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Northern Ireland primary school starting age consultation begins

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The proposals suggest more flexibility in the school starting age for the youngest pupils

A consultation has begun on whether a law should be introduced to allow some children to defer starting primary school for a year.

Most children in Northern Ireland start school in the September of the school year after their fourth birthday.

However children whose birthdays fall between 2 July and 31 August usually start in the September after their fifth birthday.

NI has one of the youngest primary school starting ages in Europe.

It means children can start primary school from ages ranging from four years two months to over five years old.

The proposals would allow more flexibility in the school starting age for children born between 1 April and 1 July.

The Department of Education, which is holding the consultation, is also seeking views on how making the starting age more flexible could impact pre-school provision for deferred children.

The consultation will be used to help inform future policy development on the issue, the department said.

Any new law would not change the primary school starting age for the vast majority of pupils in Northern Ireland, but could give flexibility for parents to defer their children starting primary school for a year if they felt it would be beneficial.

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Plans to introduce legislation on the issue were raised at Stormont in February by then-Education Minister Peter Weir.

His predecessor as education minister, Sinn Féin MLA John O'Dowd, previously attempted a similar move.

In many other European countries, children do not start formal primary school education until they are aged six or seven.

According to research by the European Commission, children do not start primary until they are six in almost 30 countries, including Germany, Belgium, Spain and France.

In some, like Finland, children do not formally start primary school until they are seven.

However most children do go to some form of pre-school in those countries before those ages.

The consultation will remain open until 4 January 2022 at 17:00 GMT.