School entry age – Older is better

One of the interesting things about the way we determine the school entry age is that the process creates essentially a full year’s difference in age between students found in the same classrooms.

The impacts start when kids are only five years old.

As The Conversation points out, the age differential in each entering Kindergarten class can have interesting impacts that can be traced in later life to different career outcomes, more or less self-confidence, and even to an advantage in getting into and playing professional sports.

Perhaps it’s time to look at a different approach to how we start kids in school. And, teachers need to be aware of the fact that when we are talking about children, nearly a full year difference in age can explain why relatively younger kids seem to have more challenges.