The percentage of families in the capital choosing to defer P1 has doubled over the past three years to one-in-five. Over 90% of eligible ESS families have already exercised their legal right to remain in Kindergarten, ahead of Saturday's deadline. 

A young girl playig at a mud kitchen outdoors, in kindergarten nursery setting, carrying water in pot. Alternative envirnment for 4yo instead of P1 classroom, excercising statutory right to defer entry to P1
Scotland is an educational outlier, having one of the youngest school starting ages in the world, with pupils beginning their school career from as young as 4 ½yo. Yet, a paradigm shift in attitudes has been occurring since the pandemic. All children who have celebrated their birthday with a five-candled cake by the first day of P1 are entitled to an extra year of Early Learning and Childcare, following a pivotal law change in 2023. Since then, the number of children starting formal education at least a year later has doubled to almost 20% over three years. All bar one P1-aged ESS pupil has opted to stay on in Kindergarten in 2026/27.  

 

ESS, in collaboration with Give The Time, successfully campaigned to bring an end to the birthday discrimination experienced by thousands of 4yo across Scotland, which created an application process for 'discretionary' deferrals for mid-August-December born children that was:


‘degrading, difficult and insensitive, forcing parents to list their child’s ‘deficits’ in an effort to provide a well-evidenced and convincing request, requiring a support statement from a professional, in spite of being the prime caregiver and the empowered party by law’ put many off.'

(Give Them Time).
 
Others were discouraged by their local authority’s reputation for refusing a high percentage of applications. Multiple FOI request by the grassroots organisation revealed that between 2015 – 2019, 500 families submitted discretionary applications to Edinburgh Council. Just under half (234 requests) were rejected.
A record number of Edinburgh families with a 4yo due to start primary school in August of 2023 were supported in their decision to favour the learning environment of a Kindergarten or nursery over a classroom, an FOI reveals. Over 1-in-10 (1,665 of some 15,863 eligible P1-aged children residing in Edinburgh) deferred. 

The increase was fuelled in part by a greater awareness around Scotland’s extraordinarily early school starting age, highlighted in a short documentary released free on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and its own website, Now We Are Six.  (https://pressreleases.responsesource.com/news/102596/capital-set-for-twofold-increase-in-mid-august-december-born-year-olds/

The following year, 14.4% (1583 of ~10,990 eligible P1-aged children in Edinburgh) postponed the classroom, desks and timetable. For this current academic year, 19.4% (1,526 of ~7,875 eligible P1s) did the same. That's one in every five - double the number three years ago.  

 
The figures over each of the three years show a pronounced gradient by month of birth, with deferral far more common among younger children within the cohort. A whooping 79% of children born in the last month of the year deferred to this current academic year. 

All children whose 5th birthday falls between 10th August 2021 and 28th February 2022 (for August 2026 entry) are entitled to remain in a Kindergarten setting for a further year. Parents must still apply to the City of Edinburgh Council to 'defer'. The application process opened up in November, giving parents and carers four months to complete the short online form. The deadline is this Saturday, 28 February 2026. 

Why defer? 
Almost all nations start school at age 6 or older. Made by an award-winning education filmmaker, Now We Are Six puts a kilt on Saskia Anley-Mccallum’s work, which looks at why Scotland has failed to turn the play-based principles of CfE's Early Level (ages 3 - 7) into practice.

Waldorf is the only education movement available in the capital where formal education starts in a pupil’s seventh year, starting Class 1 age 6yo at the end of August. It is no wonder then that each of our five kindergartens are currently full with waiting lists.  

ESS is also one of only two independent schools in Edinburgh offering parents ELC places in its kindergarten for children of mixed ages from 2-5 years old.

Here, the rhythm of daily life is simple and unhurried without the notions of ‘achievement’,’ success’, or ‘failure’. 

This holistic approach weaves through the Lower School years of school, which is screen-free until secondary in the classroom, extending to break and lunch times too through the gold-standard smartphone-free policy that keeps phones (for those few pupils who have them) at home through Classes 5 and below. 

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