The whole segment was on chronological age being the deciding point between success or not at school. That is the BS.

The principal said that the gap between the low achievers and the rest of the cohort is dangerous (cant quote his exact words). This I agree with. However, the children who are falling into that dangerous bracket are not necessarily all the young ones n the year group. It would be a mix of children.

I am glad to read that many people in this thread are basing their decisions on whether their child is socially ready for school and has the maturity to cope with school rather than basing it on 'well they will be chronologically older than other children so will do better' attitude (which was shown on 60minutes last night).
I believe he said, "statistically" speaking (so i'm guessing *some* form of rerearch has been done into it) it has been shown that some"younger" children (not all) do struggle both socially and academically throughout their schooling life. Would it have made any difference had they started when they were more socially/ emotionally/academically ready etc, who knows? obviously there would also be kids who are older that would also fall into that group.

In the extra minutes interview with him he did actually say that the chronological age should Not be the sole deciding factor but to look at your child as a whole entity. And funnily enough, he actually said that it is parents and society that focus too much on the chronological age of kids and that that goes both ways. ie child turns 5 so they *must* start school, or no, the child is 4 or just turned 5 so they can't possibly be ready for school. he urged parents to work in conjunction with their childs caregiver to help make the right choice.