Would anybody like to have a debate about the best age for starting school?

[emkana]

This is something I think about a lot. I am from Germany, where children start school at six/seven, though it's gradually being brought down with the aim of having most five year olds in school. School over there is certainly very different though - the children go from mostly free play at Kindergarten to very structured school, there is no "easing in" or gradual introduction to more structured work.
When I first came to the UK I thought it was terrible that children here start school so early, but then I didn't know a lot about it. Now my dd1 has just started, and I think it's great - they do so much play, but also activities that gradually introduce them to literacy/numeracy. Dd adores it all, and it's certainly a very good school. The teachers seem to be very aware of the fact that children this age still need to play mostly. It seems to me much better than going from one extreme to the other so suddenly as they do in Germany. But on here I have often read the view that school here starts too early... why do people say that? Would be v. interested in a debate!

I think it depends on the child. Some kids find it easier than others.

So what would you suggest? Some sort of test to determine whether the child is ready or not?

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I would like to but I fear my hooter might keep going off!

Caligula.

Can't we have a proper debate on MN anymore without any hooters or parps or whatever?

my sion who is four next month desperately needs a structured school setting. i dont think it is age, it is more how they ared eveloping

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I think it would have done my DS1 good to have started school properly at four, rather than four and a half. His behaviour improved a lot with the structure and routine of school. At nursery there was too much time for him to mooch around and get into "incidents".

My DS2 is just four and would be absolutely fine in Reception - he is physically, socially and academically very able - and I find it quite frustrating that he cannot start until after Christmas. At the moment he is at the school nursery and although he enjoys it, I worry that he will get bored as they are doing work on e.g. colours, shapes and numbers and he is quite a bit beyond that now.

I started school myself at three and three-quarters.

So I would be in favour of earlier rather than later starts, I think.

So most of you seem to agree that it would depend on the child. But whether a child starts school is solely determined by their age on 31 August. (In England anyway, don't know about others.)
In Germany there is actually a test which is performed to determine whether a child is ready for school or should wait a year. Do you think something like this should be introduced here?

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I am very interested in this debate. I think the ideal age clearly depend on child and school. I would think parents would have a good idea whther their kids are ready or not. better than any standardized test.
The quastion I have though is: Do we actually have a choice?

I am new to the UK, and clueless about the whole system....

I was actually having this very discussion at the weekend with my cousin who is a primary school teacher and she was saying that five is really too young for full-time school. She said that the kids in her class (Reception) were just not ready for it as it's a long day for them and by the end she has to remind them that she is not their mother.

My ds has just started at pre-school nursery and I don't know if I'm being too mollycoddling but I think that even that every day is too much for him. Although he goes in happily his mood at home really deteriorates which leads me to think that perhaps he's not ready for it.

My children are both summer term children, this meant that they both started school at easter, and had only one term in reception before going into year one..
I would like all children to start the school year when they are 4... ie... the children all start together.. the younger ones could maybe do mornings only if they are not ready for all day or perhaps they could be weaned into school gently.

batters, in Germany the majority of children go to Kindergarten, starting generally aged three, sometimes age two or four. It is optional, but the vast majority go. Times differ greatly - some go all day, others only for a couple of hours a day, but generally they go in every day.

What I would like to see is something like the English system of gradually easing children into more formal work combined with the German system of more flexible entry dates, whereby there is a six-month block of kids who must start school at a particular point (the oldest in their age group), but a six-month (or so) cohort of children who can start school if their parents and the school/kindergarten consider it appropriate, or who can defer until the following year if that is considered more suitable. Again it seems to be a consultation between the parents and the school, usu. with some medical/developmental input. Children can also defer entry for a year if they start school and are found not to be coping.

That would avoid the silly situation where children like my friends twins, born 29th August three months premature, are struggling through school with children who are, biologically, over a year older than them. The LEA refuse to consider backclassing them, despite the fact that they are clearly not coping and would stand a better chance with the age group they would have been with if they'd been born at term.

It would also be good to have some kind of system (again as they do in Germany) for keeping back children who have not acquired the bare minimum for their age group. My dd1's Y6 class has children whose reading is well below the level of my 6yo, and whose level of skills is clearly nowhere near high enough for them to be able to access the Y6 curriculum. That disadvantages the other Y6 children because the work is adjusted to a lower level, but must be pretty depressing for the strugglers, too.

Not saying the German system is perfect most Germans seem to spend their time moaning about it but there are some aspects we could usefully take on board here.

My daughter will start reception next September, she will be 4 at the end of August, so one of the youngest in the class. From what I can gather she will go part time until the term that she turns 5, so basiclaly part time for a year. This is my first child to start school, so no experience as yet to go on, but my gut feeling at the moment tells me that she is far too young. Saying that, a lot of people say reception is a very gradual step up from Nursery (which she goes too) so hopefully I will be impressed.

What I'd like in an ideal world up to the age of 6 for my children is half day classes that are mostly sports or outdoors exploration (walks in woods discovering animals/plants etc) with little or no reading/writing/class work. I can do that myself at home at their own pace with individual attention if they wanted to but I'd love them to get to play with other kids in that kind of structured setting.

I depend on the child. My dd was more than ready at 4....in fact she would have been ready at 3.

ds is still not so ready at 5.5.

This is a 'how long is a bit of string argument' as it so depends on the child.

Interesting posts.

Frogs, I would go along with your suggestions, I think it would be good to be more flexible in this country.

It's funny though how things go - here there is a debate whether children start too young, and whether they should repeat a year sometimes, in Germany the "answer" put forward at the moment is that children should start younger and that the repeating of school years should be stopped as too much time is wasted. The grass is always greener...

I think full-time school at 4 is far too much. In Germany when they start at 6 or 7 it is very formal and serious, but they spend FAR less time in school than our 4 yr-olds.

Actually I think our pre-school/primary system at the moment is pretty good, within the financial constraints. Of course it would be better if classes were much much smaller, but that's just not going to happen.

My big gripe atm with our school system is what happens at 11. In many areas there are only secondary schools - no choice, no selection. And many schools are teaching mixed ability classes in the majority of subjects, some even up to GCSE. Children arrive at school at 11 with SATs levels from 2 up to 5 (and beyond), but they're all mixed up together in classes!

Yes, emkana, it's rather odd having a foot on each side of the fence, as often each side is arguing against what they have and what the other side has!

I think the Early Years curriculum in the UK is a Good Thing, though some of the tick-boxy assessment is a bit much. In Germany the Kindergarten experience is much more variable, and unstructured free play seems to predominate. Which can be good for the right kind of child, but doesn't encourage children to get a good range of experiences and skills which they will need when they start school. My relatives are initially horrified by the idea of children starting 'school' at 3, but have come round quite quickly when they have realised that 'maths' consists of sorting shapes and colours, water play, jigsaws and counting, while literacy consists of stories, songs and language play.

I do think we start formal writing too early here, though. A lot of children (esp. boys) simply don't have the manual dexerity needed at 4, and don't learn proper letter formation. I've had to spend the summer undoing the terrible letter-formation habits ds developed when he was really too little to be writing. I'd like to see them do more of the pre-writing that French kids do, ie. making wavy lines, arches, loops etc. and hold of 'proper' writing for longer.

Actually the same applies to reading -- some children are ready at 4 (my dd1 was reading Mr Majeika books by the time she turned 5) but lots aren't, and for them it can be torture. Whereas in Germany we started school the September after our 6th birthdays, and by Christmas everyone could pretty much read. No muss, no fuss.

DD1 is an end of August baby and was more than ready for school when she started aged four, cos her school is private she went full time after only four weeks, but the school ultimately decides when they're ready for full time and this can be any time during the first term.

I'm pretty sure that here (guernsey) they don't have to be in school until they're five so I could have held DD back a year if I didn't think she was ready, is this not the case in England?

I agree with Frogs (sorry if I've got wrong poster!) about the flexibility bit. We know people who've had a real struggle with the LEA to put an end of August child in the year below, even when the child had assessments and reports etc clearly showing he was delayed. I'm not sure if I agree that it should be entirely at the parents' discretion though, because then you are at risk of the US 'red shirting' business, where perfectly ready summer-born boys are held back so that they can be top in everything in the next year - oldest, tallest, best at football.....Maybe that's just sour grapes, since both my August boys are never going to be any of those things!
Both my sons were ready for school - socially and academically. But neither is/was (DS2's just started reception) really ready for writing, and I see so many children (esp. boys) who struggle with this.