Starting P1 (Scotland) at 4 or 5?

[LoosingBattle]

My daughter is 4 in February 2014 and is due to start school in the August. She was born premature and should have been born in April and therefore wouldn't have started school until 2015.

I feel that she is young for her age and don't know if she would manage at school. She is at private nursery at the moment, she does 5 days 7-4. The nursery say they can't help as it is in a different local authority to where she will be going to school. We can't get her into a "school nursery" where she would get the free hours as there is no availability. Feel if she had done that she might be more prepared for school.

It is a very small school she is going to (16 pupils) and there are only 3 of them starting in August - not sure if that makes it better or worse.

Anyway - any experience of being oldest/youngest in the class and what is best?

The consensus on this thread would appear to be that you should defer her.

You should continue to get funding for her for another year - especially as she is a February baby (even before you take into account that she was premature).

Not sure what the procedure is: I get the impression from that thread that you still need to enrol her but apply for deferral at the same time.

....but you'd probably only get funding for the 12.5 hours (or whatever it is now).

Thanks, I saw other thread after I posted. Lots of useful info there.

We currently get no help with nursery fees. Even just a few hours a week would help with the bill but we can't seem to get her in anyway and the nursery she is at isn't registered to give the free hours. Is there any way round this? Especially if we were to have another year of paying a nursery?

Dd is also 4 in February and we are deferring, she would be well able for school academically but she is very small & I don't want her to me the baby in the class.

Also thinking at the other end. Would rather her go to Uni at 18 not 17.

Have you asked the council which nurseries in your vicinity do have space? You'd need to balance up the saving you'd make against the disruption of moving her.

My ds attended a private nursery (different council to the primary school) but did get the free hours. He is a January birthday and we did think of deferring him - but advice from the head teacher was to enrol him anyway as we could always decide not to send him. She visited the nursery a couple of months before he was due to start school and advised sending him after all as he was ready for it - and he has been fine (he's in S3 now). But every child is different and it may be best to defer your dd.
ds also attended a very small school - I think that probably helped as they catered very well for wee ones - did not expect too much concentration in the afternoons etc

Given your circumstances I would defer, yes you have to enrol and apply for deferment Jan next year. The school should tell you how to do this.

I would also fight to get her into a LA nursery, especially so she knows at least one other child going into P1 with her.

My DD2 is a late Jan birthday but we didn't defer as she was ready, 9 of her nursery class were going to school plus her best friend at nursery. And her class is very young half of them are Jan/Feb birthdays. If it were DD1 I would have deferred.