GROWING UP IN IRELAND. KEY FINDINGS: INFANT COHORT AT 7/8 YEARS. NO. 1 SCHOOL AND LEARNING

This is the first in a series of Key Findings from the fourth wave of data collection from the Infant Cohort in Growing Up in Ireland. The families of just over 11,100 infants were first interviewed between September 2008 and March 2009, when the child at the centre of the study was 9 months old. They were re-interviewed when the child was 3 years old and again at 5 years of age. In 2016, a fourth wave of data was collected from the child’s primary caregiver (mainly their mother1) through a postal survey when the child was 7/8 years old. This Key Finding focuses on mothers’ reports of how their children were doing in terms of their schooling and learning. Children’s early experiences of the classroom, their transition to formal school and their acquisition of key skills such as literacy and numeracy typically have a lasting effect on their short- and long-term educational development. At the time of the postal survey 36% of the children in the study were 7 years old and the rest were 8 years old. At this stage, most of them had been in Primary School for 2-3 years. Overall, 69% started school in 2012 (mostly in September), the remainder in 2013. Just over 1% of the children were in Junior or Senior Infants, 32% were in First Class and 66% in Second Class. Just less than 1% were in third class, home-schooled or at a special school