Neuroplasticity educator and parenting expert Nathan Wallis talks with Kathryn about the advantages of children starting school at six years old. He says while it goes against the norm in New Zealand, in most countries across the world, the starting age is six, often seven. He says those children who start school when they are older than five may be doubly advantaged - by having more free play when their brains need it most, and by being older than their peers when they do start school.

Neuroplasticity educator and parenting expert Nathan Wallis supports that idea of children starting school at six years old.

He says those who go through the school system older have greater advantages.

The Education Review Office says starting in cohorts, rather than on the child's fifth birthday, eases the transition from early childhood centres to school for students, teachers and parents.

Listen to the full interview here

One argument for letting children start at six is that it eases the social transition, Wallis tells Kathryn Ryan.

"We only started putting kids into school at five during the war because there was a childcare shortage ... I mean most countries did that to be fair but after the war they put it back to six. New Zealand for some reason stayed at five, so it's never really been based on research that we start kids at five.

"Our whole education system is based on Piaget, a French guy, and his 'stages of cognitive development' and he showed kids are ready to do things like literacy and numeracy, what he called symbolic thinking or the concrete operational stage, between the ages of seven and eight.

"Over the years, we've just made that earlier and earlier. So it's quite challenging for some kids to start doing cognitive learning like reading and literacy and numeracy when they're only five."

Research shows the eldest in a cohort is likely to experience better outcomes in learning than the youngest, Wallis says.

"The kid who is in a free play environment when they're six and is building say 'damming the river' they don't dam the river the very first time, they probably fail 19 times and then dam it on the 20th time, so what he's learnt is a disposition of persevering through failure."

Free play at an early age allows the child to develop cognitive skills such as complexity of thought and creativity, he says…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details