To be shocked deferring by a year has become this common?

It's fairly common but my kids are summer term (one at the start and one at the end) and wouldn't have kept them back. I was an august birthday myself, in fact very prem. My kids are still amongst he tallest and brightest in the year so I think very bored to have done two years of preschool. Actually a lot of kids struggle socially that are held back as the gap between them and most of the kids is pretty big. The second year of preschool doesn't go so well either with acting up and behaviour issues. I'm sure your child will be just fine

Children with January and February birthdays are almost always the youngest in the class - unless they've been deferred - as the cut off is the end of February. The oldest child in P1 would turn 6 in March (term 3).
Traditionally, parents of children born in January or February could choose to defer but now anyone can choose to do so. It's become increasingly popular among the middle classes as it's seen that children are too young to start at 4.5/5 and we should follow a more Scandinavian approach of starting later.

I just looked up rugby as it's a physical sport and one where I can see size difference being of concern.

There are steps in place whereby a child who is being educated at a year behind their academic birth year can play down, but it is not automatic. The school needs to apply for permission for the player to play down for the year. It is not automatically granted (although I imagine usually is). The school also needs to notify the opposing school in advance of any match that they will be bringing an older pupil who is playing down.

Not sure how the playing down rules apply to other sports where height is an advantage (such as netball).

They go off age not year group though? So it does not matter what year group they're educated in, they play against their age cohort.

That's not the point I'm making.

If there is a child born on 2nd June 2011 who was deferred they would be in the current year 8, playing with children born up to 31st August 2012 if they all play U13. There can be a very big physical difference between those players who are 14 months apart and therefore it would be normal for the rules I've seen to say that players should be born after 1st September 2011 to play in U13.

So what happens to the children who've deferred? Are they allowed to play in their school yeargroups teams?

What physical differences are there between a child born on 25th August and one born on the 1st September?

Is that the case for the most competitive school sports though? If it's an U13 football match in an interschools cup, are they really allowed a U14 player just because he stayed down a year in reception? There can be significant physical differences in size which is why the rules are put there in the first place to cap the ages that are eligible to play.

@TripleCarber it's not a race to the bottom. I just think most kids are fine to start school at just turned four. Our school offered phased starts if children needed it. We considered it for our child. They offered something personalised to suit the child if needed (just mornings, 3 days a week, etc) in the end our summer child was fine. I think this would be a better option than deferral in many cases.

I also think people don't seem to talk about the potential disadvantages of deferral, as with the child I know who is now getting bored of school and the children in their class because they are older and more mature. This gap has grown as they've advanced through school.

Each to their own. I'm just giving my view on the subject as many others have done on this thread.

my best friend's son started school as the youngest for that year. he was a tiny boy with parents 5'2" and dad 5'5". he fell into the baby of the class role initially and within a year was the class clown.

maturity wise from sept-dec he was too immature for his classmates and generally not fully included by them. after christmas break, things always picked up slightly only to happen again the following year.
my friend always regrets sending him in early and like other moms in town wished she would have held him back.
he developed a strong dislike for formal education, was relatively unsuccessful with female relationships (size and maturity) and totally unsuccessful in sports.
very poor self confidence and for a while a strong dependency on alcohol (to make him feel bigger/like the older boys).

Sports are done on age not school year.

@Olympicscandal2024 yes but if the youngest is born in may then they will be 4 and 4 months (which is still too young in my opinion) vs a child that could have turned 4 three days before they start school. Why is it a race to the bottom?

I've never understood what happens when the deferred kids get to secondary school, and want to play for the school A team in a sports competition. They are too old to be in that yeargroup according to the rules of many sports. Are they allowed to play for their school yeargroup to represent the school?

Someone has to be the youngest. So if everyone with July, Aug birthdays start to defer then the May and June are the youngest, so would they then defer? I have a mix of summer, autumn and winter children. The summer born did seem younger than their classmates for the reception year (but is younger than them!) By the end of y1 they were caught up socially and academically have been in the top group since reception.

A child in their class was deferred, they're 13 months older than my child. Really tall and look like they should be in the year above. There have been many issues due to the child's size, they have hurt other children by playing too rough. They are also now starting to say they don't want to go to school because it's boring. I think this could be because they should be in the year above.

I do think my summer born will seem young to go to yr7 when the time comes, but as I said somebody has to be youngest.

I also have a family member from Europe. They said that although children start school at 6 there, preschool is widely used and is very similar to our reception. In effect more formal education (yr1 v their school starting age) are started around the same age, just called different things.

My husband is an August birthday but really bright - ended up scoring over 100% in one of his senior school entrance exams due to the age weighting .. so no academic issues - but when it came to deciding what to do with our end of August born son, he was really pro deferring .. he said he wished he had been older when puberty hit - he said the others were into girls and he wasn't yet, some of his friends could drive and get into clubs and he couldn't.. he said he was just a lot less mature and was constantly trying to be older than he was.. I see our little one thriving now and am very glad we deferred..

My dd is a June baby and will be starting school at age 4 in September, and probably pre school 12 months beforem I'd send her now if I could but don't like private nurseries! I think she's ready to start.

Lol I was due in Oct and born Aug 30th. Always youngest in class. Made no odds to me tbh. Even at secondary school most of my friends were year above so as one of them nearly 2 years older.

What happens with nursery funding though? Do they still get the "free" hours for another year? Not sure I could've afforded another year at nursery for my August born child

I’m in Scotland where the deferral system is different but most people defer who can in our school. Partially it’s because you run into last years deferrals and can be younger by a lot. It’s generally easier if your at the older end. Only one of my children were in the deferral window but I chose to defer. I do think an extra year of play is a good thing for most children. The school nursery was excellent so was never bored.

Having just put to bed an 11 year old with a birthday also on 28 August I can only wish I could turn the clock back and defer.

He just isn’t ready for secondary and has felt behind his whole way through reception. My heart breaks for him.

This. 1000%.

The preschool we sent our children too was utterly fabulous. Huge space, so, so, so many different ways to explore and play (indoors and outdoors). My eldest is 8 and still talks fondly of his preschool.

My son likes learning. I wouldn't have put him in school at 4 because of his emotional and social wellbeing. It's easy for him to learn numbers and letters and theres no rush but the emotional stuff is harder. At 4 I was happy for him to do it as his own pace. And even now at 5 I'm not convinced the school is the best thing for him yet.

I also don't think it's true about the academic thing - the people I know who have deferred (in Scotland where common even though children are older anyway) are academics or highly educated people.

This depends so much on the nursery. The nursery attached to the school where I work - yes, I could see kids getting a bit fed up there. It’s a fairly small playroom and garden and the toys don’t seem to change a whole lot. The nursery my kids went to? Not a chance. The environment and the staff meant that literally every day was new and different; every day they were coming home full of wonder and discoveries. My youngest who left more recently still narrates any of our walks with his extensive knowledge about the natural world gleaned from nursery. The staff were also extremely supportive with children learning to read, write etc.

My youngest is August born and has just turned 5 he's been deferred due to possible sen and the nursery have stated that they would encourage that kids are deferred when possible as in this country we tend to put our kids in to school a lot earlier than the rest of Europe and that an extra year of just play won't do any harm. We're in scotland and they allow it as long as it means that the child is still 5 when they start primary.

Surely it doesn’t matter where the “cut off “ is… someone is going to be oldest and someone youngest?!?

My boys are mid June and end of August birthdays. Neither suffered for being youngest in the school year…both passed GCSEs with good grades and went to University . The eldest (End of August) has a masters degree.

My daughter is a 2nd January birthday and has had similar outcomes.

i really don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference.
I’m a TA… it doesn’t seem to have a major bearing on their outcomes. Sometimes the younger ones in a year group outshine the older ones.

My August born would have benefited from being deferred had that been an option at the time. She wasn't even conceived when some of the children in her class were born....

I think it makes quite a difference. All the girls in her year that got academic scholarships at 11+ were born before the end of the Autumn term. Apparently it has an impact all the way to university https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21579484

My daughter is August born and has just started school at 4 and a couple of weeks.
At 2 I was deferring her as she had a speech delay and was behind her peers. Between 2 and 3 she blossomed and when we started looking at schools when she had just turned 3 weeks were fairly confident that she would be ok by the time we found out which school we were very confident in her starting school and would have sent her then if we could!
She's the youngest/2nd youngest in the year and she's at the bottom of the charts for height and only went in to aged 2-3 clothes in the summer so one of the smallest in the class too. I asked every school how they helped young and small children adjust to school. All bar 1 said kids come in all shapes and sizes. The one we chose asked about how being small affects her and said they would watch and make sure she was keeping up and put adjustments in place of she needed - getting steps if she needed etc. When it came to September I was confident that the school chosen would meet her needs. For some of the other schools I would have had concerns and may have deferred if necessary.
We are a month in and the school is keeping and eye on her making sure she's keeping up and her needs are being met and not overly disadvantaged. We have had her first parents evening and she's doing well.

My sister is October born and she struggled at school and would have benefitted from starting at 4 rather than almost 5. The school had to given her double the work of all the other students to stop her being bored / distracting the others by playing when they hadn't finished the work to play. She was A/B student so smart not super gifted.

It really is child and school dependent.