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

It is much more common these days to defer summer term children, even than it was 9 years ago when my eldest started school having just turned 4. There were 3 August babies and 2 July babies in his year group of 20ish children. He was the youngest and remains the youngest to this day, despite changing primary schools once and now being 13 and the youngest in year 9 at his very selective private school. My second child is one of the eldest in the school year and the only advantage it’s given him is in sports, although in fairness he is very sporty anyway and regularly competes with boys up to 2 years older than him. The eldest is sporty too but has really had to work hard to get onto a par with the sportiest of the boys who are almost a whole year older than him. Academically it’s been no problem though as he’s always been the brightest or among the brightest in his class/year.

Sorry just to clarify.. in 11+ areas it’s beneficial to go in normal year or defer?

I'm in Scotland too where in my experience children are in second year nursery at four and a half and Jan Feb children are oldest on year when they start school at five

I deferred my 4 year old August born - there was no way he could have survived school. He isn’t emotionally or socially ready - he also still naps. He also has a growth delay so is tiny.

So he is now doing preschool 3 days a week and is absolutely thriving and exactly where he should be. He’s completely on par with his classmates in terms of size and ability and social / emotional awareness. Only few weeks in and absolutely the best decision we made. He would have been an exhausted emotional mess if he was doing full time reception. It’s clearly stated on gov.uk that deferring a summer born is an option - no child has to start school until CSA (compulsory school age) which is 5. If used to be kids would miss reception and start year 1 but government advice states that there has to be a good reason for missing reception (which there obviously isn’t as it’s really important.) some parents do use it to get “an advantage” but we didn’t - our boy was born early and should have been sept and I believe he’s in the right year for him .

I certainly don't think it's about gaining advantage over other kids.

I agree. It's the opposite really. It's so your child won't be disadvantaged.

I worked in schools for 30 years and I certainly don't think deferring is a middle class thing in the majority of cases. I've seen a lot of August birthdays struggle throughout primary school. Some children will be absolutely fine but parents know their child best and should be allowed to make tge decision best for them. I certainly don't think it's about gaining advantage over other kids.

Every child is different, it's preference. I've worked with children who just turned 4 when starting school some can need some more support.

Right, so a school that has a blanket policy of denying is potentially not following the applicable legislation. This is the kind of thing that a judicial review decides - whether public bodies are making decisions in a lawful manner or not.

As far as I know, every LEA that has had such a blanket policy on this has been found to be acting unlawfully when taken to tribunal. This is why so many LEAs that used to be obstructive have now changed their policies and in most you now simply tick a box if you wish to defer.

It seems secondary Heads haven't yet caught up with legislation a decade old (!) but after a spate of tribunals again the same will happen I expect and they'll realise they have to comply with the law not make decisions based on their personal preferences/ prejudices. One would hope that this time it will happen faster because if they refer to the LEA for advice on the matter the LEA should already be aware that Heads cannot choose to refuse to admit children in the cohort they have been in throughout primary school, having dealt with deferred primary admissions for years now. Academies, being their own LEA, may take longer to get the message hammered home.

Again, all of this would be avoided if there was a robust regulator in the education sector ensuring all schools and Local Authorities comply with the law rather than leaving it to parents to force them to do so through tribunals, as with SEN provision.

Perhaps a judicial review on both of those would be helpful to prevent thousands of parents having to raise individual tribunal cases constantly to force schools/ LAs to act in a legally compliant manner. The education system is a shambles.

And no, to address PP's assertion that only people who are not academic/ failed at school hold this dim view of schools, that doesn't apply to me at all. I was a straight A student at GCSE and A level (no thanks to my many, almost all useless schools) and have a degree and professional qualification. But thanks for implying I'm not intelligent because I have experienced how appallingly schools behave. It's precisely because I value education that I've had conflict with the school system^^ because I would like my children to actually be able to have the support at school for their disabilities to which they are legally entitled so that they can reach their academic potential, and not end up with trashed mental health in the process.

Right, so a school that has a blanket policy of denying is potentially not following the applicable legislation. This is the kind of thing that a judicial review decides - whether public bodies are making decisions in a lawful manner or not.

My understanding is that play based learning that is non directive but child led is the model used in Scandinavian countries. For instance a child will be playing with conkers and then the adult facilitates a game of counting the conkers as the children play. That isn't the same as "right everyone we're going outside to play with conkers now"....

Caveat to everything I wrote above is that I have a July birthday myself and absolutely thrived at school from the outset, so it isn't an given that summer born children will struggle! But that was back in the '80s/'90s, when the system generally was a bit gentler, less of a sausage factory, and children weren't as relentlessly judged and measured against each other.

Interestingly, I understand that Sweden, so often touted as a paragon of late-starting education, is moving to start formal education a year earlier, having slid down the PISA tables. I can't find the Times article, sorry.

As has been said, I think the word 'school' is misleading. Most later starting countries have highly structured play-based programmes in place in universally accessed pre-school/kindergartens, it's not just sandpits and scooters.

I also understand that Scotland's move towards a Scandinavian model of education with more 'exploration' and less 'learning' has seen a slide down the PISA rankings, too.

Play based learning is great as long as it is structured and directed. That takes time, money and expertise.

I would definitely try to defer if I had a July or August born child now.

DD (7) is a December birthday but by some statistical quirk has ended up in a class where over half the girls have August birthdays. The developmental difference between the older and younger group is quite stark - it was very striking when they started how different the children's speech and language capabilities were etc, and this has had a knock-on effect on other things. Now, in Year 2, all of the 'higher attaining' children in the class have winter birthdays, and all of the 'lower attaining' ones are summer born.

As an ex-teacher myself I know how these early labels unfortunately tend to 'stick' throughout children's schooling - where I've taught very able summer borns in older years, especially those who have experienced a development 'leap' while they've been in my class, their previous teachers have sometimes doubted my judgment and claimed that I've over-levelled them, because in their heads they've already been put into the 'less capable' box. Some schools I've worked in have recognised children born after April as potentially needing additional help and support, but by no means all of them recognise age within cohort as a factor.

It's also interesting that the younger ones have formed a separate and quite exclusive friendship group, barely mixing at all with the older children - DD finds this frustrating too, as in effect this has halved her friendship options among the cohort. DD is unusually mature for her age, and says that (from her perspective) the younger ones behave like toddlers - completely different choice of games/ways of interacting etc. It's almost like mutual incomprehension between the two groups at times, and I'm not sure any of their class teachers have even recognised this as a 'thing'.

I don’t know whether this is still the case, but some years ago, the GCSE results of children out of cohort, therefore older, were not allowed to be counted in the school’s data.

I do think that it's mainly about the individual child's development and age is only one of many factors. In countries where it's common to repeat a year, it's also common to skip a year. Often the children skipping a year are end of year so almost 2 years younger than the intended age.
It just means that the academically able are allowed to thrive at their own pace without burdening the school to make a special plan for them or creating extra work for the teacher.

I really think people worry too much about maturity levels, I've never known it to cause a real problem. At least not half as much as trying to keep children all together simply based on age.

Obviously every child is different but on average I think being a summer born is worse for boys and those without older siblings (pretty sure there is also data to back this up).

DC1 is an early summer born boy and DC2 is an autumn born girl.

DC1 coped fine but DC2 is a similar level now, at just turned 4, as DS was when starting reception, yet she has a whole year of preschool first. She can write her name, is reading simple words, is tall and physically confident (riding a bike, drawing well, dressing herself etc). While DC1 was ok starting reception I can already see that DC2 is going to absolutely thrive and I’m so happy that she has a whole other year of play ahead of her. It seems unfair that they should have different experiences by a quirk of when they were conceived and I think deferring is a great way of redressing this.

Summer children are disadvantaged. I remember a primary school teacher telling me DS2 was worryingly behind and had only just reached some literacy or maths target that his friends A and W had mastered three months earlier. I said, 'Yeah - they are both nine months older than him That makes a different when you are only six. So if you take that into account, he's actually mastered it six months younger than them.' I watched the lightbulb moment on her face as this had clearly never occurred to her. And she was an infant school teacher.

Summer born children are often made to feel less able academically than their peers at infant school - and throughout school life are less likely to be picked for sport as they are likely to be the smallest or least adept in their year. To give your child an advantage, make sure they are oldest in the year.

This was our situation too. I still feel cheated out of that extra year 16 years later but felt it was best to start her in reception that go straight to yr1.
She was also very aware that all her friends were starting school and desperately wanted to be with them. She struggled to settle for the first term but was fine after that.

It used to be that a child started school in the term which contained their birthday or - if they had a holiday birthday - the term which preceded it. I, for example, have a June birthday and started school after Easter. Obviously, this was decades ago (1963!) and none of us went to nursery or any sort of pre-school.

I remain convinced that children are pushed into formal learning before many are ready for it.

Those posters In England) that post "It's only allowed around here for developmental delays/learning difficulties" don't know the law. The law is the same across England. All parents can decide to delay the start of their summerborn child. The admission authority then has to decide in the best interests of the child which year group they will put them in. The answer is rarely that they should put them in yr 1 and skip reception as that is rarely if ever in the best interests of the child. Most parents that fight this win and the child goes in reception. The guidance on this for academies, voluntary aided schools (where the governors are the admission authority) and local authorities is quite clear. I deferred my now yr 7 son and the process is becoming easier and more understood all the time.

My DS1 (May) Y1 class was divided into Y1 and a Y1/2 class. He was in the Y1 group, 24 kids, 21 of them boys. The teacher said to me that she felt every one of them would've benefitted from repeating reception, were it allowed back then. Instead, his immaturity finally came home to roost at 15/16 when he didn't do so well in his GCSEs then flunked out of Y12 A levels. Luckily we changed direction, he did a BTEC and now has a First in computing.

DS2 (also May) effectively did a catch up year by doing an Art Foundation before uni.

Someone said 'it evens out by Y5'. It doesn't. I believe 2/3 or more of Oxbridge students are Sept-Dec born?

Finally, the older child is bigger, stronger, more mature so goes through school getting praised. The younger child might actually achieve higher once they hit that older child's age, but there's no rara squad for them.

I'd've deferred in a heartbeat had it been an option.

Two summer born and they have always struggled. They slept though most of p1

I would have deferred my DC if they were jan/feb born (Scotland here)

I'm a January birthday and went to university at 17 and it was just too young. An extra year of school would have made a big difference in terms of maturity and socially.

As it is my two are spring born so were amongst the oldest in their year, and they always preferred it that way.

I haven't read the full thread so this may have been said already.

Children who start school on the younger side tend to need more additional help in school than those who start later. Where I live ( not the UK) children generally start aged between 4.5 and 5.5 years. Some of the younger ones will go on to need extra coaching from special ed teachers. It's been shown that proportionally more of the younger age group need this coaching compared to the older ones - so it's not really SEN in many cases, ie many of them would be fine if they were just that bit older for their class.

Unfortunately, this has a knock on effect on those children who do have SEN. Special ed teachers are over-stretched and I feel the present system disadvantages those children who really do have additional needs. There simply isn't enough time to help them adequately while also attending to a younger cohort who are struggling too, but simply because of their age.

Starting age needs to go up and more early years provision provided imho. As pp have said, in countries where the starting age of formal schooling is higher, 6 or 7, the vast majority of children will be developmentally ready, and you don't see the same sort of gaps emerge between youngest and oldest in the class as can happen now.

Unless SEN it's not until year one that summer borns really feel the difference if I have understood the research correctly. Reception is play based so not unusual to settle well.