Holding my 4 yr old back

[popem]

My dd will have just turned 4 when she is supposed to start school in sep. any research I have read this is very young and can be damaging starting school to soon ( Cambridge study) can you hold back?

I've investigated this is two counties (Surrey and Dorset) and unless your child is statemented you have very little hope unless you want to fight long and hard. We decided not to in the end and sent our ds to an independent school where you can do this.

You can home ed and then stick her in to her correct year group or you can just home ed full stop. :)

You can defer til the January I think :)

If she has just turned 4, she does not have to go to school until summer term of 2013. However, you may have a problem in getting her in to your chosen school, if you defer until then.

And if you do delay it a year she will go straight into Year 1 and miss Reception (a useful year for getting them used to the school environment)

I put my summer born (Late August) into school at just turned 4 years because we (DW and I) were told that this had to be the case.
I took him out a little over a term later when I found problems . Children at 4 years should not be in classes with children almost a year older IMO. Its too young for them to be in school. Full stop.

My DS is extrememly bright but school was not working for him - or for me when I saw it.

I now home school. My DW mainly has the task as I work as a teacher. I will send DS to prep (private school) when he reaches 7.

Thanks jabed I think I will also send to private school too as the research for sending them so young is just setting them up to fail.

Apply for a place, then defer for 1 or 2 terms, you may find your child has matured a lot by then and will be ready for school. if you don;t apply you risk having no school place in your area.

DS started reception in the January ( not sept) at 4 yrs 6 months he benefited a lot from having that extra term at preschool and now in year one I can't see any difference academically between him and children 2 weeks older who started in Sept.

Just because the research says that on average summer horns do less well, it doesn't mean your DD will not cope and do fine. I know lots of summer horns who have ended up with great exam results, at Oxbridge etc., even one who was accelerated through school. Girls are also much more mature on average than boys.
If you are really worried I would consider sending her to reception and seeing how it goes, in a good school reception is really about learning through play nowadays. Then you can decide to HE or otherwise if she is really not coping.

No research however good can tell you how your particular child will cope with school or what is best for them educationally.

British schools are also much more used to educating pupils of a wide range of intellectual ability and maturity.

I was similarly worried about my July-born boy starting school last September. But he's doing brilliantly, with both the work and the social aspects of school.

The trouble is, if you defer, the other children will know the routine inside out by the time she joins. And she'll have to break into some fairly well-established friendship groups.

My DD (born August 30th ffs!) started after Easter in reception. We didn't make a conscious decision to hold her back, it was just our circumstances at the time. However, I would say there were definitely disadvantages. Socially she did fine. She had novelty value for the first few weeks, & by the time they went back for yr 1 & think they'd all forgotten she hadn't been there all along. Educationally, it was like the teachers had ticked off all the very early, settling in things & weren't going to go back & revisit them for the one child who'd missed them the first time. DD is a teenager now, so it's ancient history, but she's STILL bitter about the extent to which she was left to sink or swim. Even now she complains that the school knew she couldn't do stuff but never gave her any help because all the others could do it. For example - her writing is untidy, & when I complain, she says "I was never taught how to hold a bloody pen - what do you expect?". Having said all that, she IS fine now. She's in top sets for everything & is expected to get a mix of As & Bs at GCSE. I think she got used to working hard for stuff & is still prepared to put in the effort, though the gap between her & her classmates has closed. There's really no easy answer, but I feel our DD was doubly disadvantaged by not starting in September - she was still the youngest, but everyone else had 2 terms of education that she missed.

I know someone who's DD was born on 31st August.
She started in the Sept, but only for mornings until Christmas where the rest of the class stayed all day. As the mum said, they do all their learning in the morning and just play all afternoon anyway.

My DD is the middle of July birthday, so a bit better. She went full time in the Sept and loves it!!