Starting School At the Age of 7

[mrs_overall]

A friend of mine has a very bright little girl age 4.5. I was asking which school she is going to in September. I was surprised when my friend told me that she is going to enrol her daughter in a Steiner school and the starting age is 7.
I personally think she is mad. What are your thoughts?

[mrs_overall]

Eccles, that sounds exactly like my friends son who started Steiner age 11 and is now an obnoxious 13 year old

[mumsie_wumsie]

Sounds like an advert to give Steiner schools a miss I think!!

[ummmm]

My eldest son was barely 4 when he started school. Ad to that that he was tiny for his age (still is) meant that school was a bit overwhelming. The older girls treated him like a doll. I'd walk in with him and they'd swarm round him like flies round 'you know what' they used to scared the life out of him..

I don't think he'd complain if it happened now...he's nearly 16

He went to nursery beforehand, but that didn't prepare him for school.

[mrs_overall]

That's my point ummmm, some aren't ready and it is a shame to make them go, but it is also a shame to hold back those who DO want to go to school

[hc4361]

Lots of countries don't have mandatory schooling until the child is 7 - Sweden is a good example.
The children are not hampered in any way.

[FredPuli43]

My own daughter was at an international school that thought along these lines. When some English parents questioned the head about their child not reading at six,he replied that the school had taught the child, and all the others, to swim well by the age of five! He added that being able to swim "could save a child's life, which was far more important". Reading would come in due time.
In fact, the school was following foreign, 'international', practice in teaching reading. (The swimming, for which there were constant prize- givings to little tots, was the idiosyncratic plan of the head). The school preferred to concentrate on developing what we now, apparently, term 'social skills' in young children (together with perfect formal manners, which were very French in their nature!)

[EcclesCake]

Mrs O, It is the complete and utter lack of respect for others that irritated me the most, be it opinions, possessions or whatever.

Like I say, she could have turned out a brat wherever she went to school.

[boxtops]

I'd rather teach my child to read and write than to swim (if I had to prioritise) - reading and writing are essential life skills.

[mumsie_wumsie]

I agree boxtops...The three 'R's are most important. Swimming can be learnt in after school activities (still very important-all children should be able to swim).But it should not come first in schools, swimming will not get them jobs in the future.

[FredPuli43]

Be fair, our daughter became a voracious reader (and she can, of course, swim, a skill which I didn't acquire until I was past 50!) I don't think that reading is an essential life skill at 5 or 6, anyway.Some of our British schools produce functional illiterates aged 16. It's not as though the school produced eight year-old illiterates (bilingual illiterates; it truly was an international school!)

[NOX]

My kids were home educated from scratch, then my wife and I split and she went to live in Germany with her new man where home educating kids isn't legal, so they went to a Waldorfe School. My eldest daughter was dreading it, because she' a real free spirit and used to being quite self determining regarding what direction to go in with her education, but she now loves it and my littly has also recently started there and also loves it. They're not like ' normal' schools, they're very user friendly and no I think 7 is fine to go to school if that what her parent's want.