Give them time... an argument for school-start deferral in Scotland

By Isobel Skyes

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I left Scotland 10 years ago in a bashed up Ford Fiesta and all my belongings in a box. I returned 7 years later with considerably more baggage in the shape of 1.5 kids, a husband, a teaching degree and a lorry 60% full of plastic toys that bleeped. I was 40 weeks pregnant with an apparent future footballer and our daughter was just 3. Had we stayed in England, she would have been starting school the following summer at the tender age of 4. I was apprehensive. From what I had experienced in my teaching career so far it all felt a bit too soon, so I was delighted to discover that as a February born baby in Scotland, her and her January born peers would be entitled to defer their school start date by a year. Not only that but she would automatically be entitled to an extra year of nursery funding. 

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