Although the compulsory school age in Ireland is six years, teachers and principals felt influenced by the traditional school starting age of four years, and this was referred to in all school enrolment policies. One primary school principal noted: ‘We are bound by the Government, you know by Department rules of children having to be four when they start school. So we stick with that rule.’ In accordance with the statutory requirements of the Education Act, 1998 for all schools to have an enrolment policy and a School Plan, all school principals stated that ‘four years’ was identified as the age at which children could be enrolled in school, according to the schools’ enrolment policies. Factors related to school readiness were not detailed in enrolment policies. From a primary school perspective, therefore, the research findings indicate that the historical origins of school starting age, combined with custom and practice – rather than the statutory school starting age of six years and developmental, educational or child-led criteria – continue to be the main determinants of when children in Ireland are first enrolled in primary schools (Department of Education, 1965; Rogers and Ross, 2007). One principal referred to the school’s policy of prioritising on its waiting list for enrolment any children who are aged more than four and a half years. There was also a view that children’s capacity to learn is highest the younger they are. One principal observed that ‘nobody learns as quickly as an infant and I think that the graph is going down then after that … after four’. While school readiness was primarily linked to chronological age, age was associated with particular behaviours exhibited by children. As discussed above, these behaviours included being able to hold a pencil, being able to recognise letters and to count, putting on a coat and sitting down. The intersection of the maturationist and environmental approaches is encapsulated in the words of one early years manager who believed that children were too young at four years, and not ready for ‘sitting down’. She described children as being ‘busy’ between birth and five years, and provided a graphic depiction of their disposition and agency during early childhood:
‘ They are busy at home and then they come in at two and a half here and they are like little porters, fetching and bringing and carrying and fixing things and putting things together and building. And then as they come as far as three, they begin to settle and at three to four they are improving their learning, their hand is developing for their pincer grasp and their gross motor skills. All children are different. Some mature a little earlier than others, but then they are still very young at four. I think every child going to national school should be five plus.’
In relation to who decides when a child is ready for school, all interview participants
considered parents to be the key decision-makers, and they expressed a reluctance to advise parents in this regard. As one early years educator explained:
‘ It is really down to the parents and we do go with that … All we can do is express our views on what we have seen and then … once it is said, it is up to the parent. We don’t really get involved in that at all. We leave the decision solely up to the parents.’
This was further corroborated in interviews with parents, where only one parent referred to talking to the child’s educator with regard to when the child should start school. However, for children with special educational needs in a targeted special education early years setting, the educator referred to parents consulting with the setting on when the children should start school. In general, results suggest that parental decisions to send a child to school are influenced primarily by ‘age’. This, in turn, was linked to a parent’s autobiographical experiences and captured in a number of parents’ observations, such as ‘I think the parents will know’ [parent] and ‘I think you kind of know yourself whether your child is ready for school’ [parent]. Gender emerged as an issue in the literature related to school readiness, with indications that girls are markedly more ‘school ready’ than boys (Doyle et al, 2009; Isaacs, 2012). In this
research however, there were few references to gender as an issue and, where it was referred to, it specifically related to the perceived behavioural differences (and in one case learning styles) between boys and girls, and the impact of these on children’s school starting age. One early years educator referred to gender with reference to school starting age:
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‘Only one or two [parents] asked – and more a few years ago – especially if it was a boy, and that the boy was at an age that they could keep him back a year, or do the second year instead of keeping him back.’ [early years educator]
The manager of an early years setting referred to the potential impact of gender on school starting age and observed that ‘you could get a girl who could be four and she would be way ahead of the boy of five … but girls are that bit more forward than the boys’ [early years manager]. This manager suggested that boys needed an extra year ‘to fall into the work frame when they do go to school’ as otherwise they may fall behind in senior infant class; the manager concluded that ‘I do think the boys should be five, and girls four and a half to five’.
A school principal expressed similar views and considered that ‘if you come across parents with a boy born in April and a daughter born in April, they’ll recommend to wait until the boy is five. I think that they mature later.’ [principal, primary school]. Children’s different learning styles associated with gender were described by a junior infant teacher and point to the importance of accommodating individual children’s learning styles in the early years, irrespective of gender:
‘ I will say that if I decided on the first day that I wanted to do Lego® and … was designing a building with blocks or a building with boxes, and I was designing and counting with batteries or … constructing something, then the boys would be better at that. If I bring out the copy books and get them to colour, the girls are usually better.’ [junior infant teacher]
The words used by participants
Corpus linguistics analysis was used to elucidate the references to ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ in the interview data. When ‘boys’ are referred to generically in terms of readiness for school in the interview data, negative attributes and indicators are commonly used. Conversely, when ‘girls’ are referred to generically, in terms of readiness for school, positive attributes and indicators are commonly used:
References to ‘boys’ in interview data References to ‘girls’ in interview data
The boys are a little bit immature.
The boys are kind of … a little bit more
immature.
The boys are more babyish.
The boys are so competitive.
Boys can be very easy to upset.
The boys love the active learning, like
making things.
The boys might be more wriggly.
The boys need that extra year.
It takes longer for boys to ‘get it’.
The boys do catch up.
The girls are better.
The girls are very different.
The girls are just more independent.
The girls are more prepared.
It’s not that the girls are quicker, but they
mature earlier.
Girls would be a little bit more mature. Girls mature faster.
Girls are that bit more forward.
The girls are usually better [talking about
colouring]
The girls love the writing.
The girls, they love to draw.
The girls have more confidence.
The girls might take on school routines
quicker.
The girls seem to be well able to settle in.
Girls show far more readiness.
Girls tend generally to be better prepared
for school.
Girls usually show more kind of readiness. Girls would be [more ready] – they are