When should your child start school?
Some frequently asked questions
by Professor Helen McGrath and Professor Toni Noble
Every child is different and every parent wants their child to have the best start to their school life.
Many parents struggle with deciding when is the best time for their child to begin school. Here we
draw on the most up-to-date research so you can make an informed decision about what is the best
age for your child to start school.
When reading about these research guidelines, remember that findings are based on large numbers
of children in different contexts. Your child and their situation may be different to the patterns
identified in these studies.
What is the best age for a child to start primary school?
There is no 'best' age for starting primary school. Age alone is not the most important factor to
consider in deciding when your child is 'ready' for school. School readiness is the outcome of the
interaction of a child's intellectual, physical and social-emotional maturity combined with
opportunities to experience stimulating and new challenges. Many younger children have had a
great many stimulating experiences and challenges and have responded by becoming more mature
and more ready to start school. It is important to keep in mind that schools are also expected to be
ready to respond to the needs of a diverse range of young children.
What is 'delayed school entry'?
Delayed school entry occurs when a parent decides to hold back their child who is age-eligible to
start the first year of primary school and postpone their entry for another year. This usually means
having an extra year of four-year-old pre-school education. However, sometimes delayed entry to
primary school is the result of an earlier parental decision to hold their child back for a year from
starting three-year-old or four-year-old pre-school, despite their child being age-eligible.
Why do some parents decide to hold their child back a year?
Research studies suggest that those parents who make the decision to delay their child's entry to
school, do so for one or more of the following reasons:
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Some feel concerned about whether their child is ready for primary school. They often focus on
aspects of their child's behaviour such as being emotional or anxious, having difficulties with
socialising or not persisting with an activity or task once they have started it.
Some are concerned that, because their child is at the younger end of the age-eligible range, they
might be disadvantaged because they will be one of the youngest children in the class.
Others hope that entering school a year older than other children may give their child extra
confidence and make it more likely that they will be academically successful and take on
leadership roles.
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Which children are more likely to have their entry to school delayed?
Studies consistently show that the children who are most likely to be held back fall into the following
categories:
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boys, children who are short or small for their age
girls who appear to be shy
children whose parents are well educated and/or have relatively high incomes.
Are predictions about a child's readiness and future school success reliable?
When most parents and pre-school teachers are thinking about a specific child's readiness for
school, they tend to focus mostly on how well the child can:
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pay attention and persist with a task or activity they have started
cope with social situations
handle their feelings such as frustration or annoyance.
Surprisingly, many studies have found that teachers' and parents' predictions are relatively
unreliable, even when they are based on standardised 'readiness' assessment instruments.
Several important longitudinal studies, including the Australian Temperament Project, have followed
large numbers of children from birth until their late teens. These studies have demonstrated that
children have different 'temperaments' that tend to be very consistent over time. A child's
temperament is their pattern of typical behaviours and reactions. Many of your child's behaviours
are more likely to be about 'who they are' (ie their temperamental traits) and may not be reliable
signs of their readiness for school. The most significant of the temperamental traits that have been
identified include the following:
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Level of activity: the frequency and level of intensity of a child's movement
Reactivity: the level of emotional intensity displayed by a child in situations of frustration,
anxiety, annoyance etc
Mood: the type and intensity of mood displayed by the child, ranging from predominantly
negative to predominantly positive
Sociability: the level of interest in social interaction and the degree of shyness shown by a child
Persistence: the degree to which a child can pay attention to tasks or activities and see them
through to completion.
What factors appear to have most predictive value?
Results from recent research studies strongly support the conclusion that having opportunities at
the pre-school level to learn, enjoy and practise literacy and language skills (eg letters and sounds,
word recognition) and numeracy skills (eg numbers, counters, ordering) are the best predictors of
success at school entry. Below is the conclusion from an article based on Australian research led by
Professor Margot Prior and her colleagues into predictors of school readiness in five‐ to six‐year‐old
children.
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It is well documented that children who attend kindergarten and have familiarity with preliteracy experiences are advantaged when they enter school … This is not to argue that play and
socialisation are not important but [it is important] to add, on the basis of the solid evidence
now available, an emphasis on systematic instruction in language and literacy skills in pre-school
to enhance success in the first years of school. Otherwise we are short-changing our children.
(Prior, Bavin & Ong 2011, p 14)
Some commonly held (but often inaccurate) views about the most important indicators of readiness
don't take into account the complexity of children's behaviour and development, especially the
behaviour and development of boys. For example:
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Nearly twice as many boys than girls are assessed as being not ready for school, mainly on the
basis of their lower capacity for paying attention and not being persistent. However, some
research studies have shown that a child's attention and persistence skills at this level are not
good predictors of how well they will settle into school, nor of later school success and that these
behaviours don't stabilise until between 6 and 8 years of age.
Some research studies have shown that a child's strength in one area can compensate for relative
immaturity in another. For example, most children with average to high academic ability but poor
social skills will still achieve well. Similarly, most children with average ability and good social
skills will still achieve well.
Children's development tends to be uneven across different types of behaviour and thinking and
often occurs in 'spurts'. Some parents discover that there have been significant and positive
changes in their children between the end of the pre-school year and the start of the primary
school year.
What other factors should be considered when making a decision?
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Repeating a year at pre-school and spending time with (mostly) much younger and lessexperienced children may have the opposite effect to that intended and result in a slowing down
of a child's development in certain areas; some children may become bored and disengaged or
misbehave.
Early years teachers in primary schools are skilled at encouraging and developing appropriate
social behaviour and most children successfully respond to the social demands of their first
primary classroom within a short space of time.
Many children find the transition to primary school challenging (just as some find the transition
to pre-school challenging) but that isn't necessarily a sign that they were not ready. It is normal
for most children (and adults) to struggle each time they face a significant transition in their lives
(eg becoming a parent for the first time). Most transitions are both exciting and a bit worrying
because they often involve the 'unknown' and require change. However, they usually contribute
to resilience and strength.
When sporting teams or athletic events are age-based at a later stage in their schooling, delayedentry students will want to play with and against children who are in the year above them (but
the same age).
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images may be viewed only. All other materials may be used, reproduced, and communicated (but not communicated on a public
website) for non-commercial educational purposes until 15 March 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are
retained.
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Are there any benefits to delaying a child's entry to primary school?
Most research studies have concluded there are no significant differences in terms of early primary
school outcomes between children whose entry to school has been delayed and those of their
younger classmates. The two groups' levels of academic achievement, social acceptance and
loneliness and their adjustment to school are much the same. However, a few studies have
identified short-term benefits for some delayed-entry children in their sample of children. For
example:
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They were less likely to receive negative feedback from teachers about their schoolwork during
the first two years of primary school.
They tended to have slightly higher levels of achievement in the first and second years of primary
school than their younger classmates.
However, in most studies these early advantages were short-lived and had completely disappeared
by the second or third year of primary school. After that, the outcomes for delayed entry children
over the rest of the primary years were no better than those of their younger classmates.
Are there any disadvantages for a child whose entry to school is delayed?
Research studies have identified a range of disadvantages associated with delayed school entry, to
the point where some have described it as a 'risk factor' for learning and school success. For
example:
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Delayed-entry boys have a moderately higher likelihood of demonstrating more behavioural
problems than their younger classmates when they are in upper primary school and secondary
school.
Delayed-entry children are more likely than their younger classmates to either bully other
children or be bullied by them.
Delayed-entry children are more likely to perform poorly at the secondary level and more likely
to drop out of secondary school before Year 12.
An Australian study that included 3,684 New South Wales high school students in years 7–12 was
conducted in 2009 by Professor Andrew Martin. He found the following trends amongst students
whose entry to primary school had been delayed (20 per cent of the sample):
 They were more likely to report that they valued school less, enjoyed it less, and felt less
engaged with school and learning.
 They expressed fewer positive academic intentions (eg were less likely to feel sure that they
wanted to finish secondary school or undertake tertiary education).
 They were absent from school more often.
 They reported lower levels of homework completion.
 They had poorer learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy.
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images may be viewed only. All other materials may be used, reproduced, and communicated (but not communicated on a public
website) for non-commercial educational purposes until 15 March 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are
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Are there benefits or disadvantages to being among the youngest in the class?
Most research studies have not identified any disadvantages to being one of the youngest in the
class. For example, a study conducted in Western Australia found that students who were in the
younger age group when they entered school suffered no disadvantage in their year 12 results and
access to university.
In fact, there appear to be some long-term benefits for many children who are the youngest in the
class. For example, in the Australian study by Professor Andrew Martin (described above), those
students who had entered school when they were eligible and who were in the younger end of the
age-eligible range (10 per cent of all students in the study):
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had higher levels of school attendance
were more likely to report that they enjoyed and valued school and felt more engaged with
school and learning
were more likely to express stronger positive academic intentions (eg they were more likely to
report that they intended to finish secondary school and undertake tertiary education)
were more likely to report higher levels of homework completion
were more likely to have better learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy.
Why might many younger children do better academically?
There are several factors that researchers have suggested might explain why many children who
enter school at the younger end of the age-eligibility range have better learning outcomes. For
example:
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Younger children may feel a stronger urge to strive and catch up with older classmates and in
doing so they may learn that overcoming obstacles, being persistent and putting in the effort
makes a difference to their achievement.
Research in the field of developmental neuroscience tells us that normal neurological
maturational processes result in all young children having an overproduction of neurons (brain
cells). Neurons are pruned if they are not used. However, children who have the opportunity for
early stimulating experiences are more likely to make more connections between neurons. These
connections are called 'neural networks' and the result is that more brain cells are kept.
Professor Martha Farah (Director of the Centre for Neuroscience and Society at the University of
Pennsylvania) and her colleagues tracked sixty-four children from the age of four until their late
teen years. They identified clear positive differences in the brain development of those children
who had received more intellectual stimulation at around four years of age. These brain changes
produced better language skills and better general academic performance when they became
teenagers.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Department of Education, unless otherwise indicated. The header and dotted-line
images may be viewed only. All other materials may be used, reproduced, and communicated (but not communicated on a public
website) for non-commercial educational purposes until 15 March 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are
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References
Jha, A 2012, 'Childhood stimulation key to brain development, study finds',The Guardian, 15
October, www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/14/childhood-stimulation-key-braindevelopment^
Martin, A 2009, 'Age appropriateness and motivation, engagement, and performance in high school:
Effects of age within cohort, grade retention, and delayed school entry, Journal of Educational
Psychology, 101 (1), 101–114
Martin, A 2010, 'The effects of age on students' academic outcomes: implications for parents'
decision making', Pediatrics for parents, www.readperiodicals.com/201003/2052769651.html#b^
^
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© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Department of Education, unless otherwise indicated. The header and dotted-line
images may be viewed only. All other materials may be used, reproduced, and communicated (but not communicated on a public
website) for non-commercial educational purposes until 15 March 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are
retained.
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