I had a blinding epiphany moment today about school starting age!

[tortoiseSHELL]

Dd is an August baby, and although she has done absolutely fine in her first year at school I'm aware that there are some August babies who have struggled.

It suddenly came to me that it would make MUCH more sense for the school age cut off to be July 30th - obviously this wouldn't make that much difference, but it would mean that children wouldn't spend the whole of their reception year being 4 iyswim (dd won't be 5 till next week, and yet she's done a whole year at school).

It's fairly arbitrary to me that the school cut off is at the beginning of the school year, not the end of the previous one, and it would just mean that the youngest children were 6 weeks older when they started, and the minimum starting age would be 4.1, rather than children who have turned 4 the day before starting school.

I also think for children within, say, a month or 3 weeks either side of the date, they could be allowed to elect which school year to put their children in. Dd was certainly ready to go, others weren't, and a blanket rule doesn't work. Her cousin is the other way - would be ready to go now, but has to wait another year. They are only 1 year different in age, and had dd been born 3 weeks later, and her cousin 1 day earlier, they would have been in the same school year, and yet they are 2 school years apart.

You're right MamaGlovesMe, it isn't made clear at all that there is a choice. We aren't sending our ds to school in September at 4 1/2, he will start if and when we decide the time is right. But it took a lot of internet searching for me to find out it was definitely a legal option, and that there's lots of support out there for people who decide to home educate for as short or long a time as they choose. And I'm convinced that whatever he might supposedly "miss out on" he'll be far better off waiting until he is more confident, independent, physically and emotionally ready for school. Or we might decide home education suits him and us so much that we stick to that for good.

Follow your heart MamaG

A few people have said about the system in Scotland where the cut off is end of Feb so that children would be between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 when they start. Where we are most people with Jan/Feb birthdays defer, especially if they're boys, and they still get paid pre-school for the following year. If their birthday is before Christmas they have to make a special case to get funding for more pre-school. The only things is it then slightly skews the ages and so in my sons class in P1 they ranged from 4 1/2 to just about 6 when they started.

we all feel it when our children go to school

think most people would choose keeping back a yr option. some years this could cause a problem for schools (eg when larger than normal numbers anyway)

line has to be drawn somewhere and someone will always feel badly done by

(agree reading not the be-all & end-all but these children - both boys and girls - adapted well to school life, at slightly different rates, got there in the end.)

Whatever rule they apply it won't suit some children and some parents. The system has worked as it for years for most children after all.

Age doesnt have to be the only factor. Some summer born children are more than ready to go to school. Some September born children are still not ready.

I hate the idea of multiple intakes. I can't see how it benefits those starting later in the school year. They just start education 3 or 4 months behind the others, and end up playing catch up from the start of their school days.

Maybe there should just be a bit more flexibility for those children who really aren;t ready to start at age 4y, with parents and schools able to come to some sort of arrangement to ease them in more gently should they require it.

agree with you hula, re: multiple intakes

dd1 was victim of multiple intake - felt a bit left out starting in january when she was 4.5

dd2 (much shyer and I had real anxieties for her..) started with everyone in Sept (nearly 4.5) apart from just mornings for 2 weeks only - probably settled better

i think starting school at 4 is too young, IMO.

the UK has to have one of the youngest ages i've come across in the world, and i don't think it's such a good thing.

i am really aprehensive aboutthis as am havingto pick school for DS and he isnteven 3 yet,ntis 3 in august so will be sept 2009when he goes...just seems sooooooooooo young. do i haveto send him? he is a confident happy chap and i hate hate hate all the local schools. dont know whatto do really

in scotland you can delay them another year if they have a birthday between march - december.

so they are 5 when they go into P1.

i learned this in the nursery where DD1 will be 'retained at age', as it's called here. she wont' start P1 till she is 6.

you do have to pay for hte extra year of nursery yourself in such a case (DD1 will get it for free as she is 'ASN', additional support needs).

but to me, it's what we'll be doing with DD2, who has a december birthday.

i'm NOT sending her to P1 when she's 4, i don't care how 'advanced' she is at that age.

it has the potential to cause some big problems later on, becuase it's just too damn young to be in school full-time.

no way.

No, Swiftyknickers, he absolutely does not have to go to school in September 2009. He has to be receiving a full time education in September 2010, but whether you choose to provide that by sending him to school or by other means is entirely up to you.

i kind of agree with you.butwhenever i mention it to anyone (sisters,mothers,riends) its all dontbe so bloody silly,he will be fine.not ONE person has said yes i agree 4 is way too little...thething is i work 3 days a week so he'd also be in after school club for 3 days. Although in nursery now for 3 days , i think school is far more taxing. it has zonked my niece who was just 4

Hulababy: "The system has worked as it for years for most children after all"

Well no. I'm not sure how many years this start-in-the-september-when-they-are-four deal has been going on, but it's certainly not as long as 30 years

It's been going on for ages.

I'm 43, I started in a school nursery full time when I was 3, then onto reception the following year.

I LOVED it and continued to adore school (with a blip in the 6th form)

(April birthday)

see i HATED junior school with a passion

loved BIG school -maybe i am transferring how i felt onto DS1-he is siuch a scrummy boy-dont want him to go to schoolandlearn to spit and to say shit and bums

my girls were talking about vaginas today, on the way to their playscheme

ROFL- how old are they bundle??

onwardandupward - I started school when I was 4, as did my brother and sister, Me and brother born early 70, sister early 80s. We did have two intakes, like many LEAs still have here.

er expat, i started school at 4. and imo i'm grand . turned 4 mid june and started school followoing sept.

iirc, in NI, 30 june is the cut off for the school year so is as op suggested it should be. can anyone still in NI confirm that?

we are in scotland and dd was bborn 28 feb so will either be the very youngest in her year or one of oldest. either way we have a decision to make about it....and i'm rubbish at decisions - know i'll spend the rest of her school life wondering if we did the right thing!

swiftyknickers, they're 5 and 8 (so going into yrs 1 and 4 in Sept)

i'd rather be the oldest.

especially in secondary school.

remember when it seems like FOREVER till you turned 18 and could go to all the clubs and pubs with your pals?

or drive?

or go out with 'older boys'?

I don't like the split intakes throughout the year, but I think there is scope for being able to delay by a year if you're at that end of the year. There are children in ds1's Y2 class who are STILL struggling and who are disillusioned with school because it is so hard. Which is such a shame when perhaps starting in the next year, with children who they may only be 1 day older than, could have given them a very different start to their education.

onwardandupward - the reason there wouldn't be a place if you delay a year is because in our LEA they make it abundantly clear that, firstly, you stay with your peer group, so dd, as an August baby, would go straight into Y1 if we had delayed by the maximum legally allowed. BUT, the school application procedure does not allow for delayed places. So if you applied to a school along with everyone else, you could be allocated a place, but if you don't take it up within something like 4 weeks then you lose the place, and it is given to someone else. In an oversubscribed school (which in our area all the decent schools are), you are very unlikely to get a place except right at the beginning of reception. Certainly if you delayed then you would probably find you could only then get a place at a poor school, miles away.

bundle - I think most children probably do 'get there in the end' but for some that extra year could make all the difference to enjoying school or not. Which is why I think the parents should be able to make that decision.

My kids' school have 2 intakes for Nursery & Reception - so a full year in Nursery and then 2 or 3 terms in Reception.

But the Nursery and Reception classrooms are next to each other with half the wall knocked down. So they can do a bit of 'merging' and have the children where they need to be rather than where their birthday dictates. It helps.

Going back to the first point I made, it does seem totally loopy to have the cut off point as being August 31st - that means that SOME children will end their reception year before turning 5 (dd). Whereas having it as August 31st would mean all children were 5 during reception. Some would obviously turn 6, and that's where the flexibility of cut off point could apply.