MY DS2 is August-born, but as we live in Scotland the school-year thing was never a worry. DS1, however, is a January baby. He went to nursery at 3.7 (in August, the start of our school year) and started school at 4.7. I had the option to keep him in nursery for another year - this was extended to children born in December, January and February. I decided to send him at 4.7 because he was bright, chatty, used to being around other children etc and I felt he could cope. The nursery presented me with a "discussion document" with a contribution each from a parent, a nursery teacher, a primary teacher and a secondary teacher, every single one negative. (I recall particularly the secondary teacher's comments about discipline problems with 15 year-olds waiting to leave at Christmas - I was affronted by the very notion of my child leaving school before Highers!)I asked them for the other half of the document - there wasn't one, so there's absolutely nothing positive about sending your child to school at four.
Or at any rate, there wasn't 18 years ago. A decade later, funding for schools changed so that there was more money for under-5's. My sister had a child of four, a December baby. He was clingy, had never really settled at nursery, and was young for his age, so she decided not to send him to school at four. Well, the school sent round a "discussion document" - I think it must have been the other half of the one I'd been given, because in this one, starting at four was all good! Oh, how we laughed. And my nephew stayed home.
Btw, my DS is currently in third year at Uni, and has no criminal record, so he hasn't been disadvantaged so far.
S'all bollox, innit.