Cohort, gender and spatial patterns of delayed school enrolment in third-grade children from 2009 to 2025
Maxi Woelke, Darlene Heinen-Stach, Paula Teich, Reinhold Kliegl, Michael A. Rapp, Mareike Voigt, Mira Tschorn, Fabian Arntz · 2026
Read Cohort, gender and spatial patterns of delayed school enrolment in third-grade children from 2009 to 2025 by Maxi Woelke, Darlene Heinen-Stach, Paula Teich, Reinhold Kliegl, Michael A. Rapp, Mareike Voigt, Mira Tschorn, Fabian Arntz (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13421696.txt.
Description
Woelke and colleagues analysed in 2026 patterns of delayed school entry among third-grade children in Brandenburg, Germany. Starting school late can signal developmental delay, but rules and social context also play roles. Their data covered 292,181 third graders from 2009 to 2025 in the EMOTIKON study.
The share of children older than the key entry age jumped after the rule change and stayed high through the pandemic. Boys were more likely than girls to be over-age in third grade. Children in poorer regions, in midsize towns, and far from big cities also showed higher delay rates. The authors read delayed entry as a marker shaped heavily by policy and social setting, not by child health alone. They urge care when using enrolment delay as a proxy for developmental problems.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Maxi Woelke, Darlene Heinen-Stach, Paula Teich, Reinhold Kliegl, Michael A. Rapp, Mareike Voigt, Mira Tschorn, Fabian Arntz |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 34 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |