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

I like the system in some of Europe and in the US of Middle school from 11-13/14 and then high school from 14-18/19.

I think it might be nicer for the teachers too to have a smaller age range to focus on.

IB schools have a slightly later middle school which runs from 11-14 (so years 7-9) then high school for the last 4. I think this is ideal. My oldest went through this process and there was a lot of thought in the middle school about what an important stage of life this was, lots of forgiveness for scattiness, opportunities to find out who you are etc.

My dd has a summer birthday so started high school last year at 11 and 2 months. This was well overdue, she took about 2 weeks to settle then it quickly became obvious how switched off she had become at primary vs now. She had really started to notice how her primary teachers were ill equipped to teach a range of subjects to older age groups and is flourishing at secondary. She does tend towards being anxious as well but busy corridors etc don’t seem to have been a problem.

i think they are at primary for far too long, 8 years including nursery so far longer than high school. Too long to be in the same environment really - middle school system probably best but obvs far more expensive!

I went through a three tier system in a different country.

Y1-y4 (started at 7) one classroom, one teacher, then y4-y8 in the same school but moving up (sometimes literally as classrooms would be on 2nd/3rd floor) , one classroom, different teachers for each subject and a form tutor, big exam at the end for highschool, then y9-y12 is highschool, so you go to a different school, one classroom, different teachers and one form tutor, with another big exam at the end for uni.

So the conclusion is that for 11-13yos is that Primary School isn't quite right, Secondary school isn't quite right, and Middle schools are problematic as well.

Basically we need a quarantine system for years 7 & 8. After year 9 they get better at being humans again..