Let boys start school later

Alan McLean, who works at Glasgow City Council, said girls should enter primary one aged five, while boys should not start school until they are six.

Mr McLean, who studied the performance of 1,400 pupils in the course of his research, also found that immature boys who start school at the age of four-and-a-half are at a disadvantage and often never catch up with their female peers.

He said there was a convincing case for allowing boys to start school later than girls, thereby giving them a chance to mature before they enter the classroom.

He said: "Five-year-old boys are built to play - they are like dogs. Putting them in a seat and asking them to sit all day is incompatible with their brains.

"There is too great an emphasis on the formal structure of learning in primary one. It's making demands on the psychology of five-year-old boys - for all four-and-a-half-year-old boys, it's a step too far."

A detailed breakdown of last year's exam results showed that girls continue to out-perform boys in Scotland's classrooms.

According to the figures, 79 per cent of fourth-year girls passed five or more Standard Grades at general level or Intermediate 1 exams at C or better, compared with 73 per cent of boys.

In the fifth year, 25 per cent of girls passed three or more Highers compared to 19 per cent of boys.

In the sixth year, 22 per cent of girls left school with five or more Highers, compared to 16 per cent of boys.

Broken down further, the figures show that 93 per cent of girls leave school with qualifications in English and maths, compared with 91 per cent of boys.

Mr McLean's research looked at the performance and the willingness to learn of pupils in primary six.

He said he was shocked by the wide gaps in the levels of motivation shown by boys and girls.

"The notion of mixed ability tends to be limited to ability, but if you take in motivation, the groups are on different planets," he said.

"It's quite scary. I would have thought the differences would have washed out by primary six, but they have not at all."

In February, one leading academic suggested that ministers should consider raising the age at which children start primary school.

However, Dr Christine Stephen, of Stirling University's institute of education, stopped short of recommending different starting ages for the sexes.

Dr Stephen said there was "no compelling reason" why pupils should start school at five and pointed to international evidence showing that starting primary a year later had no effect on children's development.

She said the current drive to allow secondary school pupils to sit their exams earlier showed that there was room for greater flexibility within the education system.

Her report showed that the average age at which pupils in 20 countries surveyed - including Northern Ireland, Japan, New Zealand and Italy - started compulsory education was six.

"There is no definitive evidence about the progress of children who start school at different ages, and international comparisons suggest that a later start appears not to disadvantage children," the report said. "There is no compelling educational reason for beginning school at age five."

Dr Stephen said: "The Executive might want to think again about the reasons for making pupils start school at five.

"People get very wedded to the way things are, but it's important to think about the positives and the negatives of changing the current system.

"It's about asking ourselves: 'What is more important - institutional boundaries or learners' needs?'"

Although Mr McLean is employed by Glasgow City Council to look at ways of improving assessment and achievement, the local authority was eager to stress yesterday that it had no plans to follow his recommendations.

A spokeswoman said: "This research is still in progress and no decision will be made until the findings are presented to the education committee.

"This is part of an overall exercise by the department linked to assessment and achievement."

During the last Holyrood election campaign in 2003, the Liberal Democrats gave their support to raising the school starting age to six.

That pledge was dropped during the subsequent coalition negotiations, and a spokeswoman for the Executive yesterday insisted that there were no plans to re-visit the issue.

However, she did say that steps were being taken to make the transition from nursery to primary school easier and to make sure that the youngest pupils did not become disengaged from the learning process.

The spokeswoman said: "We're introducing more flexibility into the curriculum for three to six-year-olds in order to improve their attainment and confidence. We are also changing the ethos in primary one, introducing less formal teaching methods and enabling early intervention where needed.

"But I'm not aware that changing the primary school starting age is something that is being actively considered."