It’s that time of year again, when the noticeboard outside your local primary school is likely to read “Enrol your child for kindergarten/prep now”. But how do you know what the “right” age to start school is?
There is variation in the ideal age to start school for each child, because it’s not simply about the readiness of the individual child. It’s also about the family context and the readiness of the school for that child to start. In other words, what happens at school once the child gets there is more important than their age.
The ‘right’ age to start school in Australia
Since the Australian curriculum was endorsed in 2015, there has been ongoing public debate about whether there also should be a uniform school starting age. But across Australia, the cut-offs for starting school are still varied:
[Chart here]
At independent schools, the recommended starting age may vary yet again. When parents read media reports of educationally successful countries (such as Finland, Denmark and Sweden) where children start school aged seven, the question of the “right” age becomes even more confusing.
Questions parents can ask to decide the right age
A review of the research on school transitions was published recently by Australian researchers. It shows that while there are different theoretical approaches taken to framing school transitions, six concepts are common: readiness, relationships, transition activities, teaching methods, power, and policy.
In relation to these six concepts, and drawing on ongoing research, here are some key questions parents can ask to determine whether to send child to school this year.
Social, cultural and other contextual factors particular to your family and the school are as important as the needs of individual children.
Readiness
How does the preschool/school define readiness?
*are there particular types of knowledge, skills or abilities children are expected to have prior to starting at that school?
*what are the social and emotional skills expected in different contexts, such as during whole class activities, in working independently, when working in small groups or in the playground?
Parents can reflect on their child’s and family’s needs, and how well matched these are to a school’s definition. Children are often required to increasingly self-regulate, focus and participate independently in a range of activities during the first year of school.
Relationships
What is the quality and nature of my child’s peer friendships?
Will they have friends starting at the same school?
Why are more parents choosing to delay when their child starts school?
*how does the school work with families and local community to establish and develop strong relationships?
Relationships are key to children developing a sense of belonging in their new school.
Transitions activities
What formal and informal programs and activities are in place to help children and families settle into school, in the year before school starts and during the first year?
These focus on helping the child and family prepare for school, as well as for the school to prepare to meet your child’s needs.
Approaches to teaching and learning
*Does the school emphasise a play-based program, or is there a stronger academic focus in kinder/prep?
*what literacy and numeracy skills and knowledge does the particular school anticipate a “typical” kinder/prep student to start and finish the first year with?
Parents need to ask questions about not just academic considerations, but social-emotional readiness and development as well.
*what are some of the teaching and learning strategies used by class teachers to engage different students (for example, children with disabilities)?
*how structured is the classroom environment in the first year of school? What is expected of children in a typical day?
*is there homework in the first year of school and what does this involve?
All primary teachers have professional knowledge that prepares them to modify and adapt their teaching and learning to suit wide-ranging student needs. Asking these questions should help parents decide if their child is suited to the approaches that commonly featured in teaching and learning programs at that particular school.
Power
*Are there opportunities for children to participate in decision-making processes in the classroom and at school (for example, is there a student council)?
*how can families become involved and contribute to programs at the school and in the classroom?
Primary schools usually see themselves in partnership with parents in each child’s education. Many schools seek ways to meaningfully involve the children themselves and the parent community.
Policy
What school-based policies are there to guide decisions that will enhance the learning of my child?
How do you know when your child is ready for school?
While certainly not exhaustive, these questions can provide a basis for conversations you might have within your family and with early childhood educators at your child’s preschool or daycare as well as the school’s principal and kinder or prep teachers.
The Australian curriculum assumes students will start school by the time they have turned six. So the learning outcomes in the first year of school have been written to suit “typical” learners of this age.
But chronological age is only a crude indicator of the “right” age to start school for any child. Social, cultural and other contextual factors particular to your family and the school are as important as the dispositions, traits and needs of individual children.
IFERI committee member, Molly de Lemos, wrote a 'reader's comment' in response to the article based on statistics/findings in other countries compared to Australia:
It is a huge frustration to me that early childhood educators are still pushing the view that the right age to start school will vary according to the child’s individual characteristics, including their ‘readiness for school’, however that might be defined, and that parents are being confused and stressed by the pressure that is being put on them to make a decision as to whether or not their child is ‘ready’ to start school. This applies particularly to children whose birthdates fall close to the cut-off date for entry, who would be relatively younger than their peers when they start school. There is however no evidence that such children suffer any long term effects from being the youngest in their class, and that any initial differences on measures of language and conceptual skills soon wash out within the first few years of school. There have been dozens of published papers on this, including the US Position Statement by the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education, first published in 1987 and updated in 2001, and endorsed by the US National Association for the Education of Young Children. References to countries such as Finland and Sweden where children generally start school at a later age are misleading, and take no account of the vastly superior provision for early childhood education in these counties, where subsidised early childhood programs are available for children from the age of two or three years. In Denmark 98 per cent of children between one and six attend an early childhood education and care (ECEC) centre, and 38 per cent of these children spend eight hours or more a day in an ECEC centre. France has recently lowered the compulsory age of starting school from six to three, on the argument that this will reduce inequity in education, as parents in poorer areas of France and in overseas territories are less likely to send their children to nursery school. However, this will have only a limited effect on the number of children attending nursery school, since only 2.4 per cent of French children are not already enrolled in a nursery school. In England, children start school at the beginning of the school year in September if they are four by the end of August, and figures indicate that only a small proportion of children do not start school in the year that they are eligible to enrol. By contrast, Australia has probably the poorest and most expensive system of early education and care as compared with other OECD countries, and while low cost sessional pre-school education (15 hours a week) is available at a relatively low cost, full day care fees are very high and outside the range of most working parents. Delaying entry to school will therefore only further disadvantage children from less advantaged backgrounds in Australia.Given the lack of any evidence to support either raising the age of entry to school or encouraging parents to defer their child’s entry to school, Australia should follow overseas trends both in terms of providing adequate low cost early childhood education and care centres for all children from an early age, and in encouraging all parents to send their child to school when they are legally eligible to enrol. Incidentally, it is worth noting that the latest data that indicates that there is no effect of early entry on school achievement comes from a study of performance on the Phonics Check, which indicates that there is no statistically significant difference in score between the ‘summer-born’ children, ie the youngest in the school cohort, and older children in the Phonics Check administered at the end of Year 1. However, this study did find that parents with higher incomes were significantly more likely to request a delayed school start for their child, supporting the view the push to delay entry to school is a middle class trend.
