Children not ready to start school aged 4

A generation ago it was still the norm for a parent to stay at home, usually the mum, until the child went to school. This gave the child the foundation needed to start school. Now parents are expected to return to work within the first year, and for financial reasons most have to. Grandparents may also have to work. So the child goes to a childcare setting, there businesses, making the most money with the least outlay, I'm not saying child care is not good but somethinghas deffinatly got lost in the mix

That is a concern and yes sure start was ideal. Having been a TA in an inner city school for 30 years and working with young children with learning difficulties. My children started at 5 and only my son went to nursery for half a day at 4 and a half. My daughter only went to play school she did very well there.
At 4 they should still be in nursery. Our local Greenwich nursery takes children from the age of two. I was quite surprised but now both parents have to work, or if your a mum on your own having to go to work is necessary.

Applying standards of the past in today's world - that is the issue

Before, one salary was enough
Now 2 may not be

Before, going to university would guarantee a great job for life, no need to change - 1 job for life

Now, college, grad school, PhD and still will pay you pennies for that education

Now it's not enough for kids to go to school, it is also extracurricular activities- martial arts, swimming, ballet, piano, languages, sports.....

My mother would send me to play in the street for 8 hours - no wonder she had time to do what she wanted, she was not parenting me

Now, do that and it would be a negligent parent whose child is not supervised and could have been kidnapped

So posters, be as annoyed and judgy as you want with parents these days and how they do not measure up to your standards.
They are certainly not their standards.

Far to young at 4

Apparently I was more than ready at 4 (1960s) as were my children (late 1980s/early 90s) I hadn’t been to nursery / pre-school but I had been taught to respond to instructions, could take myself to the bathroom etc. Perhaps it’s the parents that need educating!

Hi There makes a valid point, that there’s little to compare between my experiences 0-5 and those of my children then their children.

My generation had freedom to play thst no child today has. We were outside playing if we weren’t in school. Traffic was rare now it’s lethal.
I see the judgemental, negative, critical posts keep coming.

Teachers were saying forty years ago that except those who had been to nursery lots of the children who we were getting into reception could not sit still or concentrate for even a short length of time. watching too much T.V. was often blamed at the time.
I remember walking into a classroom and backing out very quickly to quietly laugh. My colleague was sitting with a big box with the front cut out on her head. She had stuck knobs and controls on it. All the children were sitting engrossed watching her read a storybook through the window in the box.
Just before I retired we were getting children who could not use a knife and fork,go to the toilet themselves or take off and put their own clothes on.
The problems had always been there but they are multiplied today because of lack of state nursery places and the ammount of school some children have missed due to Covid.
The rigid national Curriculm does not help either. It is quicker and easier to put a reluctant child their clothes on when you are in a hurry with other siblings and getting to work yourself

Sure Start was replaced with free nursery places for 3+ and some benefit recipients even get places earlier than that. You can't blame the nursery schools if parents don't bother to send them. It's down mostly to people not engaging properly with their own children. They don't all have handy grandparents. If you have children you should be responsible for most of their early years development.

kitnsimon

Any child who is not toilet trained etc should not be allowed to start school ! What lazy parents they must have. Teachers are
qualified professionals, not childminders or nannies !
Unfortunately we live at a time where many people consider themselves «entitled» and so not take resposibility for the children they chose to have.

You do realise that there can be any number of reasons why a child may not be toilet trained at 4 or 5? It isn't always down to lazy parenting. I work for a special needs charity - many of our children attend mainstream schools, but still require nappies. Should they be denied that opportunity because of that?

It's still the law that children must start formal schooling the term after their fifth birthday (unless an approved educational alternative is provided). No one is obliged to start them earlier than that. The problem, as others have mentioned, is that, in many cases, both parents have to go out to work, so very young children have a really long day at nursery, breakfast club, school and after school club where one to one interaction is unlikely. When they get home, parents have domestic duties so TV, which is a passive entertainment requiring no response, may take the place of family interaction. If fifty percent of children are not ready for school it's hardly surprising. The other fifty percent probably benefit from the few parents who can afford for one to stay home with them and, tellingly, from the legions of loving, but unpaid, grandparents who bring up a second brood, having brought up their own. ???

No matter how well trained and altruistic are the paid childcare providers, their interest in your children/grandchildren is primarily financial. The people whose overwhelming interest is in a child's development as a person are their loving family members. Schools should not be expected to teach children about toilet hygiene, manners, how to sit still and listen, hold pencils and crayons to draw and colour, count actual objects up to ten and how to hold a simple conversation. At home, children should also begin to learn to tie shoelaces (especially wet ones!), sit at a table and eat with a knife and fork, to understand our money system (i.e. use actual coins to buy things) and to tell the time. Then teachers could get on with teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

Rant over ?

And there is also the fact that it would be breaking the law. Sound advice for early years providers.

I havent tied shoelaces or used money in years.

Neither of mine went to school before statutory education age. My son developed so much in the months between turning 5 and starting school 3 months later, it would have been a disaster a year earlier, but he could read to a certain extent, he could write on a computer [a BBC which was the sort used in schools] and was a proper little scientist/engineer, you have to consider the child, my daughter started shortly after her 5th birthday, she could have started 4 months earlier, but she did lots of activities, swam, danced,gym, playgroup including for rising school children as well as things round the house and round about. I think that did her more good than an extra term at school, to be honest.
Nurseries etc are in loco parentis, a parent who works can't easily spend time potty training and succeed unless the nursery/childminder helps if potty training is started too early. My daughter managed to potty train herself at just over 2 and was dry at night a couple of years before her brother, he was just over 3 and it just took a couple of days and lots of carrying a potty around and a parent who kept an eye on what was going on, did he start the wee dance, if a nursery has insufficient staff to help a child like him succeed for sure it's not the parents' fault. It's like potty training a dog, when it's happening you need to keep a close eye on them and give them lots of opportunities to succeed, and listen to them when they tell you they need to go.
Let's face it there are adults who can't listen or follow simple instructions; children are all different and reach different milestones at different times. Some children have hearing difficulties, some need extra help, some are autistic, and prefer to play on their own and need help with other things too. Fine motor skills develop at different times too. I'd hope that nowadays more children would be able to feed themself as more parents use baby-led weaning when introducing solids. I wonder if they are counting a lot of children who come from a culture which does not routinely use knives and forks,
Enough talking with children and reading to children should show up any difficulties with speech, but again if a child is at nursery all week, are there enough staff to actually converse with children and read to them.
If children have difficulties it is far better that schools find out and help them than what I know happened in the past, quiet children often got left behind as others got the attention. Given the opportunity at a good school children learn new languages, if they have arrived from another country and speak a different language at home, if some schools can help children do that others can help children who have English as a first language
From what I hear there is not enough play based learning, and too much homework from a young age

Children do seem to just be shunted through systems these days. Only this morning read an item a Lib Dem in Scotland had raised with Government about there not being enough children in the formal education system at 2 years old. Surely that should be purely nursery setting. No wonder we have so many children falling behind in the system when we expect so much of them when so young. Surely if formal education was held back until say 6 or 7 years children would be more able to adapt and learn quicker.

My children both went to a childminder Monday to Friday as I worked full time & she took them to the local authority nursery when they got their places aged 3.5. My wonderful childminder provided quality learning (letters, numbers, constructive play etc), & they were not short of books and reading at home (I read to them a lot). They were both ready for school when they started, however at that time you started school in the term you had your 5th birthday, and being spring/summer born, started one or two terms later than many of their classmates. It seemed a good compromise (although I would have saved a lot in childminding costs had everyone started September)
Lately, I’ve been in costa twice having breakfast with my kindle when a young woman arrived with a toddler in a pram and spent the whole time on her phone not interacting with the child at all, it was really hard to watch (especially the one who was there for 45 minutes). Each time the child was babbling and tapping their companion (mum/Childminder?) without any feedback at all, and were well behaved and quiet throughout, which made me think it was a common situation they had become used to. I found it really sad ? How much damage to a child’s development and social skills could ignoring themselves cause?

It's such a shame that the tories closed down Sure Start

How about lazy parents teach their children how to hold a pencil & take time away from social media to potty train them?

Inadequate parents expect schools/ the government to do everything.

I’d be embarrassed if my child was still in nappies at 4.

Sara1954

Mokryna
I started with the Ladybird scheme as well, as luck would have it, the school used it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but was it Peter, Jane and Pat the dog?

Gold star. I they are in the garage sadly to be thrown out.

I was a reception teacher for some years during my career and there were always some children who were unable to sit and listen, follow instructions, hold a pencil or eat independently, etc. It always surprised me how many parents thought it was my job to teach these things. My own children could read, write their names , recognise numbers and shapes and much more but my sisters ( also teachers) said that they didn’t pay their taxes to do the job themselves so their children started school with the same low base line as many others with the same attitude. It’s a sad that some parents / caters don’t realise what fun it can be to teach very young children and how rewarding it can be. It’s not difficult, just common sense really and there’s lots of help out there.

Hithere Fri 11-Mar-22 13:17:53 Excellent analysis of the changing world.

It is certainly better to read reasoned facts than so much "proof of virtue" - my child could read, take itself to the toilet, find a cure for the common cold - that's we see. Why are these people so insecure because that is exactly what it sounds like.

What you did then, with the restrictions of those times, I have no doubt it was the very best you could do for your children. Why then do you not accept that today, with today's restrictions, there is probably the same percentage of those trying to do their best for their children and the same percentage succeeding? They just do it differently.

No teacher ever tied little boys wet shoe laces without scrubbing their hands afterward,I was warned 50 years ago as a probationary teacher.

Hithere

Some countries start at 3. I think it is way too young

The US does not start at 7.
At 7yo, they are in 2nd grade.
Optional schooling is prek at 4 and all kids go to kinder at 5.

In France 3 till 6 the children are in a sort of playschool, sandpits, paints, cutting out, listening to stories and music, take part in gym/movement classes, taken to the local library, market, exhibitions having interaction with others, opening their minds to the world.
They do these activities from 8.30 till 12 then have a good 3 course lunch, starters, main course and dessert (extra if over a certain wage point) before going down for a nap and being picked up at 4.30.
Some schools open up for breakfast clubs.

Moreover, women here, if they don’t work will have consequences on their pensions.

Obviously, as today's young mothers have been told that toilet training should not begin before the age of three, four year olds will not all be capable of not wetting themselves at school.

But then neither were we at the age of five. I remember one or two girls in my class at school crying because they had wet themselves, and more than once I barely made it to the toilet in time myself. This was in 1956.

As a teacher, I agree that it should be the parents' job, not mine, to toilet train children, but teaching them how to hold a pencil correctly was quite definately my job in the years where I taught primary school!

Teaching children to listen, be quiet, sit still and follow simple instructions is certainly easier if parents have started the process before their children start school.

However, we all know that it is an ongoing process, and a primary school teacher should be equipped to teach this.

What is in no way part of a teacher's job is to put up with or try to teach children not to hit, kick, bite and scream on a daily basis, and while these kinds of naughtiness used to be very rare indeed in the classroom, they are increasingly common today. Unfortunately, a lot of parents just shrug and say, "What do you expect, they are just little kids?" an attitude that does not make the teacher's life easier.

In Denmark, children start school at the age of six if they are deemed mature enough and otherwise the following year when they are, or will be, seven.

My experience is that this is too late. Most children have been bored for the last year of kindergarten, where they are not taught anything at all and in a lot of cases have been allowed to misbehave as they pleased.

Not everyone agrees about this, but we are many teachers who would like to see kindergartens that focused on teaching children to follow simple instructions, play nicely with each other (which in all fairness, most kindergartens do teach them), focus on improving children's hand-eye co-ordination and motionary skills (which few do these days) and teach them to sit still and be quiet for five minutes at a time, or slightly longer. As well as ensuring that every child who leaves kindergarten to start school can go to the toilet unaided and in time.

DaisyAnne I agree with your last post. Parents of every generation do their best for their children, each generation has its difficulties and different needs.

We have had two GC born just before the first lockdown, they have different needs to their older siblings/cousins, especially their social skills, interactions with others.

A parents job is not, nor has it ever been easy.

Chardy January 1951 birth, started school January 1956. Definitely the norm in 1950’s Kent who in 1962 had Grammars (and still has), Technical High Schools (I went to one aged 11) alas all converted to Grammars now) and secondary Moderns.

And to reiterate others Crawley Sure Stattcwasvthe best thing that EVER happened in the ludicrous West Sussex for whose County Council I once worked as an Advisor but regrettably not in education despite my previous experience as an RN, FE and University Lecturer.

christine96777

A generation ago it was still the norm for a parent to stay at home, usually the mum, until the child went to school. This gave the child the foundation needed to start school. Now parents are expected to return to work within the first year, and for financial reasons most have to. Grandparents may also have to work. So the child goes to a childcare setting, there businesses, making the most money with the least outlay, I'm not saying child care is not good but somethinghas deffinatly got lost in the mix

What do you think has got lost?

I'm glad you wrote that childcare settings aren't "not good", although it's what you're implying. My children's nursery was excellent and I have never regretted they went - they still speak highly of it too and still have some of the friends they made there, although they're now all over the country (and the world).