ATL

Northern Ireland

Are Northern Ireland's children suffering from starting school too early?

At just four, Northern Ireland has the youngest statutory school starting age in Western Europe. Children begin school at five in Britain and at six in the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Norway. In Finland (which regularly tops assessment charts), Denmark and Sweden formal schooling is delayed until seven. Most Scandinavian countries boast generous pre-school systems.

Research indicates that there is no lasting benefit from early school entry in mathematics or in reading skills. Access to books, supportive parents and, in particular, social class, remain the key factors.

The problem is not necessarily the age at which a child starts school but the suitability of the learning provision. In Northern Ireland we have some excellent, but patchy, early years provision, typically poorly funded and lacking long-term stability.

At school, the revised curriculum is bedding in. The early evidence is that most of our members like it. However, concerns remain that continuing pressure to take tests and meet targets is pushing down into the earliest years, forcing teachers to introduce formal learning and teaching styles too early.

ATL members talk of disaffected children who have been 'failures at four', having been unable to develop at their own pace, while primary schools are often not resourced to manage the varying needs of children. Furthermore, our aspirational class size limit of 30 is not met in a significant minority of cases.

So, early exposure to academic skills does not necessarily bring sustained benefit and may even impact negatively on some children's motivation to learn. I'll be speaking at a seminar on school starting age at Queen's University in Belfast on 19 October 2009.