at Thumb wearing short sleeves today. Today my hands went numb with cold at the bus stop.
Gymgirlie - I lurve Bexhill. I want to live in the de la Warr Pavilion.
Daisy - [The small print: My views are shaped by being the parent of MadBadBaby, who was a January school starter, who changed schools (and so went twice into a class which was well-established) and who has never been backward in coming forward, all three facts being germane to this discussion. Other opinions are available and the value of this opinion may go down as well as up] If I could have got MBB into school for September, I would have done - her last term at pre-school was rather bleak, because she missed her friends who'd gone to school and she was itching to go too. My view - I hesitate to offer advice as it's such a personal decision - is that it's bad enough being a January starter, as you are propelled into a class which has already been together for a term and is used to having a lot of one-to-one time with the teacher and may be resentful of (as they see it) interlopers. (Think older sibling with nose pushed out of joint by new baby and you've more or less got it). Socially and academically, the January starters are, in my view, at a double disadvantage because they're younger and have missed a term of school. It would be worse, I think, to skip YR altogether, and join the class in Y1 when the friendship groups will be pretty solid.
[Sotto voce] More on the academics. You have occasionally indicated, Daisy, that you are, ahem, keen for DaisyBoy's teachers to recognise his intellectual prowess. As are we all (no bushels in the tea room, remember). I fear that they may not if he skips YR. It is likely - any passing teachers can shoot contradict me now - that, unless he joins in Y1 reading, writing and counting as well as his peers, they will put him in the low ability groups, at least to start with, because they are grouped according to what they can do, rather than how smart they are. Is that important to you? How would the practicalities of deferring entry work out? Could he stay at pre-school/nursery for an extra term or year? Some, I think, boot out children who are school age, even if they're not going to school.
Anyway, I've wittered on for far too long. Hope this helps, even if only by convincing you to defer entry!