Age of starting primary school in Scotland - help!

[honeyharris]

I'm English but live in Scotland and had my baby boy this May. I'm really quite confused about the age at which he starts school as it seems to be worked out very differently from England. As he has a May date of birth, it appears that this means he will start school when he is 5 years and 4 months old as opposed to 4 years and 4 months in England. Is this right???

think so.

Yep 5 years and 4 months

He will be due to start P1 in August 2019

the cut off is the end of February so yes he would go when he was 5 already and be one of the oldest children in his year. The minimum age to start school in Scotland is 4½ years old.

My son is early June and was 5+ when he started (ie, he started 2 months after his 5th birthday. My DD is January (cut off is end of Feb) and so was 4 years and 7 months when she started.

Thanks, that clears that up. Shame it's an extra year of child care to pay when I'm back at work! Now to negotiate the minefield of sorting out childcare for next February!

he will have his free nursery hours from age 3 until he is school age too.

Thanks, I heard they might be going up from the 12.5 hours by the time my ds is at nursery. Do they only get the free hours at pre school or does that include private nurseries? I'm not sure yet if we'll go with nursery or childminder but want to cover all scenarios.

www.scottishfamilies.gov.uk/NationalCategoryDetail.aspx?ncid=7 - says you may be able to use in private nurseries and registered childminders

Re preschool, it is common that children in childcare go to a childminder in their year before school and preschool at their feeder school, the childminder drops them off and picks them up, quite often the preschool is part of the school so the children get used to being in the school setting.

Many (most?) of the primary schools in Scotland don't actually have an attached nursery, so even if you do get a place at a state nursery rather than use the hours at a private nursery/childminder, it may well be at a location other than the catchment primary school.

About 2 thirds of primary schools have nurseries in them in Dundee and the independent council nurseries are usually within spitting distance of their feeder primary schools.

I think you are not entitled to a nursery place at the nursery in your catchment area but you are entitled to place at the school in your catchment area.

If you choose a private nursery you only get the financial contribution to it for the hours, rather than getting the hours for free. I think the funding is something like £4 an hour so well below private nursery costs per hour.

Thanks everyone, that's really helpful. I live in Stirling and the state nursery at our feeder school only takes 20 children. Suppose the main thing now is getting something sorted for February, out of interest what is the going rate for private nurseries and childminders up here?

prettybird I would say that most schools have a nursery where we are (Fife).

Re the funding, when it was 2.5 hours I think it was something like a £9/session contribution.

honeyharris, school nurseries are not based on catchment, so you can apply to go anywhere.

The hours for pre-school (3-5yr olds and some 2 yr olds) has gone up to 600 a year which is distributed in different ways in different authorities. In our LA it is 3 hour 10 minutes a day during term time.

The cut off for school is the end of February before the start of the school year. But if the child has their birthday in January or February then the parent can decide to defer them for another year. It is also possible to defer for a child born in the autumn but a case has to be made for this.

honeyharris - that's part of the point I am making: it's rare (at least in Glasgow) for the feeder nursery if indeed there is one to be as large as the catchment, so it is inevitable that the majority didn't go to it. And ds' primary didn't have a nursery at all (although to be fair, it had been the old headteacher's ambition for the 20+ years she was there to set one up), the next closest primary has a nursery but it's not on site and the local catholic primary and the Catholic Primary my SIL's kids go to don't have nurseries at all. But maybe that's just Glasgow.

But this is a side issue: find the nursery which you think your ds will be happiest at. That is the best foundation for him. And it's 3 years away anyway - and awful lot can change by then!

Thanks everyone, that's cleared a lot up for me. I had assumed that he would go to our nearest primary which is just 2 mins walk away so helpful to know we have a choice and that the main thing now is to concentrate on finding the best place for my ds. How much do nurseries and childminders tend to charge (he will be 9 months old when I return to work) , just so I have some idea of the average? Have no idea as yet what sort of cost I'm looking at and suspect I'll be shocked!