At what age should children start primary school? An examination of the effect of primary school admissions policy and age of starting school on childhood academic outcomes

The project will allow the IFS to conduct a national study (jointly funded by the DCSF through the Centre for the Economics of Education) to look at how length of schooling and day of birth affects children's academic outcomes at the ages of 5, 7, 11, 14, 16 and 18. The project will use data from the National Pupil Data Base which covers every child who has sat these tests in state schools over the last 8 years.

The project will exploit the fact that almost identically aged children, depending on which Local Education Authority they live in, either sit academic tests at different times and/or have different lengths of schooling before sitting these tests. For instance in some LEAs a child born on the 31 August will have the same length of schooling when they sit their Key Stage tests as a child born on the 1 September but sit all their Key Stage Tests exactly one year earlier than an almost identically aged child. How much if at all does this disadvantage this August born child? Is this difference larger or smaller for August born children who not only sit the tests one year earlier but also have fewer terms of schooling (which happens in some LEAs where young children have one or two terms less schooling before sitting tests)?

Similarly in other LEAs Children born on 28 February start school in September whereas children born on 1st March start school in January. Does the child with more or less schooling do better in Key Stage Test results?

Previous studies have tended to find that academic performance declines with age. Is there evidence of this in the NPD? If there is - is this decline linear? Or is there some critical month of birth where this decline accelerates?

The project will run from January 1 2005 until 31 December 2007 and we will hold a conference at the end of 2007 to highlight the results and policy implications of the work.