Can someone tell me about 'damaged caused by starting school aged 4-5' please?

[buckyou]

I've read a few articles but they all seem a bit out of date - what is the current thinking?

My DD is 2 and has really struggled to settle at nursery and she's also a summer baby so I'm worried she will find it tough starting school.

Is it more class sizes that are the problem or actual learning to read etc. too early? Would private potentially be better with smaller class sizes or worse with more academic pressure?

My little boy (age 6) is a summer baby, July and it hasn't done him any harm emotionally or academically. He could write his own name when he started school and knew numbers up to 10, after a couple of months school he learned how to read and write etc, it's actually amazing how fast they pick it up, you will be surprised, I wouldn't worry yourself about it x

I think it's the formal learning - having to sit still and learn phonics, writing, numbers etc that's the issue. A child who's not mature enough to be able to sit and concentrate on academic stuff, is going to have problems settling into school regardless of class size. Some children are readier for that than others when starting Reception.

My summer born DS1 wasn't ready for the formal learning aspects of Reception at all when he started, and ended up being moved down a year (although he was subsequently diagnosed as having ASD, so may have had more problems than is usual).

Having said that, if your DD is only 2 now, she may develop a lot more before it's time for her to start school, so her struggling to settle at nursery now doesn't necessarily mean that she won't be ready to start Reception in 2 years time.

I think she will have been in nursery so long by then that she probably will be fine and don't really have any concerns that she won't keep up academically as I think she is fairly bright but there's not an obvious choice on where to send her to primary so I just want to understand what kind of school might be better for a young / slightly Velcro baby.