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

[Sadworld23]

We should stop taking about children starting school in the UK at 5.
Whilst that may be the legal age, even Gov.uk says most parents send their child to reception class at 4.

This makes me sad tbh, bc our child is (generally) happy at his nursery, 7m-3y, and I can't see him being ready for school at 4y.
He's barely out of nappies and bottles and I'm already choosing a school for him. And that's without the worries of sorting wrap around childcare to make my work hours work.

I had considered holding him back but nursery are already calculating giving up his place.

YABU children don't really start school til 5y.
YANBU children start school at 4y.

There are differences, though: there’s far less time outdoors when you move into p1, activities are more structured, and story books are introduced. It’s not seamless.

Mine were both summer kids so 5 at the ending reception, but reception really was like nursery with some reading and writing thrown in… I would have preferred to let them start later but they had very close neighbourhood and nursery friends they wanted to stay with.
now they’re teens, none of it matters. All kids reach the same point by the time they’re 10/11 developmentally unless they have SEN and my 2 are strivers - had to to keep up with the ‘big’ kids.

Children have legally to be in school the term after which/ in which they make up five. If a 4yo goes into proper early years provision they couldn't be in a better place. Choose your school on the basis of proper provision and expectations. If he's been in nursery for so long can't see that he will have any problems. Dare I suggest the problem is yours? Take no notice of what you hear go with your gut feeling.

Yes I was thinking that. Quite a few posters have said their DC started school just after they turned 3 etc. This is confusing the issue as that’s not school, it’s nursery.

My 3 did full days in a private nursery setting from 7, 9 and 14 months respectively but I didn’t call it school….

Reception operates on a completely different curriculum.

Look up the EYFS curriculum (play based, nursery and Reception) and the National Curriculum (much more formal, Y1 onwards.)

Learning absolutely starts before Y1, but learning in Reception is much more child-led and less target driven. I'm not sure what people mean when they say "can" and "can't" read because ability to read is something you develop over your entire education and life, but generally in Reception you learn to be able to decode most words by practising phonics and some common exception words. Very few children start Y1 considered to be literate by adult standards but not many can't read anything at all. After all, they are practising at school and at home every day, they have to pick something up surely.

Even though they are not officially in school in nursery, my ds school puts the nursery (3 years) and reception kids (4 years) in the same class, they are on the same curriculum, it's a school environment and they are expected to wear uniform.
My comment was stating the benefits of this, as it was an easier introduction into the school environment.
When he entered reception it was an exact repeat of nursery year tasks etc, even nursery did sports day.
So yes some schools do treat nursery like getting them ready for reception.. they also join the same kids from nursery when they go up.
Appreciate some people don't see it the same way but ime school nursery was practice school in my case.

I did think of that but the logistics are bad and nursery dont do afternoons sessions.

Exactly what I recall as we moved schools /houses alot when I was little.

And it's why I dont want to hold him back. But I just can't see him managing in a classroom with 30 others.

Great suggestion thanks

My August born 4 year old is the second youngest in his year but he absolutely loves school and is thriving. There are a few of the other little ones (4 &5) that aren’t as enthusiastic and they currently do half days - I think until end of Sept.

I agree ,my 3 children were all 5 years and over .
My oldest child was actually 5 years and 4 months old because of a spring birthday.
Nursery wasn’t free , so I used playgroups and paid for this , so only a couple of mornings a week .
Then at age 4 they went to a pre school connected to the school itself which was very limited hours and days .
So I mostly had my children at home with me .
It was hard work ( no willing grandparents or relatives to give us a break ) but parenting can be very tiring .
Despite this my children’s teachers said “ oh you’ve done an amazing job teaching them to read “
Me “ ooh really I just read to them a lot and ran my finger along the words as I said them , I’d no idea 😂”

So I would hold him back a whole year. How I regret not doing this with my son. The reception teacher put him in the remedial group for reading. She didn't call it this (it was the 'top up' group) but that's what it was. I was astonished by the immediate pressure to grasp phonics and acquire writing skills in reception year. By 9 yo he had a reading age of 13 yrs but the damage to his self esteem was done in that first year. The teacher was not personable or particularly sensitive to the children who just wanted to play and we were perhaps unlucky in that respect but there were definitely curriculum pressures that were completely inappropriate at that age, IMO.

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).

We live in a small town, there may be village schools around the outskirts. Good idea. Thanks

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???

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

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 😆

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.

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

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.

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 😬

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).

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.

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.

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.