Delaying starting school until term after 5th birthday - anyone else?

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Just wondered. Have been told by our LA that ds is the only one in the whole county and that he'll be so very behind when he starts.

Oh yes, I asked their new teacher whether there was anything I could do with them over the next few months so they wouldn't be behind when they started. And she said, absolutely not. Our first year is all play. (and they can do basic writing and letters and wiping their own bums already).

Kat, you are describing ds' school. Are we at the same?

Thankyou IndigoBell, that sounds like quite a good way to organise it.

I really think it needs looking at over here, but then it's all about getting all the mothers back into work asap isn't it.

One aspect concerns me though, the parents who really are sick to death of their poor kids by the time they reach four, and the risk those kids might be at if they didn't start school so early.

But if that's a major problem it says something dreadful about our country's attitude to children

Ds1 is a summer baby and was far too young to start year 1 (i.e. formal learning) when he did.

In my case I was plain lied to by the (then) HT who told me I couldnt defer and made out I would be damaging ds1 for life if I tried - this is the same HT who ranted at a PTA meeting about parents who "planned" summer babies - having just suffered a mc with what would have been an august baby I found that a bit especially as this same HT told me later on that ds1 would not suffer from being summer born

Ds2 is a september baby and - thank god - wont start reception til he is nearly 5 and will be nearly 6 by the time he gets into year 1.

Indigo that is what happened in the UK at one time

I'm not sure what the problems you refer to in Australia are lingle. There tends to be an 18 month age range in all classes here and as with any group of kids their academic ability is not directly correlated with their age. The system here allows people to choose depending on how ready for school you think you child is. Yes, a lot of people keep their children out of school until compulsory school age because it's a bit of a no brainer to give your child an extra year of pre-school then send them off to school when they are more likely to be more emotionally mature and "ready to learn". The children who start young are generally considered to be "early starters", at least they are in NSW ( just to confuse things all the States here have different Education systems).

Yes, an extra year at pre-school depends on the ability to pay (and it is expensive compared to England) so you could argue that it disadvantages those less well off, and before and after school care is available onsite at the majority of public schools making starting school cheaper for parents than daycare, but I really think most people are just making the best choice THEY CAN for their child rather than trying to gain some kind of unfair advantage.

I'm not sure what the problems you refer to in Australia are lingle. There tends to be an 18 month age range in all classes here and as with any group of kids their academic ability is not directly correlated with their age. The system here allows people to choose depending on how ready for school you think you child is. Yes, a lot of people keep their children out of school until compulsory school age because it's a bit of a no brainer to give your child an extra year of pre-school then send them off to school when they are more likely to be more emotionally mature and "ready to learn". The children who start young are generally considered to be "early starters", at least they are in NSW ( just to confuse things all the States here have different Education systems).

Yes, an extra year at pre-school depends on the ability to pay (and it is expensive compared to England) so you could argue that it disadvantages those less well off, and before and after school care is available onsite at the majority of public schools making starting school cheaper for parents than daycare, but I really think most people are just making the best choice THEY CAN for their child rather than trying to gain some kind of unfair advantage.

I hear you sunnydelight. Trust me, I talked to many many people before I heard even the ghost of a coherent argument against the common sense approach

I have never heard a Scottish or Irish mumsnetter saying they wished people couldn't defer. By defer I mean really deferring - ie choosing the peer group.

Lingle, we'll only be able to defer for a term. I wish that I had taken him out of nursery earlier. The opportunities are there in nursery and school, but a billion opportunities with no-one knowing what to do with them is just not as effective as a few quality opportunities taken up with determination iyswim.

yes I understand. DS2 can now learn from his peers. But this is a newly acquired skill. most nurseries and schools seem to assume that kids with communication struggles can somehow learn from their peers.

How is your DS doing with his social communication anyway? Can you summarise where he's at?

Summer hols has me all confused but he can keep a conversation going by linking something that a person has said that he might know about, even if the answers are a bit odd. I.e. Someone: The sun is setting, it is going to Amercia. Him: America has 10 lane motorways. The sun is going to shine on 10 lanes.

Factual conversations are brilliant i.e. me: what would you like for breakfast? him: Shreddies. Me: Oh no we have run out of shreddies. Him: You have to go to the shop and get some. Me: Okay, can you wait until after I get back for your shreddies, or can you have oats this time? Him: Oats this time and shreddies tomorrow.

This sounds great, and it is, but he'll only do it if he is interested in the topic. You'll never get him debating what colour ribbon he is going to tie onto his Chinese New Year Dragon at school. He acts as if he doesn't even understand the question in those situations because he is unmotivated to acknowledge the person asking.

Does that give you an idea. He'll have that first conversation with a child his age, but ONLY if the child is so very pushy they don't leave him alone.

well I'm with him on the Chinese New Year Dragon I have to say . My total indifference to the colour would make it really hard to think of an answer!

what about "shall we play trains?" "which one do you want?" "can I have one too?" "it's my turn to hide" that kind of thing....? Will he want to play the same games as other kids? Ds2 does but often doesn't know how (though he has developed a strategy of tagging along with a socially skilled but language-poor best friend)

the weetabix/shreddies thing sounds very positive- I mean that abity to think of the future and defer gratification. Are his organisational skills pretty good?

Yes, he'll want to play. When we have been in social situations on hols he has watched children. Sometimes he has take one or two steps towards them but then run and hid with his hands in front of his face.

He will never ever initiate. But is a child were to find him and follow him around (As happened on a campsite. He was flapping and the child WOULD NOT LEAVE without ds answering why he was doing it, which meant the child hung around FOREVER because ds can't answer questions like that) then ds will get used to them and might answer back or chip in to a topic.

They chased each other around the field for a bit until ds came back to the tent and asked for the ball, which he took to his new 'friend' and although they never once kicked it to each other, they shared kicking it iyswim.

One of the questions the boy asked ds was 'what road do you live on' to which ds replied 'I live on the M25!' but anyway dh and I were devestated that this boy left the next morning.

There was just one thing about this boy though. He really was mad determined to force ds to engage with him and he had one or two 'movements'. I couldn't altogether be certain that there wasn't something going on with him too, but his behaviours complimented ds'.

Oh Lingle, since he was born we have been SO vigilant to break any routine/habbits etc. There was a time we were DELIBERATELY running out of shreddies iykwim. It would kill the whole day.

I think if another child came up to ds and asked him if he wanted to play trains, or to chose a train, ds would manage an appropriate response. But sadly, in a whole year of attending, no teacher or TA could facilitate that interaction.

re the "shreddies" ie the dealing with changes to routine - clearly you've done a good job and are now reaping the benefits.

he has a younger sibling doesn't he? or have I remembered wrongly?

it's lovely that he wants to play. a totally different place to not wanting to play.

if only one knew how though .

Yes he does. She is both great and not great.

She is fantastic at pestering him, but a bit rubbish and responding to his attempts to interact with her and can ignore him or just shout 'NO' in his face when he tries to ask her something.

She is 2, almost 3.

On the whole though, I feel very lucky that ds has her.

I would love ds to have a social great, language poor friend.

At nursery apparently he used to keep closer to the children with English as a second language. Because they didn't make demands of him I think. He could just do what they were doing, or be near them and they didn't ask him anything.

Oh Lingle, - did you have trouble when young?

Actually, I'm glad I 'bumped' into you as I have been meaning to ask you your opinion on something. I think it is okay for the MB but if not just say so.

Okay. Children with social communication difficulties can if lucky, often end up with more adult, formal language. They can find it easier to communicate with adults than children etc etc.

Now we fall over ourselves to insist that communicating with peers is really important, but why is it?

For an typically developing child, perhaps they have to go through the various stages of development in order which is enhanced, faciliated by negotiation etc. with children at similar developmental stages.

However, if your child isn't developing typically, then is all that matters is them being able to converse with adults by the time they are adults?

Do you see what I am trying to say?

totally.

point one, the home-school gang will point out to you at enormous length that it's actually highly unnatural to spend all day with age-peers unless they are cousins. the natural relationship is the relationship of the street where you live - your siblings plus a few others who are older or younger than you.

yes I had real trouble when young - I wanted friends so much but was just so scared because I couldn't understand the social rules. Teachers would try to "help" by doing things equivalent to throwing me into the lion's den. No doubt you will have seen this happen to DS. I needed children I could feel safe with - ones who wouldn't make unexpected demands I couldn't meet.

where have you got to with one to one playdates by the way?

one last thought - before he got to the peer relationship stage, DS2 also paired off well with a highly socially adept girl - it wasn't a true peer relationship, it was more that, as the staff said, she already knew how to adjust her behaviour to that of the child she was playing with. So the alpha-kids (sorry I know some people hate that phrase but my DS1 now is one and it's a real phenomenon) can be unexpected allies. Often they are the alpha-child because of their superior social skills, especially the girls. And a big part of that is that they know instinctively how to adjust to your less skilled child.

Off to bed now but will check in tomorrow.

it's nice to talk with you.

Oh no Lingle. I'm sorry about that.

I guess your ds is lucky that you went through it though.

Interesting point about the street peers thing. You know the more I investigate the more I realise what a wierd and unnatural place school is.

But yet, teachers (not all I might add) and LA professionals all seem to think that home is a wierd place and that school is his 'natural environment'.

Lots of skills he was unable to present at nursery (due to the whole Child Initiated Learning Agenda, meaning he never chose to undertake activities where he could demonstrate them) were according to them not demonstrated because he hadn't learned to generalise them into the natural environment.

It wins me no friends to talk about school to professionals as an 'artificial institution/environment' but I have had 2 years of their bollox about home being inferior.

The only thing that prevents me from HE is that he is very young atm and unable to self-direct his learning. I could cover the curriculum in 1-2 hours a day but then what? If he isn't engaged or directed he'll stick rigid and stim. I am simply not able to give him enough to keep him going for the whole day every day. Also, as he already sticks out, I want him to at least have a shared childhood experience with the majority of the people he will be interacting with later in life.

I overheard a headteacher recently talk about a child who was HE. She scoffed and said 'ha, he has no social skills whatsoever' as if it was a given. I am starting to understand that that child would not have any social skills if he had attended school either, and that the probable reason he was being HE was because of the school's inability to address his social deficits.

Would you have preferred to have been homeschooled?

Homeschooling worked for us star (ds1 was 6 when we did it) but ds1 did miss the social side of school i.e. playtime!

I can totally see HE being part of our future again at some point...we are just getting nowhere fast in the school system

I see sunnydelight has already commented re. Australian systems - but I'll still add in a little more.
DS has to wait until he is 5 to start school, or I could wait another year until he is 6. NSW rules state that for a child to start school at age 4, they have to have their 5th birthday before July 31st. Compulsory age to start school (unless homeschooling) is 6. We have a February start to the school year. If we were in the UK, DS would be going to school next September at 4.9; but as it is he will be 5.2 when he starts which I actually prefer, I think.

I didn't start school properly until I was 5 - I started the easter before my 5th birthday, half a day for the term, iirc (although it might have been half a day for half a term and then a full day for the next half of that term, not 100% sure). I think that is about right.

Starlight - good luck with your plan - I think you are doing the right thing for your DS.

no I'm glad I went to school. I agree about the shared experience. My parents wouldn't have been right to home-school anyway....

I think that if you only talk to adults as a child that will take you quite far. My older brother (whose problems were worse than mine) never really made friends and I think school was hard. On the plus side, he's held down a responsible job (where interaction with other people is rather formal/rule-bound) for 25 years and has a very pleasant second job as a cricket commentator! rules rules rules! He has a nice relationship with my children and with animals and manages to get on with my mother which I consider a feat of some magnitude.

What he doesn't have though is the ability to make friends at work. When I visited his work place I saw younger staff look at him and exchange amused glances. And he's never been in a relationship for more than a month or so (he sometimes starts a relationship with a woman he has been kind to but he just doesn't know how to do courtship). When anxious, he talks about the weather or driving routes which isn't very romantic.

He has always suffered from anxiety, mainly manifesting in excessive concern about his health but on balance I would say he has a good life and that he is a kind and responsible man and uncle who feels secure in several relationships within the family (parents, me, our uncle but not our other brother who always found him wierd).