Hi All,
Dad of 5-year-old here in Edinburgh. I was wondering if any of you could help. We have a 5-year-old who we deferred entry to P1 (we felt it was the right thing to do at the time and was advised to do so by the council-run nursery teachers for social and emotional reasons but we were told academically he was fine). He is a start of October 2018 baby. But now at the end of November 2023, it feels like he is more than ready for P1 (he has developed a lot in the last six months).
Also, he is not making any friends this year in his nursery. Every morning he doesn't want to go to nursery and it's a huge struggle to get him there. The other children all seem and look much younger than him and have baby-like faces and just seem generally much younger than him, I think he is now the oldest in his nursery. He doesn't seem to be able to connect with any nursery children this year. His nursery best friends (3 boys) from last year who were roughly the same age as him all moved on to P1 Primary and now it feels (and looks) like he is too old and mature for the kids in his nursery.
He desperately wants to go to "big boy" school himself and keeps talking about it and wants to move on to Primary school and wear school uniform clothes. He is technically very capable and loves building Lego robots, working with leavers, and gears and electronic circuits already. My specialist areas are Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science so I am able to support and encourage him in those areas. His language skills are very advanced and he can easily hold conversations with older children and adults, and in fact spends his time with older children in the community garden that we have behind the house.
My wife and I are thinking it is best to try and move him to P1 for January 2024 (the start of the second term in P1 in his catchment school). I am thinking that if we leave him in nursery for this academic year then in Primary school he would be about 1.5 years older than the youngest child in his year group and on average probably a year older than most of his peers which might be too big of an age gap and prevent him from connecting and making friendships with his peers as especially even now he seems so advanced in certain areas.
We will chat with the nursery before making a final decision but does anyone know what the procedures are for canceling the funded P1 deferred place at a council-run nursery during the academic year and trying to get their child into P1 Primary for a January start?
Any advice on this would be much appreciated.