Children should not start school until they are 7 - discuss...

[CountessDracula]

article here

Fillyjonk... is your ds not going to school until at least 7 because you don't want him to or because you live in another country? Just asking as I am considering keeping my ds out of school until I think he is ready, and wondered if you were doing that...

jolly-he is not going to school until he is ready, which may well be 7, may well be later. He is not ready NOW (he is 4.4 and, by 3 days, "should" be in reception)

One thing-we have a very good (by our criteria), yet undersubscribed state primary locally, which should be able to take him at any point. They are also very happy to consider flexi/part time attendance from him. This of course helps.

And as I say, he is not at all behind his peers-all 4 of his grandparents are teachers, so we feel quite confident-this isn't just our assessment and believe me, MIL would tell us if they thought he was actually behind!

(oh am in UK btw)

i wouldnt mind if children didnt do any structured learning but painted and made pasta necklaces and planted trees and went on nature hunts etc.

as long as they wernt with me - thats all fine

i can see how backtracking would be frustrating for a child, but if they don't miss what they've never had.

the german school system is very rigid and strict. it is not something i agree with at all. They go from something entirely child-led to something entirely teacher-led and there's no inbetween. they go from a fantastic kindergarten with lots of learning being guided through play into this awful school system where they have to copy down texts, do dictation, no project/group work, no playtime or breaktime, the fact that teachers lose it and scream and so on and so on. No art, no music, no sport, no learning is fun activities.

they also pigeonhole the children far too early. Children are sent to different types of secondary schools according to ability as measured by their primary school at about the age of 9 or 10.

If the school estimates that a child is capable of going on to university, they can apply to a Gymnasium which is full-on and intensive.

If not, they go to a Realschule which means they'll train later maybe for something like office work or nursing, something which doesn't require a degree.

If they're not considered likely to manage that, they have to go to Hauptschule which means they can just forget it basically.

So there is a lot of pressure to achieve well at primary school.

School lessons go on til lunchtime then there is a selection of activities that you may choose - but only from one category - so if you choose sport then you do sport 4 afternoons a week and cannot take a music class or a language class - just sport. it would be better if they could pick different things for each afternoon. and this is not compulsory and cos a lof of german mums are sahms most don't stay for the afternoon.

The problem with introducing formal and compulsory learning so early is that some children learn how to fail and are therefore put off learning and school in general at an earlier age whereas if they were to start formal schooling at 6 or 7 they would have already naturally learned both social and academic skills without too much pressure and find things so much easier and see school in a more positive way.

Imo young children learn best when they are left to question things themselves. So if they want to run around and be a penguin then so be it, but then the teacher can then guide that into something productive like "do you know where penguins live, do you know what they eat" etc etc and get them interested in learning that way. i don't see how that can be boring at all.

however if they are soley left to play and never given any guidance then i can see how that would be boring to some.

my children are in the German system, and I agree with everything nappyadict says.

they are basically trying to cram into 4 years, the same amount of learning that british children are doing in 6(?) years. The bar is constantly being raised by competitive SAHMs who spend the afternoons coaching their children.
It is horrendous, stick with starting school at 5.

"save childhood" really gets up my nose. Its not much of a childhood if they then have to spend the years from 7-11 cramming all the stuff they have got to know before they go to secondary school.

that's why i think places like finland have got it right. they still have 7 years of primary school and they start secondary school at the age of 13/14. that's what the old system was like in the uk. you didn't start high school until you were 13/14 and i think we should go back to that. it doesn't work so well nowadays because of the sats but if we scrapped those aswell it would be ok.

Your plan sounds good Fillyjonk. I'm hoping my local primary school will also be understanding.... My ds is due to go in September but I really don't think he will be ready, think he will find it all too much and it will put him off learning which at the moment he just loves and does everyday.

The German system sounds scary!

I have worked with Finns and they were all intelligent people with university degrees, one was even an MP in Finland, but I don't think their school system did them any favours. They had no initiative whatsoever. They were very good at their work, but as soon as something came along out of the ordinary, they had no idea how to cope!
My mum went to the High school when she was 11 back in the 40's, that isn't something new.

hmmm well round here you used to go to high school at 14. there are a couple left that have kept it at this age but most have gone which i think is a shame.

i don't see many british school pupils with that much initiative tbh.

You must live in an area that had middle schools. After all the 11+ was around for years, and that was agood long while ago now. Although many public schools had/have the split between prep and upper school at 13. Not sure it makes much difference except that it put boarding off for a few more years.

Nightynight think you have got totally the wrong idea of "savechildhood" it isn't against children learning just against them being taught in an inappropriate way for their age. There is no cramming to prepare them for secondary school it isn't necessary. Young children learn best by doing.

"I hear and I forget;
I see and I remember;
I do and I understand."

I have regular (I mean daily) contact with children from Sweden , Denmark, Holland and Germany. They all have much later starting dates than the U.K. and they are all aged 10 to 18. They are very articulate, numerate and speak and write at least 2 lanuages.
I have this contact because I speak to them on 'Ventrilo' an in game (computer battle games) every day.
I honestly think children should be kept out of school until 5 and no coercion should be put on them to learn to read.
The idea of 3 year olds being pushed into reading and the subsequent feelings of failure this will bring is abhorant to me. I would not send a 3 or 4 year old to a nursery that was making them learn anything. I chose my DS's nursery because it was a fun place for him to be whilst I was away from him.

discoverlife please take a look at openeyecampaign.wordpress.com/about/ while you still have a choice.

i think nightynight was referring to what happens in germany where they do cram for secondary school.

nooka - with most boarding schools you can board from 7 not 13. ah our area has first and middle school in one - it's two buildings but they are on the same site and then high school from year 9. i think it's the best system personally. particularly for boys - i think a lot of 11 year old boys aren't mature enough to go to secondary school. they are still at the age where they want to run around and play whereas girls are beginning to grow up a bit more.

discoverlife - i agree. i think they should only be guided to learn. ie turning play into learning random facts about stuff not sitting down and doing reading, counting, spelling but getting plastic letters out of the water table to spell words, counting how many ladybirds there are in the garden, having treasure hunts where they have to read a word and go to that place or find that object.

Concerning secondary school, mine (a long time ago) was a consolidation of the old grammer school and the comprehensive. As they were next to each other originally they just took down the fence between. But what they did was have the smaller grammer school building used solely for the first 2 years, absolutly no contact with the older kids. Then they all moved down to the larger building when they were 13. It seemed a really good compromise.

MRZ I have already taken DS2 out of school to Home Educate him, he is 10 now and SEN.

I can see alot of childminders and nurseries closing because they do not believe in the government targets, also a lot of parents not sending their children to nursery or school until the last possible date because of this. Mind you there are a lot of parents who just don't realise there is an alternative through HE'ing and who think you HAVE to send them to school when ordered to. The government doesn't care about our children they just want as many people working as possible, so that the taxes are paid which means that our children are given to strangers to bring up.

totally agree. children only go to school so early here cos they want parents to back to school asap. if they had a voluntary preschool up until 6 most people would send their kids like most send them to preschool now at 3 but a few wouldn't and that means those few wouldn't then be able to work for 3 years instead of 1.

In my school we had three children transfer into the English system from other EU countries. A German boy into Y2, a Spanish boy also Y2 and a Greek girl into Y3. None had spent long in formal education and in the case of the Spanish child no English, but within a term all were reading and writing in two languages with little effort and the two Y2 children achieved well in the Key Stage 1 SATs against all expectations.

The difference between them and their English counterparts was that they had the opportunity to develop the pre reading and writing skills they needed to become competent and confident readers and writers.