‘Flying start’ for pupils... by starting school aged 7

DELAYING the age children start school until seven will help to give youngsters a ‘flying start’, according to the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

As the first full week of campaigning for the Holyrood election began, the party focused on its plans for education, which it hailed as a ‘historical, radical and positive change’ in the school system.

The Lib Dems want youngsters to have a ‘truly play-based education’ up to the age of seven, when more formal schooling would begin. The expanded early years education would be mandatory, the Lib Dems stressed, and would focus on areas such as child development, social skills and outdoor learning, as well as physical and mental health.

The shake-up would also see controversial national assessments for P1 pupils abolished. Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: ‘At the forthcoming election, Scottish Liberal Democrats will ask voters to back us to put the education system first. Scottish Liberal Democrats will introduce a truly play-based education until age seven, to give every child a flying start.

‘By learning together through play, children develop the skills needed for trickier tasks and are better prepared to shine in areas like literacy and numeracy.’ He added: ‘The UK is almost unique in Europe in expecting children as young as four or five to begin formal schooling. By the age of nine, pupils in Finland have much higher reading levels than pupils in the UK, having started at the age of seven.’

Mr Rennie also pledged to ‘immediately abolish the national testing of four and five-year-olds introduced by the SNP and heavily criticised by teachers’.