PLANS to introduce a new starting age for children's full-time primary schooling in York are set to be changed because of problems with funding and concerns from parents.

The new system, which was decided on back in October 1999, would have seen York children starting their full-time formal education in the term after their fifth birthday from September 2003.

It was passed as part of new arrangements for early years education, called A Shared Foundation, which will involve schools making partnerships with nearby playgroups and nurseries to provide early years education and care.

The system was hailed as a shift towards a more child-focused approach, which did not push children into a formal setting too early.

But education and leisure director Patrick Scott will tell councillors on Friday that the new admission age would lose the council £800,000 each year in its Government education grant, because fewer children would be in schools for the annual head count used to work out the grant.

He will propose a change which will see children start their full-time education during the term in which they are five, or in the case of children born in the summer term, in the preceding January.

This would still be a later admission than the majority of primary schools without nurseries in the city, which currently admit children in the September of the year they are five.

Heather Marsland, early years manager, denied the move was a U-turn and said the rest of the new Shared Foundation system would stay in place.

"The philosophy is still the same. This is radical, it is good for children and good for families," she said.

She said the council had been planning the system with the Department for Education and Skills on the basis that Government funding arrangements for schools would change to coincide with the introduction of the York system.

But in the event, the funding system, based on the annual headcount of children in schools, rather than in other settings, had remained the same. This meant York would lose out to the tune of £800,000.

She said another reason for the change had been the responses from parents during consultation work about the new system, which is being piloted in three areas of York this year.

"A minority of parents told us we were going to take away the option of them putting their children into school before the age of five," she said.

"This new change will mean parents have complete and utter choice."

* Anyone wanting more information can contact Heather Marsland on 01904 554371.

Updated: 15:35 Tuesday, January 22, 2002