my invitation to mnhq to get Jim Rose on has borne fruit - he's on tomorrow - thread is already operating via the mumsnet home page.
All you regulars know my strong feelings about having a right to defer the start of reception by a year for children with immaturities in social communication/language, so that they get the chance to work on peer group interactions with more appropriate peers. DS2 has had this chance and is blossoming.
Do you reckon I should stick to my own testimony and stick with the SN angle rather than saying what everyone else has said about school starting age generally? After all, people who know a lot more than I do about education in general have already weighed in about school starting age and it hasn't changed rose's position.
Rose says that the answer to the "immature" summer-born problem is to adjust the curriculum. But what has transformed DS2's life chances is not just the curriculum, it's having the "correct", (ie maturity-appropriate) peer group to interact with. Curriculum changes can't change the fact that if he was in reception this year he'd been the "little" "mothered" boy at best, the "boy who can't talk" at worst. And he'd probably have a dx of autism that I'd believe to be false, which would have big implications for our family's emotional stability.