This master's thesis studies why parents decide to delay their school-age children's entry in primary school, as the proportion of such children in Slovenia is increasing. Relevant legislation, statutory instruments, recommendations and curricula for Slovene and Mathematics in the first educational period were analysed. We presented key solutions portrayed in the White Book (1995), which served as professional basis to set out provisions of the Primary School Act (1996), i.e. duration of primary school, children's age upon entry in primary school, knowledge assessment, progression to a higher grade, lesson differentiation and appropriate formal education of teachers in the first grade of primary school. In the thesis, we determine that provisions imposed by law in 1996 established the first educational period as a moderately coherent whole, while later amendments to the Primary School Act altered the structure of the first grade and the first educational period. This structure was also altered through curricular changes. Therefore, compliance with knowledge standards is no longer associated with the end of the first educational period, knowledge standards are more extensive and more demanding, descriptive knowledge assessment only pertains to the first two grades, and pupils are able to repeat both the first and the second grades. Changes of systemic solutions and curricular changes mean a departure from the initial structure of the nine-grade primary school, which parents may perceive as especially the first grade of primary school becoming more demanding, which could be one of the reasons why they decide to delay their children's schooling.
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