Stammering in 7 year old

[Panpig]

Hi, I'm just looking for some advice really. My 7 year old DS has begun stammering and repeating some words at the beginning of sentences. This has started since the schools went back on 8th March, and he has never had any issues with speech before. We're trying not to draw attention to it, and making a conscious effort to speak slower and clearer ourselves, but we wondered if anyone else had had this in an older child?
All info i can find online suggests it's most common in much younger preschool age children.
We have made an appt to discuss with our doctor, but just wondered if others have had this issue. It's not a severe impediment to his speech, and is almost always the beginning of a sentence.
We are hoping it is a phase, but quite worried incase it becomes more persistent.

stamma.org/

I’d recommend this website, it’s the British Stammering Association’s site.

Our 3.5 year old started doing this a few months back. Totally out of the blue. He got really self conscious over it and said his words were stuck. I kept telling him go take his time, think about what he wanted to say and it actually made it a lot worse. After speaking to the SALT team and also nursery, we agreed to ignore it for a short while and it did actually vanish as quickly as it came. It still reappears if he is tired or excited but generally it’s gone.

Is it worth speaking to school?