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The Age’s article on parents holding their children back from school raises some dilemmas (“Parents put intuition before calendar dates for school start”, 5/10). While school readiness is key, other factors come into play. Victoria’s kinder system, with its minimal hours, only works for families with a home-based parent (or nanny). Thus for many pre-schoolers, early learning is in a childcare setting where pre-school teachers often earn less than those in the education sector and quality is variable.We moved to Victoria from NSW when my son was going into year 4. He’d attended an excellent community childcare centre in NSW with a fantastic early learning program where, at four-and-a-half, he was more than ready to start school (cut-off was June in NSW and he was an early May baby). Imagine our consternation that a Victorian school principal would insist our son (an “A” student and adept sportsman) repeat grade 3 merely because of his height! When my daughter started school here she was five, yet many kids in her preppie class were six (and often near seven). I saw it as a curse of living in a high socio-economic area, these parents could afford to hold their kids back from school.In both my kids’ cases they were deemed by experienced educators to be “school-ready”. My son’s only complaint about being younger than his peers (no, he did not attend the school that wanted him to repeat) was that in his final year of high school his peers could legally drink (is that a bad thing?). Meanwhile my daughter, who started school in Victoria when she was five, suffered bullying by some classmates who were up to 18 months older than her.My personal experience is that those who delay their children starting school do so as they can afford it, and see advantages for their child. For teachers, having children of such disparate ages in the classroom causes problems. Too many Victorian parents see the education system as a competition to be won rather than a place of education and personal growth.Kim Smith, Hughesdale

Loss of play-based learningSchool expectations have changed. When I first started in schools as a trained infant teacher, prep was a transition year – a preparatory class for formal learning. There was a mix of four, five and six-year olds. Some loved to sit, listen, read and write but others needed to be active and teachers planned accordingly. Co-operative learning was a joyful byproduct. Unfortunately, prep has become a year of instructional teaching with too much demanded of young children as they sit in rows or “on the mat”, with pencil in hand, expected to focus or fail. I, too, would follow my gut and keep children in a play-based environment as long as possible.Susan Mahar, Fitzroy North