Hugo Cullen will begin school in February 2020 and turn six a few weeks later

Hugo Cullen will begin school in February 2020 and turn six a few weeks laterCredit:Jessica Hromas

In Sydney,the highest rates - between 25 and 35 per cent - were found in affluent suburbs in the north,east and south. The lowest - 0 to 15 per cent - were found in areas such as Fairfield,Liverpool and Blacktown.

The highest rate was 57 per cent,and the lowest was seven.

The researchers linked the school age data with the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC),finding each month of maturity corresponded to an increase of about three per cent in the probability of scoring above the 25th percentile infive early development domains.

From month to month those differences were small but over a full year,"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 study lead Dr Mark Hanly from UNSW.

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The study,published in the Early Childhood Research Quarterly,did not examine whether this continued in later years.

Dr Edwards said the high rate of delay in NSW could not be explained by the young cut-off date. Western Australia used to have a similarly young cut-off age,but its rates of kindergarten delay were not nearly as high.

It posed questions for policy-makers,he said."It's real social patterning,"he said."The parents who are not delaying their kids are Indigenous,kids who haven't gone to pre-school before,whose mothers were born in Asia and the Middle East.

"Migrants tend not to delay their kids. Parents with lower levels of education tend to also not be delaying their kids. It's really an affluence phenomenon. Advantaged parents,in the more advantaged suburbs of Sydney,are the ones more likely to delay kids'entrance to school.

"Then we've found that there is that gift of time,that having more time to develop outside of school means that they are more school ready on lots of different indicators."

Henry Rajendra from the NSW Teachers Federation said the study highlighted the need for pre-school education to be free,and for pre-schools to be built next to schools.

"Any barriers[to early education] should be removed,"he said.

Former NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli,now director of the Gonski Institute for Education at UNSW,said cost would not be a factor in families'decisions if early childhood education was universal and free for the two years before school.

"That would be in the better interests of children,"he said.

Val Cullen lives in the Sutherland Shire,one of the areas with the highest rate of kindergarten delay in Sydney. She did not think twice about delaying her son Hugo's start to kindergarten. He will start school in February 2020,and turn six a few weeks later.

"My older kids,an April and May baby,both went later,and I've seen the advantages of sending them later,"she said."I've seen the difference in maturity. I've heard people say,'gee I wish I'd held them back',I never heard anyone say'gee I wish I'd sent them'."

The map data was originally published inEarly Childhood Research Quarterly

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