AAll in the timing … Ava Corney, 4, will start school next year even though her brother Logan, 8, repeated kindergarten. Photo: Wolter Peeters

The best age for a child to enter school depends solely on the individual, writes Kim Arlington.

AS SCHOOLS around the state hold open days for parents of prospective kindergarten children, Abbie Corney is not the only one worried if her four-year-old will be ready to start next year.

Things were simpler in Mrs Corney’s home country of New Zealand where children started school as soon as they turned five.

But in NSW, where children must be enrolled in school by age six but can start if they turn five by July 31 in their kindergarten year, many parents face a tough choice: to send, or not to send.

Mrs Corney said the cut-off date "puts parents in a really horrible position. You don’t know whether you’re doing the right thing, and you won’t know until they start school," she said.

Her son, Logan, 8, repeated kindergarten after starting school at four. His sister, Ava, will turn five in June. But having monitored Ava’s counting, reading and drawing, and her interaction with other children, Mrs Corney thinks she will be ready to start kindergarten next year.

"I didn’t take the decision lightly," Mrs Corney said. "There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing … I don’t have any worries about her academically. She’s adamant she wants to start."

While parents are bombarded with advice about when to start their child at school, everyone agrees the decision should be based on the needs and development of the individual child.

"The things educators fall back on as a barometer for [school] readiness are emotional and social maturity," the director of Larool preschool in Thornleigh, Michelle Healey, said.

"You really want your child to be confident enough to speak to adults, to be able to make their needs known, and not to go to pieces if something doesn’t go right."

The principal of Neutral Bay Public School, Gai Collett, said there could be an age gap of up to 18 months between children. The growing use of technology, and more complex learning programs, meant school could be difficult for the younger pupils.

"Every year we have requests from parents who started their children young to [have them] repeat kindy," Ms Collett said.

"In general, we find that it’s better for children to turn six, not five, in their first year of school. We like to see the children set up for success and to fly, rather than it be a struggle.

"We find the younger ones are tired, they have trouble concentrating … and they’re not as ready to learn as the older children. The clever children who are young still find it harder than the older children to cope emotionally and socially at school."

The president of the NSW Primary Principals Association, Jim Cooper, said "all children are unique and learn at different rates … They aren’t all the same at the same age".

If a child was emotionally mature and intelligent, starting school aged four gave them the chance "to mix with older children, to continue their path through learning and to be in a stimulating environment".

Diana Whitton, an associate professor of education at the University of Western Sydney, said open communication between parents, teachers and the child, as well as early childhood educators and the school, would ensure the best transition to school, but parents should also consider the implications of children being young throughout their schooling and for the HSC.

Ben Edwards, a senior research fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, was part of a team that examined the delayed entry of eligible children to primary school, known as "academic red-shirting".

The most recent figures, from 2005, show 31.5 per cent of eligible children in NSW had their entry delayed, compared with 10 per cent in Victoria. Boys were more likely to start a year later.

Dr Edwards said it could be linked to the later entry age cut-off in NSW but "if it’s based simply on the concern that it’s going to be detrimental to their children’s progress in life then … parents needn’t worry so much".

Research showed that older students initially outperformed their younger peers, but by the age of eight or nine "there’s really no difference in terms of their cognitive and emotional development," he said.