Aberdeen City Council is to join a pilot scheme to give parents an extra year in nursery for deferred school starts.
They will pilot an additional year of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) for children who defer their primary one start.
Aberdeen City, Clackmannanshire, Fife, Glasgow City, and Stirling are all taking part in the scheme.
The Scottish Government has committed £8.9 million to support the move and the cash will available from August 2022.
Five other local authorities started the initiative last year.
These were Angus, Argyll and Bute, Falkirk, Scottish Borders and the Shetland Islands.
The move to expand the extra year in nursery project came to light in a written answer by children’s minister Clare Haughey in response to a question from Glasgow Kelvin MSP Kaukab Stewart.
Ms Haughey said: “To allow us to expand our evaluation of the impact of the legislation, five additional authorities have been selected to receive funding to implement this policy from August 2022.
“These authorities will be: Aberdeen City, Clackmannanshire, Fife, Glasgow City, and Stirling. The Scottish Government has committed £8.9 million to support this early implementation.
“The evaluation of the experience in pilot authorities is being undertaken to monitor the impact of the policy, inform assessment of likely uptake of the entitlement and inform wider implementation of this legislation.”
More funded time = happy parents
Richard Rooney and Rosemary Moncur live in one of the local authority areas already piloting the scheme.
They say they plan to take advantage of the scheme for their twins, Lauren and Aidan.
The couple also have older children and say that experience has helped them with their choices this time round.
Richard explained: “The twins were born in late December 2017 and so were due to start primary one this August.
“However, we feel Aidan in particular is not quite ready. It was only recently that we discovered there was the option of an extra year at nursery. We feel that’s going to be best for them overall.
“Our older daughters started school at four and, although they got on fine, it does have knock-on effects on the age they are when they start high school and even university.”
Richard added: “We were particularly interested in The Press and Journal’s study of Finnish education and so we’ve decided to keep them back a year.”
Aberdeen councillor welcomes city’s addition to scheme
The councillor who leads Aberdeen’s education committee has welcomed the Granite City’s involvement in the scheme.
Councillor M. Taqueer Malik said: “Being part of this pilot project will help further our knowledge of the positive impact of expanded ELC for children and families and enable children who would benefit from an additional year of ELC to access it.”
More from the Schools and Family team
Parents to save £500 in free school meals expansion
First Class: Meet the latest P1 intake in the north and north east
Baffled by the budget? Here’s how UK spending plans could impact your family finances