Starting school at 4.5 or 5.5

[Tigerraar]

I'm sure this has been asked many, many times so I apologise in advance!

February birthdays and school starts... My daughter is 2.5 so can start school in either 2 years or 3 years. I firmly believe that in the UK we start school too young so I've always thought that I would want her to start school at 5.5. As it gets closer, I'm thinking about how she'll compare with her peers, socially and "academically", for want of a better word. She'd be young at 4.5 but would she be bored and frustrated at 5.5? And thinking long-term as well, what difference does it make when they're older?

She's with a childminder 3 days a week and we haven't applied for nursery next year but now I'm wondering if that was a mistake.

I went for 5.5 with my 2 eldest with Feb birthdays. I’ve never regretted it! They both did so much better going to school late. They both also had 2 years of nursery which helped, and as I went for GME (Gaelic medium) they had more time to get used to the language aspect.

dd2 went a 4.4, she was more than ready but also had 2 yrs nursery.

I’d always advise a later start, especially if there’s good nursery provision. (Saying this as a secondary teacher where younger dc, especially boys, struggled with the transition to secondary).

hth

Id check with rhe school about the most common route. You can defer any 4yo now, so she could be significantly younger than classmates.

Definitely 5.5. We moved from England so didn’t have a choice, but my February-born is the youngest in the year, almost all parents opt to defer. It was fine till secondary but now in the teenage years we find it’s a huge difference in development and maturity and I wish he wasn’t under so much pressure to grow up fast. He’s 14, doing Nat5s this year and will finish school having just turned 17 - feels far too young and he hasn’t got a clue yet what he wants to do. Many of his friends are 15 and will turn 16 before he turns 15. So I’d say: no rush!

Almost all January and February babies are deferred at my DC school. We deferred our youngest and have not regretted once. He’s now at exam stage and I’m glad he has a bit more maturity than a year ago, and will be 18 when finishing school rather than heading to university at 17.

My dd is 18 and just finished school. When she started about 50% of Jan and Feb birthdays were deferred. I believe it’s more like 90% now. I think it is entirely child dependent, however although they may be fine at primary, it can be difficult at secondary when their peers are more developed than them. For Jan and Feb birthdays I would probably defer. For Aug- dec birthdays there is more of a danger that they will get bored I think. But very very child dependent 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't know anyone who has regretted deferring if that helps.

I deferred my Feb born DS and will also defer my Sept born DS. It is very common to defer in our school, all Dec - Jan bdays and about half of Sept-Dec. Once school starts, there's no going back.

I now live in England. But I was in Scotland when my son was at school. He is a January birthday and he started school at 5.5. I never regretted it and he thrived at school and it was never an issue with him being one of the older ones.

We deferred DD and part of this was for the future. She has just started secondary and don't regret it at all.

Check locally - you can do a freedom of information request from the council for deferral rates by month of birth. Where we are, deferral is still less uncommon. About a quarter of January and February birthdays defer, a few December, almost none before that.

Personally I think the deferring system is an unfair solution to a stupid problem. It solves the fact that a little over 4, is just too young for some kids, but in doing so it widens the age gap between the older + younger students, which causes problems..

It would be a whole lot better if the UK could just generally move school starting back by a year, (which would still be a year earlier than many countries...)

That all said - would I defer my student? Absolutely. Your child's future is more important to you than the fairness of the whole class, and it isn't your fault the UK system is outdated. The data is absolutely clear that students who are older when starting do better. So why not do the best for your child.

We are in England and at the time had to fight hard for our youngest to be able to stay back a year. July boy, partially hearing and autistic. Most worth it fight I ever had. If you are in any doubt, defer if you are able.

We are in the same boat as you. Growing up I had a sibling who started at 4.5 and done absolutely fine. The key change though since then is that whilst you could always defer Jan and Feb borns, you can now automatically defer is you are not 5 on day 1 of school starting. This means the age difference across the year can be as much as 18 months between the eldest and youngest which I believe it too great. I think my daughter would probably cope academically however, emotionally she is young. She hasnt yet started school either but for the last couple of years iv been putting in freedom of information requests to the council on deferral rates by month and in my area deferral happens across all months but is extremely common from November onwards with almost all on Jan and Feb born children deferred. When I saw those data trends I felt like my choice was taken away because to send my child at 4.5, I would be seriously going against the norm.

Over 20 years as a teacher and never met a parent who regrets deferral. I would always encourage an advantage year in nursery - it isn’t about coping in p1. School should meet your child where they are at. However I encourage you to think about later - doing exams, social development, going to further education etc.

Nowadays I’d say 5.5 as so many more people are deferring. Very catchment dependent though as others have said.

my daughter is end of November. We could have tried to defer her (it wasn’t super common back then, she’s 13) but she was more than ready for school and was able to go with one of her nursery friends which was really helpful. No issues socially or academically but now she’s going to be finishing high school at 17 which I hadn’t really thought about. If her friends go eurorailing or to the pub to celebrate or any number of other things, she’ll be too young. So we are thinking about a gap year before uni so she can be 18 when she moves away from home. With a February birthday I’d personally defer and have a year or so of nursery before starting school.

This is always the advice I give about it.

It’s not just your 4.5 year old alongside rising 6s (they can defer from 10.08, so in some years could start the year 6 already). It’s also your 16.5 year old starting S6 alongside rising 18 year olds.

In our catchment deferring December, January, February seems universal. November and October sometimes, but more child dependent. But then I also hear of the children applying via the council for further deferrals and that really pushes the age in a class up! No way I’d be sending a Feb born 4.5 year old in our catchment.

Thanks for all the replies. I had no idea they allow deferrals for the whole year now. That's crazy. Makes it a more easy decision for us in that she'll unlikely be far and away the oldest and may actually just be average in terms of age. We're unlikely to stay long term where we currently live so local habits aren't really relevant to us but a good tip nonetheless, so thanks to those who suggested FOIs.

Very telling that teachers always seem to advise to defer. I am conscious of how she'll do at 16/17/18 and that's part of the reason I asked.

@Londonnight interesting you say this ... There is a slim possibility that we will move to NI, where the school starting age is more similar to England than Scotland. I did wonder about how this would impact her education there but didn't want to base our decision on it because it's not very likely to happen.

@weegiemum what were the signs that she was ready? Or did it become apparent while she was at nursery?

@Tigerraarthe main thing was that she was copying her siblings already at school, wanted to make and eat packed lunches, do “homework” and even start piano lessons like them. Also nursery advised her Gaelic language skills were really good and that she’d thrive in school. She actually didn’t like school very much ever, but that had nothing to do with being ready to start! She ended up leaving school at the end of S5 and going to college instead which suited her much better!!

I would defer based on experience of a friend off dd - very end of Feb birthday and was OK on primary but really struggled in secondary from S2 onwards.As someone said once you start it's difficult to go back. However I do recall a thread on here about a year or so ago from someone querying whether they could get their January born non deferred child to repeat P1 but I would always defer.