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10th April 2019
10:32am BST

Though small, "these differences add up, and unsurprisingly there is quite a large development gap between four-and-a-half-year-olds and six-year-olds," said Dr Mark Hanly from University of New South Wales (UNSW), lead author on the study.
The children held back were more likely to be born closer to the cut-off date for starting school, to have gone to preschool, to live in areas where other kids are being held back and from a more advantaged socio-economic background.
They were also more likely to be boys than girls.
"This might be because parents and teachers believe that boys and younger children are often less school-ready,” said study director Kathleen Falster of UNSW.
Dr Hanly described the fact that certain parents are waiting to send their kids to school as an "affluence phenomenon."
"Migrants tend not to delay their kids. Parents with lower levels of education tend to also not be delaying their kids," he said.
"Many parents want to maximise their children's education opportunities, and this is a way that more advantaged parents can do that. The implications are quite marked for some kids."
The research, published in the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, did not look into whether the early advantages associated with a late school start made a difference in the long-term.
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