary schools operate needs to be looked at . The environment seems to be overwhelming for a lot of children and many with SEN dont cope and those with undiagnosed SEN quickly deteriorate . Levels of home education or children unable to attend increase at this stage too.

In my opinion the first two years need to be a gentle transition from primary to secondary not the huge change that triggers off overwhelm. This would even benefit NT children. Things such as not having to change classrooms each lesson (obviously unless PE or science) would lead to a lot less moving around an unfamiliar building at the same time 5/6 times per day as hundreds of other children many of whom are noisy etc .
Keep it more like primary for the first 1-2 years and I’m sure there would be a huge positive impact .

I like the idea of a middle school and I think one of my children in particular would have benefited greatly if that was an option in our area.

My 10yo moves this autumn. I actually think he’s more than ready to leave primary school, and his is a split site school with separate infants and juniors. I’m sure that secondary school will be a big adjustment for him and he has ASD so I know I’m going to need to be on hand to support his settling, but I honestly can’t see any good coming from staying in the primary environment he is in. It is very nurturing, but somehow misses what he needs, and he definitely won’t be the first child of the school to have flown the primary nest and flourished.

My DD had what can only be described (in hindsight) as a nervous breakdown when she started secondary school. Leaving primary was like a grieving process and it was horrendous for all of us. For her, 11 was far too young, but she's 13 now and I think would be better able to cope. In retrospect her school went in very hard with homework - 14 hours worth in the first fortnight - and detentions for eg forgetting a pen. It was too much too soon.

However academically she was ready and once the SATs were over primary felt very directionless. I do find it mind boggling that 11 year olds (children) are in the same building as sixth formers (grown adults).

My 11yo (with suspected ADHD) was the one who struggled with the same classroom, same people, same teacher bit of Primary school the most, so Secondary school is really suiting her.

Secondary School is only to 16 in our area, they go to college at 16.

My gut feeling would be they need some sort of Middle school really, similar to the US, for 11-14, where they can get more specialist teaching, but still allowed to ve children and then the older teens have their own space too.

For the last few years, the behaviour of our year 6s has been horrendous. They are a danger to themselves and others and should not be around younger children. We are counting the days until July.

I also like the idea of a middle school for 10-13 year olds. So I'd say secondary school at 13, but not in traditional primary model of delivery right up until that age.

It's too big an age range to cater for 4-11 year olds under 1 model as their needs are very different.
Likewise with 11-18 year olds, too big a maturity gap to meet the needs under 1 model.

A middle school is a good idea

Think it’s ok. Felt quite ridiculous for dd2 who always seemed older than her peers was autumn birthday and tall to be wearing same uniform as and going to same school as 4 year olds

I went to a sort of middle school, the high school was split over 2 sites, so year 8 and 9 were on a separate site. It was absolutely perfect.

I think a middle school model could work quite well. Move for yr5 then again for yr9. A seven year age gap is quite big to cater for both pastorally and for teacher preference in both primary and secondary. My dc have often reported that teachers who were really scary in yr7 are actually well liked and respected in yr10. Perhaps with close ties between the middle and senior schools. Maybe even either end of a large site.

This of course would cost more to maintain separate establishments and not really possible with all the existing school structures. I know some schools keep yr 7 and 8 separate from the upper years of the school.

Both mine were two months short of 13 and that seemed perfect.

I went to school in the 80's/90's I did -

infants - nursery- y4.
Middle school - y5-y8
High school - y9-11
With option to stay on for 6th form

Personally I think this was a much better system. Children are growing up too fast by going to senior school at 11.

From a different perspective- my summerborn dc was at school where in year 5 and 6 they did have specialist subject teachers for all subjects and had to move between classrooms for every lesson. After a few week adjusting, they really benefitted from it - having more in-depth teaching, learning to be organised, forming relationships with different adults, etc. They were separated from younger kids though and from senior school (it was an all through school), so did not have to mix with the older students and overall I think they overgrown one room one teacher set up by that time.

The school system here is slightly different. As are the age cut offs. Jan to Dec here instead of Sep- Aug.
School starts in the August of the year they turn 6. They are grunnskole (primary equivalent). In Y5 (English equivalent Y6) they move to Mellom trinn. This is like a middle school until Y7 (Y8 English). They take on a little more responsibility too, act as mentors, run a healthy lunch kiosk etc. At Y8 they move to ungdoms skole, but this is all in the same school building and stay until they do their exams at 16. Then they move to Vidergående skole for 2 years. This is a separate specialist school, so could be sports, sciences etc.
From Y1 they have a kontakt lærer which is like a class teacher, but will also have subject teachers for music, English, maths etc. This depends on what subjects the class teacher has in their teaching "backpack". You have to have a certain amounts of credits in a subject to teach it.
I've taught in the English system for many years and the Norwegian system also. My DS and DD are in the Norwegian school system and it really suits them.

I only have experience up to age 6 so it's hard to know where the age boundaries should be, plus probably slightly different for everyone. However in an theoretical ideal world I'd love my children to have more years to play. My littlest is still 3 and it feels mad that she'll be in school in September. I wish there was an option where they still got to look at phonics and numbers but the rest of the time it was more like the current pre school set up. We use a forest school, they're outside almost all the time. They come back knowing about plants, bugs, animals. They make things with saws, hammers, drills etc safely. They have spaces to climb trees, roll down hills, play with water and mud. I love it.

So I guess my ideal world would be something like...

Nature based nursery/pre school until 6. Outside as much as possible. Have space to move and play, not be tied to a desk.

Junior school - 6+
Middle school 10+
Upper school 13+

Middle school sounds good in theory but I’m not sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be.

An area near me has middle school system and a few friends kids have gone that way. What they found is that the Y5 kids are forced to grow up way too soon, the Y7 and 8 are the Kings and Queens of the school and act like twats, lacking the maturity to be the older, more respected kids.

I hope that makes sense. It’s hard to describe. I think in a better system Y7 and 8 within a senior school should be kept more separate.

I wonder if there's any system in which the year 8's aren't twats 😂 I remember it from my secondary school. The year 7's thought they were awful, but so did the upper years!!

Of course when you were in year 8 you thought you were the biz

We live in an area with middle schools. Not so great, as pp has said.
Year 5s are far too young for that kind of environment, so you get a massive jump at age 9, when they can't cope with it. They have to grow up way too soon, so what you get is them all on phones, acting like they are older, but without any emotional maturity.
It is probably better for the year 7 and 8s though, as they are more protected, but they can be nasty to the younger kids.

I went through a 3 tier school system and some areas near me still have it. First school R-Yr4, middle school Yr5-8 and high school Yr9-13 (including a sixth form). Personally I really liked the system and feel by the time you were ready for a change / move up, it happened. There weren't 11 year olds in school with 18 year olds and it means you gradually build independence by, for example, walking to school with your friends in Y5 (aged 9-10).

In middle school you gradually started to move around the school for some specialist lessons, then by y7/8 were in sets for most subjects.

Another positive is a couple of chances for 'fresh starts' in a new environment with new people as the schools filter into a smaller number of middle schools and a smaller again number of high schools. Some of my best friends now went to different middle schools and we met aged 13.

I've heard before that some teachers don't like it as the Key Stages are split between different schools but as a child I thought it was great.

I have had my dc in a mix of systems: prep from 8+ then senior from 13+ and primary/secondary with the switch at 11+

in prep, my dc learned a full vocab of profanities at the start of Y4. The dc did benefit from specialist teaching earlier but actually the lessons didn’t seem to be better. They didn’t get bored in Y6, but were very fed up of being with little kids by the end of Y8.

in primary, my dc stayed children for longer. They got deeply fed up in Y6 - they did their 11+ in September and the rest of the year was pointless. They were ready to move and benefited from the transition at 11.

So I would stick with an 11+ transition.

I went to school in this system and have always thought it was a really good model. A few years ago some secondaries tried a primary type model for Y7s where they were mostly based in one classroom with a regular teacher and some specialist teachers coming to them. I imagine this could work really well as a transition. Would mean the class teacher really getting to know the children as well which I think is something lacking in most secondaries

I think the prep school system ( end of year 8) works for boys. It is probably a year too late for girls and some of the year 8s do like “Elf” by the end vs the chairs. Also there are some drawbacks because the facilities, calendar and rules tend to be designed with primary aged kids in mind and whole school events like the assemblies and Carol concert seem a bit babyish by the end. The very large preps largely avoid this though by splitting everything into prep and pre-preps so if this were introduced in the state system it would likely be less of a problem.

The other thing about preps is that they have specialist teaching from Year 4 ( so they move around like you would at secondary) so it’s almost like a long transition to secondary vs being at primary for longer. You can’t really have years 7&8 just being taught by a class teacher for everything.