school preparedness, school maturity, school attendance postponement, preschooler

The paper deals with preschoolers' readiness for the successful commencement of compulsory school attendance. The introduction gives a brief account of the terms "school maturity" and "school preparedness" while also dealing with the issue of school attendance postponement afforded to children who should commence their primary school attendance according to the applicable Czech legislation in force. The following part uses statistical data of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the Czech School Inspectorate to provide a brief overview of the number of applications for school attendance postponement in the Czech Republic during the past six years, including an overview of the most frequent causes of school attendance postponement.