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| Delayed school entry linked to poor academic performance
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Early childhood providers faced with the dreaded but all too familiar parent question: "is my child ready to start big school next year?" may be interested to read about new findings which show that delaying a child's entry to school may be linked to poorer academic performance.
Many parents worry about when to send their child to school, especially if the child is born in the first six months of the year or was born prematurely. The most commonly cited concern is lack of emotional maturity to cope with the longer and more demanding days imposed by 'big school'.
However, a new paper published in the Journal of Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology contradicts these findings and claims starting school a year later does not lead to better academic performance for pre-term or full-term children and could in fact cause poorer academic performance as the children get older.
The paper written was written by a team of academics from the University of Warwick, Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany), Loughborough University, University of Oxford and the University of Leicester and was based on findings form the Bavarian Longitudinal Study.
Professor Dieter Wolke from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick, said they used the Bavarian Longitudinal Study as the basis for the research because Bavarian policy requires all children to be assessed by a community paediatrician three to 12 months before their school entry date to assess their readiness for school.
At the time of assessment in Bavaria, all children reaching six years of age before 30 June started school the following September. The team studied 999 children, of which 472 were born preterm. These new findings are particularly applicable to preterm children who are born up to four months before their due date and may enter school less mature compared with their peers.
The researchers compared teacher ratings of achievement in Year 1 and then looked at the results of standardised mathematics, reading, writing and attention tests when the children reached 8 years of age.
"Our study shows that delaying school entry has no effect on Year 1 teacher ratings of academic performance, but it is associated with poorer performance in age-standardised tests of reading, writing, mathematics and attention as the children get older," said Professor Wolke.
Co-author Julia Jaekel, from the Department of Developmental Psychology at the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany, said many parents of pre-term children believed delaying school entry in favour of another year in an early childhood setting would be more beneficial.
"Many parents demand that preterm children should be held back, particularly if they were born in the summer. This is also supported by many charities supporting parents with preterm children.
"However, we found missing one year of learning opportunities was associated with poorer average performance in standardised tests at 8 years of age for both pre-term and full-term children. Future research is needed to determine the long-term effect of delayed school entry on academic achievement, but our results certainly give parents and educational providers food for thought," said Dr Jaekel.
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