Children should start school at the age of five, depending on which half of the year they are born in.

1. Children should start school at
the age of five depending on
which half of the year they are
born in.
The age which children should start school is a big decision and
discussion for many parents.

2. - Starting age should depend on which
half of the year the child is born.
- The age a child starts school may affect
their adolescent behaviour

3. - Gestational age and premature birth
are two main reasons on why the
starting school age needs to be
thoroughly considered.
- The risk of a child not attaining a
good level of development increases
for every month born later in the
academic year (Pettinger et al., 2019

4. - School children are great at absorbing
information from one another.
- The students who are younger than the
grade are exposed to the behaviour of
older class peers, meaning school
starting age affects their social outcomes
because of the age differences (Bahrs &
Schumann, 2019).

5. - Research has shown that there is a
consistent pattern for children who start
school later to achieve higher scores on
in-school tests (Black et al., 2011)

6. - Research has shown that there
is a consistent pattern for
children who are ‘red-shirted’ to
achieve higher scores on in-
school tests (Black et al., 2011).

7. - It is hard to determine
whether the age that children
start school affects them in the
long term because of their
academic ability, or because of
their natural maturity for their
age.

8. - These studies showed that children
older than their peers have a self-
concept advantage to those who are
younger.

9. References:
Bahrs, M. and Schumann, M., 2019. Unlucky to be young? The long-term effects of school starting age on
smoking behavior and health. Journal of Population Economics, 33(2), pp.1-50. doi: 10.1007/s00148-
019-00745-6
Black, S., Devereux, P. and Salvanes, K., (2011). Too Young to Leave the Nest? The Effects of School
Starting Age. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93 (2), pp.455-467. doi: 10.1162/rest_a_00081
Chic, H., (2020). Savory – Homemaker Chic. [online] Homemaker Chic.
https://homemakerchic.com/category/savory/
Dhuey, E., Figlio, D., Karbownik, K. and Roth, J., 2019. School Starting Age and Cognitive
Development. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 38(3), pp.1-57. doi: 10.1002/pam.22135
Pettinger, K., Kelly, B., Sheldon, T., Mon-Williams, M., Wright, J. and Hill, L., (2019). Starting school:
educational development as a function of age of entry and prematurity. Archives of Disease in
Childhood, pp.1-5. doi:10.1136/archdischild-2019-317134
Images are sourced from: Pixaby https://pixabay.com/
Creative commons, attribution not required