To think 4 year olds just shouldn't be in school

[Belleende]

I will start by saying I know very little about educational theory, I just sent my DD off to school the term after she turned 4 as most parents do.
As the year has gone on she has begun to struggle. She hates the noise. She struggles with concentration. She is definitely taking her time tuning into the more social side of things.

We had been wondering if there was some kind of special need there. Now Covid has hit and we are the teachers. I have come to the conclusion there is nowt wrong with her, she is just too young to be in school.

She is a young 4 and summer born. She has the attention span of a gnat, and we have to fight to get her to do reading and writing . But she has a huge passion for knowledge and love of the outside, and her memory is amazing.

Not sure what to do when this is all over. Can't help thinking she would be better off home schooled until she is 6 or 7.

Anyone else rethinking the education of their kids?

I personally think most children are ready somewhere between 4 and 5 and a half. Thankfully the early years curriculum isn't just focused on the traditional 3 Rs. There should be a lot of outdoor learning and a good chunk should be child led. Social skills and physical skills are really important. A child learning to sit on the carpet and listen for 5 mins is a huge step which will set them up for school education. Sometimes parents and teachers get distracted by whether a child has started reading. In my experience, once they are 'ready' at around that age they progress quickly and catch up.

If I were you I would look at how formal year 1 is at the school. Year 1 is a bit of a transition year and it varies massively between schools. Some are more 'early years' and have lots of child led provision. Some have children sitting at tables.

@Blackbear19 yeah I'd forgotten if it's nov or dec it has to be requested. I haven't heard of anyone refused in my circle though. Everyone I know with nov-feb borns deferred.

In places like Sweden or Switzerland: don't the kids all go to preschool from age 2/3, anyway? I don't see difference from playbased learning that is Reception yr & yr1.

My 4 year old is top of the class and missing school and their friends beyond belief.

I honestly think that we tend to baby them as parents. At school, they often flourish.

I left primary teaching (Reception/ks1) because I felt the expectations for some children were actually cruel. Whilst the majority cope ok, a
significant minority are not ready. The current curriculum purports to be play-based but we still expect children to be reading and writing sentences with capital letters and full stops. My results were above the national average despite working in a deprived area but IMO no-one would be disadvantaged (the opposite in fact) if we left formal education until the age of 6. For 4-5 year olds, I would have a completely play-based curriculum focused on social skills like cooperation, development of oral language, phonemic awareness, development of basic number sense, art, music and physical development (fine and gross motor skills). I am now a secondary teacher and feel that some of my pupils are struggling due to the lack of basic skills.

I know the rules and about the early years funding, but it’s still not enough hrs if childcare for those parents. I’d need to look it up but I think there is a real difference between councils - my relatives are in a different area and apparently their council is v reluctant to allow deferrals, whereas lots do it here (in my immediate experience though, almost all families with sahm or funds for nannies / extra private nursery hrs etc)

In Germany they start later, but when they do the expectations are high are mistakes are not tolerated. Very much pointed out by teachers. I don’t see that here. See a lot of crazy grammar and spelling, tho!

nauseaandnipples can I ask where you are?

I'm Lanarkshire and don't know any pre-Christmas deferred children.
The only one have come across was a child at nursery with my DS who had only recently arrived from Poland with no English.

We have a child in reception who chronologically should be in year 1 so it is entirely your right to defer your summer born school start into reception - they do not skip a year. For some children, especially prem babies this is a good option.

My son was August baby started school couple weeks after turning 4 and academically struggled for a bit by age 6 all caught up when it all clicked etc
I could of kept him home as you don't have to send them but thought was with him going for friendship groups etc and just didn't worry about the academic side

I moved to Germany when DS1 was about to start Reception, he was nearly 5. He went to kindergarten for another couple of years before starting school, which I was glad about at the time, but actually, having now seen both systems, I think the UK one is really good! The reception class he would have joined was lovely and not at all high pressure. There wasn't really "formal learning" as in tests and sitting in position etc until much further up in school. In fact the main difference between reception class and German kindergarten was that at the kindergarten they expressly avoided teaching the children any letters or even to write numbers. They did plenty of learning-through-play type activities, I remember him learning about the five senses for example. The result was that starting school was a bit of a shock - it was all very different straight away, and then they spent almost the whole year very slowly learning to write every number in the exact right way and then each letter, first in printing and then in joined-up writing, and honestly it seemed really boring!

The long day might be an issue for them so young, but I think in many places younger reception children can do half days, can't they?

The current curriculum purports to be play-based but we still expect children to be reading and writing sentences with capital letters and full stops.

This must be dependant on school, because that isn't true of my kids schools - there was the whole gamut from my son, who could barely write a single letter to kids with already beautiful letter formation at 5, and I was way more concerned than the teachers who excused it on him being a boy (later we got the dyspraxia diagnosis, and at 9, he types rather than writes, as his writing is worse than my 6 year olds, despite so much work on his part).

I think it really shows that finding the right school for your child is as important as anything else.

Blackbear - I should have made it clearer that my point about regional differences was meant to be a separate issue to the finances one. I had the impression that the informal approach to policy differs between councils, esp re Nov and Dec kids as you really need the LA to support deferring so they have quite some leeway. I thought I had read sth suggesting that certain councils were less keen to grant than others, possibly due to having to fund that extra year.

My DSs were both more than ready for school at 4. They had both been at full time nursery before starting school. Personally I found that the children who couldn’t cope had just been at home with their mothers, who had had the luxury of not having to work!

Bertie - I’m fascinated by how my German friends, even less academic ones, all handwrite beautiful script with perfect spelling and grammar. The contrast to the UK is stark... seems it is pushed more at an early stage?

isittooearlyforgin I believe that it is only in the last 3/4 years that England changed the rules closer to what Scotland has had since the 80s on deferred entry.

Trust me I dug into everything before I made the decision to defer 4 years ago. The case that absolutely swung my decision was a mum with twins 20mins between them, 31st and 1st Sept in different English school years. That mum felt school was much easier on the younger twin starting a year later.

Yes it is a recent change

fascinated I'm curious as to which council areas seem to be ok with funding Nov, and Dec referrals without good reason.
My guess is it's going to be the smaller areas, but would love to know where.

@TreestumpsAndTrampolines the pressure really is on for teachers and schools to have reception reading and writing sentences. It’s in the Early Learning Goals, an end of year assessment and is a measurement of a Good Level of Development which is rolled out nationally. Ousted takes a very dim view of schools who do not achieve this. I don’t feel it is right, certainly for every child but it is a fact of the current education system in the U.K. and the pressure is huge.

Ofsted not ousted although I wish they were!

Bit dated (2014 or so) but interesting link takingparentsseriously.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/more-four-years-olds-starting-school-and-huge-differences-across-scotland/

Blackbear - takingparentsseriously.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/deferral-rate-by-local-authority-2001-2013-web.xlsx

I spent some time in a French kindergarten. (okay this was just 1 school.) The 4 year olds class room was more rigidand formal then any reception I have been in. (They may not have called it school but that's what it was.)

The teacher said explicitly to us that “boys especially“ benefit from deferral and that was why they tended to advise it for boys. I was a bit surprised but I assume it’s due to sport/bullying type stuff.

I'm in Scotland and have 3 kids. My sons birthday is in November and he started August after 4th bday so was 4 and 9 months. My daughters birthday is in July so she turned 5 then started the following month.
My youngest is only 15 months just now but is January born so will be able to start when she is 4 and 7 months old.
Legally they don't need to start until they are 5 so I could of held off my son until the following year and tbh I wished I had in hindsight.
I'm not sure about my youngest I will need to play it by ear and see how she is closer the time before I decide.