Too young for school?

[Cathider]

Do you think that it is wrong to start children aged just 4 at school? In England the age range for starting reception year is between 4 & 5. As I understand it people can decide to wait until 5, but surely that option is not practical if you want your child to go to a good school as all the place fill up? The first year (The "Reception Year") is a gentle one, but it does seem quite young to me. Even now when I see the reception class at DC's school, they look very little and some of them still cry each morning, even now at the end of the year.

DS missed reception year - because we were out of the country - but now at the end of Y1 he is at/ near the top of his class, so it hasn't held him back at all. It makes me wonder if it is really necessary to take children away from their early childhood so early? In many other European countries, children don't go to school until 6 or 7 and those early years are viewed as a vital time in the child's development. Even in Scotland, the children get an extra 6 months at least.

The difference between say the Scandinavian countries and the UK is that the Scandiavian countries have very high quality state-subsidised nursery provision on a scale sufficient to ensure a place to virtually every pre-school child in the country.

If the UK tax payers can agree to fund this, then I think we could change the school starting age. If not, I think some children would end up very disadvantaged with a changed school starting age.

Scandinavian children also have access to the big outdoors and outdoor activities in a way that, sadly, many UK children do not.

Unless we can provide a quality childhood experience for all children (not just the ones from privileged families) I think it would exacerbate class differences in education: by the time they got to school at 7, there would be an enormous difference between the children who had spent the intervening years on stimulating activities, surrounded by books and stories, and ones who had spent them in front of the TV with little access to safe outdoor activities, due to the area in which they live.

Yes, I wish we could do it. No, I don't think we can.

It was't Scandinavia that i was thinking of.. more Eastern Europe (i.e. 2nd world) , but I take your point.

The thing is that children of wealthy families get more opportunities anyway, irrespective of the school starting age. I am thinking of skiing lessons aged 4, private tutors, exotic holidays, museum visits with nannies etc

Its not a UK thing because in Scotland you start later. The intake year is the calendar, not the Academic year, so you can't start if you were 4 any time after March (I think ... bit rusty!). So I think the very youngest you can start school is 4y5m.

But ... there is the option to "really" defer here. Children born towards the end of the year, (Dec-March in practice) can defer school start (ie, actually starting in Primary 1, the first class) for a year.

Therefore my 2 February born Cchildren started school at 5y6m. My dd1 is about to finish primary 5 (year 4 equivalent) at the age of 10y4m, which would be unheard of in England, Wales, NI. She (and ds, finishing y2 equivalent at the age of 8y4m) will both not start High school until they are 12 and a half.

I like it - they got an extra year in nursery, and the deferral was a real one, not just missing the first year.

It hit home when a friend of mine with a June born dd, 4 months younger than my dd1, had no option but to make her start school a whole year younger than dd1.

Dd2 was 4y8m when she started (November birthday) and she seemed/seems so young for where she is at. She also isn't making the scademic progress the others did at this stage, and while it might just be her, I do sometimes wonder if it was because she was so young when she started school.

And, we were considering a move to England at one point.

One of the things that put us off was that when I phoned the LEA in the area we were thinking about, I was told there was NO option for my children, the 2 older ones would legally have to skip a year to go into the "age appropriate" class! This despite the fact they would have had a year less of formal schooling and also are educated bilingually in Gaelic and so didn't start English till P3.

For many reasons we didn't move. This was not the least of them!

You have to remember it's not like for like in the countries where children start school later!

Cory has explained the situation in Scandinavia, where nursery education is not your bogstandard 12 free hours a week like in the UK.

Here in Italy, children start primary at about 6. (dd was one month short of 6 and the next to youngest in her class) But they started straightaway with cursive handwriting, the syllabification of words, science, maths (addition/subtraction up to 100 etc etc) Plus at least 3 hours of homework every afternoon.

Reception and Yr 1 in the UK are more like the last 2 yrs of nursery in Italy, which like Scandinavia is virtually compulsory (in the sense that everyone goes, its all free unless you choose, as I did, a private one etc etc)

You have to compare what they are doing at the same age not what they are doing in the same school year. When you do that, you see it's really not that different between various countries. An Italian teacher I know went on a course about primary education in various European countries and was horrified that in UK primary school they do so "little" in the first few years. I had to tell her (which the course organiser hadn't!!) the differences in ages between UK and Italy.

In Belgium, 99% of children enter the Maternelle/Kleuter system at 2.5. This runs for 3 years, then they start Primary the calendar year of their 6th birthday.

In my experience, this seems to work well because, the first 3 years cover all the building blocks - physically being at school, toiletting, dressing for PE, eating lunch, socialising with the other children, paying attention, concentrating on tasks etc. All this in a framework of learning through play, but in a structured way.

When they start Primary (my dd will at 6.5 in September), the children have "levelled" out and are ready to LEARN. Everyone tells me that the formal reading and writing skills come on very quickly.

Someone made an interesting point to me the other day - apparently countries that have the lowest starting ages for formal school have higher rates of Dyslexia - because the brain isn't necessarily at the right stage to grasp this skill. I have no clue whether this is true or not though...

Yes portofino it is true, because for some odd reason with the Nat. Cur. the careful research on child brain development was ignored and some DCs have suffered consequentially due to being forced into too early academic learning.

"You have to compare what they are doing at the same age not what they are doing in the same school year."

Very true. We started school at 7, but were expected to learn to read within the first few months. And of course some children had already taught themselves.

In my nephew's class of 6yos, the teacher was quite surprised and concerned when one child had not become a fluent reader after the first year. Yes, Swedish is easier to learn to read than English, but not that much easier.

where we lived, it was also noticeable that once children started school they picked up reading, writing and arithmetic (along with English) quite easily. The kindergartens where we lived only taught the children to trace a line with a pencil.. in their view, the rest is for school at 7.

Something people sometimes forget is that even if the child starts school later, they have still been learning anyway (though perhaps not formally). Its not as though as 6 year old who hasn't been to school will have the same skill set of a 3 year old who has yet to go school in England.

True Cathider, my dd can't read and write yet (well she can a little bit in English) but she knows all her letters, can do simple arithmatic, write her name joined up most beautifully, and knows all manner of stuff about many subjects.

They have covered themes such as "bread" which involved visiting a farm to see how the wheat grows and how it is ground in to flour, visiting a bakery to see how bread is made, then made it themselves, and a day where every one took a traditional "baked" item from different countries.

Extrapolate that over subjects like Music, American Indians, The Iron Age, Insects/ Castles etc - all with visits/shows/stories/crafts and hands on stuff. DD suprises me constantly by the amount of stuff she has covered already. And not an exercise book/reading scheme yet to be involved.

But cory, the tests start a lot earlier in the UK (SATS) than they do in Scandinavia. Sure, we were expected to learn quickly (I started at 7 too) but the pressure to perform, with grades, didn't mount up until a lot later. Everyone there seems horrified by the idea of the early testing we have in UK.

the problem is teenageriot you only have to read sites like mumsnet to see a lot of parents like the idea of tests (if only as a way of judging how good a school is ... )

One of the problems with the SaTs is that they tend to measure how wealthy the parents are 'cos the DCs have private coaching to pass the tests!!.

Cathider: "As I understand it people can decide to wait until 5, but surely that option is not practical if you want your child to go to a good school as all the place fill up?"

Statutory guidance laid down in the School Admissions Code gives parents the right to defer a child's school start without losing the place. The only requirement is that the child must start school by the end of the Reception year and by the time he reaches compulsory education age, whichever is earlier.

I think even five is too young for full-time or formal learning, so I delayed my daughter's school start by home educating her, with the intention of sending her to school at seven or so. As it turned out, she enjoyed home education so much that she didn't go to school at seven either.

I've seen many examples of children picking up a skill with astonishing speed if they have the luxury of learning it when they are ready, rather than when it is timetabled. I'm baffled by the idea that if children have difficulty mastering a skill such as reading at (say) the age of five then it proves we ought to have got them started working on it even earlier! Waiting is a simpler and less stressful solution.

teenageriot, I agree that the tests start very early

having said that, the reason for this is that the previous government (whatever their faults, which I will not deny they had many) were desperately concerned about the plight of a substantial number of children who did not have any support for learning at home, and who might easily slip behind their more privileged peers if the schools were not badgered into supplying this deficiency

This is a big difference to Scandinavia: until recently, Scandinavian governments have (quite justifiably) been able to lean on the educational attainment and interest of the vast majority of parents, which meant that children could spend the first 6 or 7 years with their parents as their main educators and be sure of a good non-formal learning environment. Of course, this holds true of many British families too, but the government are (and probably rightly) concerned about the families where it does not hold true.

Saracen .. based on my own experience, I completely agree with you!
I taught Ds1 to read when he was 5 1/2 and he picked it up to the point where he had finished the whole reading scheme in four months and was on horrid henry type books 8 months later.

However the only reason I had started DS1 late was pure inertia on my part, so as I had all the materials etc, I started DS2 on reading just after his 5th birthday and it was a failure. So after a few weeks, I stopped bothering him with it as I didn't want to turn him off. Then he went to school at age 5.9 and became one of the two best readers in his class a few months later.
It seems to me, from my very limited experience, that if a child is ready, then they'll do it quickly and if they are not, then trying to force it is counter-productive.

From next year, people will be able to start at five (e.g. later on in the reception year) and schools will have to hold places open for the children.

However, I don't know if parents will still get nursery vouchers for their children if they've decided not to attend school.

@ Builde: "From next year, people will be able to start at five (e.g. later on in the reception year) and schools will have to hold places open for the children.

However, I don't know if parents will still get nursery vouchers for their children if they've decided not to attend school."

Parents have always had the right to defer their child's school start, with the place being kept waiting, and also the right to use nursery vouchers instead of school. Most LAs and schools do not advertise this point.

What's changing from Sept 2011 is as follows:

1. Parents won't have to wait unless they want to; everyone will have the right to send their child to school from Sept if they like.
2. Parents will be able to choose between part-time and full-time school, while their children are under compulsory education age (term after the 5th birthday).
3. Parents who prefer not to send their four year olds to Reception can instead have either full-time or part-time nursery funding.

I hope this will mean parents can choose whichever setting they actually want for their child, rather than being forced to make decisions about school vs preschool vs home based on local policies on intakes or part-time/full-time school starts, as many do now.

You can look up details in the School Admissions Code here: www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/