To not understand why children start school so young in the UK

[Alisvolatpropiis]

Just that really. In lots of countries children don't start school properly until 6 or 7 whereas in the UK it is 4 or 5, depending on where in the school year their birthday falls. I know some in the SW Valleys area who have started school (not nursery) at 3.

Britain doesn't appear to be topping education charts from what I can tell so what is the benefit?

Well in my DCs Infant school, Reception always involved a lot of play and learning through play. In fact it improved as my DCs got older, and there was far more playing, outdoor learning etc. until year 2 (every year had an outdoor as well as an indoor classroom). Even years 3-6 involved some learning outdoors.

However around here you would struggle to find a school place if your DC don't go in at Reception as there is a pressure on places.

I home educated my eldest until he was almost 7. The difference between his school start now and his (brief) start at almost 5 is incredible. boots you don't have 'paperwork' or documentation to 'prove' home education and we did very little formal work. It's up to you how you go about it. Visit the home education boards if you're interested in exploring that option.

I've chosen to send did part time until she is statutory school age.

In most developed countries the majority of children are in an institutional setting by 3.

I totally agree with the class point as well.

In Scotland they start later than England. My dd1 and ds started at 5y6m and dd2 at 4y9m. Dd1 is in s3 (Y9) and is 14.6, ds is in S1 (y7) and is 12y6m. Dd2 is in P7 (y6) and is 10y9m.

I think it's better - in fact I felt that dd2 was very young to start! I've regularly taught S1 and in my experience the younger boys struggle - though you must be four and a half to start school in Scotland.

My ds has just started reception (August born so youngest in the class) and he's loving it. A lot of Reception is child initiated learning anyway so they're not being made to do stuff unwillingly.

Luckily he's at the same school where he went to preps and its just a natural progression on from that.

They get loads of holidays and his day is 6 hrs long.

I don't get the parents who are so concerned about school when they child had been in nursery for 10 hrs a day 51 weeks a year!

Yep, we'd definitely start developing even worse class-inequalities if we raised the age to seven.

mummytime

However around here you would struggle to find a school place if your DC don't go in at Reception as there is a pressure on places.

Yep. Run foul of that myself. But it worked out in the end.

I'm in the SW Valleys, my son went to nursery (it IS nursery, albeit sometimes in the school building) at 3, full time. He was ready and he loved it. His older sister was not ready so I didn't send her jntilbdhevstaryed reception at 4. Tbh I was all for home edding her but she begged to go up school, and she thrived there, despite a disability.

I can't imagine trying to keep either of them home till 6. They'd have gone bloody stir crazy.

Interesting responses.

Currently ttc first child so school start ages isn't something that was massively on my radar.

Not worried per se, just interested.

Wesh I stand corrected re them being nursery classes.

A friend of mine was adamant it was "proper school" his daughter was going to, I just assumed he was right.

Ah, then, perhaps you are not aware of the sudden and terrifying shift in behaviour which happens at 3. I'm sure it's no coincidence that free or mostly funded non-compulsory pre-school provision taken up by the majority of families starts at 3 in almost every country

In places where they start at 6/7, before that kids attend "kindergarten", "pre-school", "daycare" or whatever it is called. In UK they just call it "school" earlier.

I completely agree with Newstateman's comments.

I think the quality of UK school performance in the later years is to do with other factors than the age our children start school

As others have said, you need to compare like with like.

In Italy, they need to have started before they are 7 and after they are 5, but all children, bar very few exceptions will have done 3 full yrs of maternal school, not compulsory, but everybody does it, because a) it's free and b) children are taught to read and write there, not at school.this is why parents try to get their kids to start as late as possible so they have as much literacy and numeracy prep under their belts as possible. Dd, at one mth short of 6 when she started is the second youngest in her class.

As soon as they start, there will be compulsory homework. Usually 2 -3 hrs daily. There is no play as such. They might get the glittery shit out Christmas week, but it depends on the teacher.

They do 2 lots of Sats style tests. At 7 and 10.

If you take what children do, all around Europe, at AGES rather than school years, you'll see there is actually not that much difference. A child may do long division in the UK in yr 3, a child in Italy might do it in Yr 2, but their ages, broadly speaking, will be the same. ( that was an example, I can't remember when Dd did it)

In Norway the children at Kindergarten get outside every day: berry picking, walks etc. In ds's reception class they no longer even do forest school and the teacher freely admits there is pressure to get them reading and writing. I think elsewhere they concentrate on getting foundations eg pencil grip, drawing lines and circles rather than straight into letters.

I found it interesting that although my ds had done much less formal work than he would have done at school, he was not behind in any area when he started school and was ahead in some areas (reading, science) - possibly because he was interested in those things and read a lot voluntarily but I always worried about his maths because he just wasn't interested in formal maths - he was absolutely fine when he started school, he had learnt plenty through baking, shopping, playing...a pleasant surprise.

Schools very in how formal the first few years are, I think. And children vary in how ready they are for it - my dd (5) loves workbooks! But a full day is too much at Reception age in my opinion and I do believe that it is because the country is geared towards parents working full time and children being in childcare.

But the full day thing is also a red herring. Because the hours of schooling work out the same Iyswim?

Italian school is approx 8-1. With a 10 minute break at their desks.

If you factor morning, afternoon breaks and lunchtime into full day schools, plus the not very much homework element, then time spent studying is the same. Ditto for the holidays.

I think the problem in the UK is that the childcare is so expensive and parents are desparate to get out of it. If I was shelling out thousands a year for a nusery, I'd probably be keen to get my child into school as early as possible.

Here in France, full-time creche is available for working parents, at a very low, means-tested cost. After that they start maternelle, aged 3, which again is full-time and at no cost to the parents. They don't start compulsory schooling until 6, though the last year of maternelle does introduce them to reading and writing, so most are reading well within the first year at primaire.

So YANBU. There are other ways to manage the childcare / early years education stage.

Actually, would anyone else agree that the 15 free hours of early years education is more than the government wanting to help out with childcare costs, and a policy aimed to even out disparities between 4/5 year-olds? As plenty of parents have got cracking with reading and adding up by five. Not as many as would be seven, but still lots.

I thought it was described as such when it was introduced, but I can't remember very well.

I'd be interested to know what these Scandinavian preschools are like, I suspect not all that different to our FS1-2 system

I have worked in around 10 different "dagis" (preschool/nursery) in Sweden and my experience has been that they are nothing like reception class in the uk, the children are dressed for the weather rather than in uniforms, a huge percentage of the day is devoted to outside play with some dagis having very limited inside space (just a cloak room) and all meals and sleeps happening outside. At 6 the children can usually (but not always) right their name but there isn't any push to get the children reading or writing even from the wealthy/middle class families. It's quite normal for the children to be learning English but only through singing, playing, crafts. The children at my ds's dagis have a school trip at least once a week, they get taught to do practical things like identifying mushrooms, walking on stilts, baking, woodwork, ice skating, using screwdrivers to take apart electronic items, making fires, sewing, making dens etc.

The only exception to this was a Jewish nursery I worked at, they introduced reading and writing a little earlier but nowhere near as early as in the UK.

I wonder if I will feel slight concern when my friend'a who live in the uk and have children close in age to ds start talking about what their dc have learnt at school whilst my ds is still rolling about in mud and dressing up as a princess but hopefully I'll continue to have faith in the system here and trust that reading and writing will come easily when the time comes.

My opinion is that if there is something that should be pushed early it is language, all research shows that there is a window of opportunity for learning foreign languages but it doesn't make much difference if you learn to read and write when your 3 or 7.

Ds1 is October born, now in year 2 and doing fine. He started school at nearly 5.

Ds2 starts school tomorrow at 4.6, but he has grown up massively in the last six months. I feel he is just about ready, but hope he won't have pressure to sit down for too long etc.

Ds3 is august born and just a year old. I'm dreading sending him at 4 and 1 week. There is a Facebook group I've joined (flexible admissions for summer borns) which has loads of information and advice on starting reception at compulsory school age, ie going straight in to reception at 5, rather than year 1. It's quite a fight, but some leas are better than others.

DS has just started proper primary school, he is 4 years 3 months. He's not settling very well, in the mornings I have to just drop him off in the playground however I always hang around until the bell goes as he gets confused as to what line to get in, and gets upset. He's very young, and I don't think he is ready but there is nothing I can do. He said he gets told off a lot for talking when they are supposed to be being silent, which I suppose he has to learn too. Just seems that they expect so much of them when they are so young.

sheep - the thing to watch out for is if the LA lets you go "out of year" but then you move or the LA changes its mind (as Brent did once); and then makes you jump to the correct year. This is usually when moving to Secondary school.

Oh BTW my DC didn't have to be "silent" much in Reception. Listen maybe, not be silent. (They were also dropped off in classrooms/the corridor.)

Ikea, thank you for taking the time to answer my question, I really appreciate it .

Actually the Dagis does sound great, but not polar opposite to our school in approach I have to say - we are in London, zone 2, so the exploration of countryside is limited! and that is a major difference. I would love my children to be doing the outdoorsy elements you describe other than when on holiday with us.

However, the emphasis on being outside at all possible moments is very much present here - our school has a separate playground for the FS1/2 classes only, it is reached by french windows from the classroom that are always open (except in completely inclement weather) and the teachers place different toys/ activities/ painting tables /texture work all around the playground. The children move freely between indoors and outdoors all day. The school also has a garden where the classes do gardening, a pond, mud and log pit where there are lots of creepy crawlies etc. On top of this, the older classes, FS2 up, leave the school grounds at least once a week for local area exploration, museum visits etc. I don't really identify with the broader views on this thread of what FS1/2 involves, as for us, it is not just focus on reading/writing/sitting still (although that is a part of it, it's not the only, or even main, part)

Possibly our school is unusual? It is an inner-London state school with a far higher than the national average FSM and high incidence of English as second language...