I say get them into education early. Unfortunately, the parenting standard of some people is not up to scratch (and I know that's a whole other debate) and putting children into a 'positive' environment will aid their cognitive, communication, life and employability skills. Of course, that means that there must be quality teaching staff.....(another debate again)

To me the major problem is found in the male to female ratio in teaching, especially in early childhood/primary ed. For some reason men do not see this as a career. Here lies the conundrum. How to make early ed teaching a more attractive career to males? Given that in any school room 43% of kids come from a single parent family, and of that 43% half would be boys with no male role model/mentor...I'm sure you see the need for male teachers.

Govts won't and never have invested properly in education. They would rather spend the money on think tanks and reports. I suppose until this is tackled we will stay at square one.

Earlier the better: I went to school in Cape Town from age 4 and by the time I was 9 multi-base maths was easy, as were quadratic equations, French and the sciences.

When I moved to the Guernsey it took the local school 5 years to catch up.


The major problem with UK schools is this liberal büllshit of 'learn through play'. Utter shite. Kids can (and do) play outside of school. School should be disciplined and that way kids learn from an early age not to eff around at school and they will know what is required.

For non-academic kids (not just the thick ones) there need to be alternate streams where they can also learn skills and gain knowledge.

Easy to do when your main interest is not keeping shite teachers in employment (main aim of NUT and the Department for Education (or whatever the morons in power are calling it this week)).

I started school at four and a half and it didn't hurt me, I still have my old school reports and they don't seem to indicate I struggled in any way. When I went to enroll my daughter for Primary School I was told they would not consider taking her at four and a half, no reason given. Children need to get the basics down as soon as possible. My teenage daughter now seems more interested in 'uman rights and green issues than learning how a mortgage works, what APR means and how Interest works, schools also seem to favour these "trendy" new topics over the basics.

One study is not definitive though and children are individuals. Why not take the approach of getting them started early and then helping the weaker pupils along. The earlier we get children into the habit of learning the better, I fail to see how that can be a bad thing. I totally agree with the comments regarding the need for more male teachers though, there seems to be an aversion today to positive male role models and the current hysteria that every man who works with children is a Paedo suspect is no doubt putting men off.

We start too early, the number of hours the kids spend at school per week is too low and they have to many holidays per year.


Start at 6, an 11+ exam at 11 and they get streamed off into and academic and vocational streams at separate Grammar and Technical schools age 12.

Originally Posted by Oil_Slick

We start too early, the number of hours the kids spend at school per week is too low and they have to many holidays per year.


Start at 6, an 11+ exam at 11 and they get streamed off into and academic and vocational streams at separate Grammar and Technical schools age 12.

I agree start the kids at school with formal education at 6. But I have a problem with the 11+ exam I would make it later at say 13+, by then you will have caught the late developers who have the ability to benefit from a "Grammar" education.

Originally Posted by Hakagure

I started school at four and a half and it didn't hurt me, I still have my old school reports and they don't seem to indicate I struggled in any way. When I went to enroll my daughter for Primary School I was told they would not consider taking her at four and a half, no reason given. Children need to get the basics down as soon as possible. My teenage daughter now seems more interested in 'uman rights and green issues than learning how a mortgage works, what APR means and how Interest works, schools also seem to favour these "trendy" new topics over the basics.

Totally agree with your post. Like you I also started school at 4 and a half, back in the days of school being leaky prefab huts, the belt, class sizes of 30-35 and so on, P.E. teachers who gave you a choice between lines or a kicking for forgetting your kit! Everyone came out of school knowing how to read and write and add up etc. The problem with education now is we teach children to challenge their parents over climate change, and send children for diversity training over playground name calling.

The problem isn't starting them too early, it's that the government can't stop tinkering around with education, using it as a platform to promote their social engineering ideas rather than somewhere children learn things.