Neuroplasticity educator and parenting expert Nathan Wallis supports that idea of children starting school at six years old.
He says those who go through the school system older have greater advantages.
The Education Review Office says starting in cohorts, rather than on the child's fifth birthday, eases the transition from early childhood centres to school for students, teachers and parents.
Willow is one of a growing number of children starting school at the beginning or middle of the term rather than on their fifth birthday Photo: RNZ/ John Gerritsen
One argument for letting children start at six is that it eases the social transition, Wallis tells Kathryn Ryan.
“We only started putting kids into school at five during the war because there was a childcare shortage ... I mean most countries did that to be fair but after the war they put it back to six. New Zealand for some reason stayed at five, so it’s never really been based on research that we start kids at five.
“Our whole education system is based on Piaget, a French guy, and his ‘stages of cognitive development’ and he showed kids are ready to do things like literacy and numeracy, what he called symbolic thinking or the concrete operational stage, between the ages of seven and eight.
“Over the years, we’ve just made that earlier and earlier. So it’s quite challenging for some kids to start doing cognitive learning like reading and literacy and numeracy when they’re only five.”
Research shows the eldest in a cohort is likely to experience better outcomes in learning than the youngest, Wallis says.
“The kid who is in a free play environment when they’re six and is building say ‘damming the river’ they don’t dam the river the very first time, they probably fail 19 times and then dam it on the 20th time, so what he’s learnt is a disposition of persevering through failure.”
Free play at an early age allows the child to develop cognitive skills such as complexity of thought and creativity, he says.
“If we interrupt that and teach them to read at four, like I said before no advantage [to doing that] because after eight no one can tell for the rest of their life, but we interrupt the development of that disposition and we move to right and wrong answers, literacy and numeracy, and that curbs and gives the child not much opportunity to develop those dispositions.”
Although teachers are trained in Piaget’s theories and are aware of the research, they face pressure to fulfill requirements from the ministry and from parents worried about learning deficit, he says.
“Many parents are faced with the dilemma of 'do I do what I know is best for the child and best with all the international research says or should I get my kid ready for the school assessments that he’s going to get when he’s between five and six?' And many of them panic about failing those assessments.
“Parents don’t understand that it’s not the sooner the better … human development is not a race.”
There needs to be trust that our trained professional will be able to detect key stages of development through play, he says.
“You don’t need to interrupt their play and take charge of their learning, you don’t need to formally assess. You can simply watch them in their play and see if they’re using symbolic thinking, see if they’re using literacy, to see if they have theory of mind.”
Some children are ready to go to school earlier, he says, but they’re not set up to be ahead of the school system through the rest of their lives.
“Actually, what those kids are set up for unfortunately is they’ve got a higher risk of anxiety and depression as teenagers.
“I mean I have had that situation with my own kids, the youngest one especially wanted to do everything early … I didn’t stop that, but I didn’t encourage it either. So even if I’ve got that girl that looks like they’re ready for school, [I have to think] are there other creative things she could be doing instead?”
