Summer born headache.

I think it should work both ways. One of mine was Christmas born, very bright and mature with most friends in the year above. I wish they could have moved up a year.

He’s not summer born! I was born in May, went to grammar school and have got a Masters. At this rate, anyone born after 1st Jan will be held back.

Though invested parents make a world of difference there is the genetic material in the first place.

Your son will come on leaps and bounds over the next year though emotionally and the academics aren’t the critical thing here, but his social and emotional readiness for school.

As a reception teacher, there’s a real trend for parents to be incredibly over cautious and mollycoddling of their children. Before my new class have even started I’ve noticed at least 4 sets of parents who are going to struggle with their child starting school. I’d be interested to know the reasons for all of these deferrals.

Indeed. I have a June birthday, my best friend at school end of August - and we still topped our respective (different primary schools) classes, got great exam results and went to good universities. I think too many parents wrongly think there will be issues for their children. Deferring wasn't a thing when I was a child, nor for most of my teaching career.

Some children are always going to be the oldest and some the youngest.

It doesn’t have to be a formal competition for children to compare themselves to each other, or to notice that some children have more advanced physical or language skills. Sometimes, the difference can be significant even within a year so it makes no sense to increase the gap between the most and least developed within a class more than it already is.

You are correct that parental influences will have the biggest effect on children’s outcomes, but that doesn’t mean state provided services should be contributing to the divide between parents who can play the system and those who can’t.

The knock on effect is some children being over a year older than others when it comes to doing GCSE’s, A levels and applying for university when they are in competition with each other and it is not right for some to be given an advantage by the education system when it does have a detrimental effect on others.

Social contagion and FOMO - can’t have someone else’s kid getting a benefit mine might not.

This is why it needs a harder rule, not just because middle class mummies think it’s a nice thing to do to ensure their kid is a step ahead.

There were still 2 intakes when DS was little so he was sent at Easter and was very young and had just hit 5. DH and I are Summer born with him being very late. They didn’t have deferrals when we were young at all and we both did very well academically, DH has a PhD. When did people start freaking out about summer borns and when did deferrals start?

Unfortunately SEN support is a bit of a mixed bag. I felt I had no choice but to delay my child’s start, for various reasons. It’s not a decision I took lightly.

You can legally hold him out of school until the term after he turns 5 though, so you could send him after Easter. If you don’t think he’s ready I would do that rather than send him in September. My mum did this with me many moons ago and people said I’d never catch up but I did (arrived academically ahead as I could read) and socially my mum knew I wasn’t ready yet so didn’t send me until the summer term.

I didn’t defer my eldest as I knew he would be bored.

The reason I know it is 15 is they all go to the same playgroup my son goes too. From what I heard one was deferring original and the number then went up and up. Two have decided over the last few days they are going to defer. ( we are all on a group chat ). My eldest DC is born August and was more than ready for school. It my youngest who was due end of June but born in March who who I am concerned about.

All of that is true if they start a year later too.

We're not talking about children being 10 years old and starting reception. At MOST they're starting within a few months - and the vast majority within a few weeks or even days - of children born in the September. Who have all these 'advantages' that no one bats an eyelid about.

As regulations stand, deferred children can legally leave school at the end of Yr10. A year before their GCSEs.

Well put, @Soontobe60 .

In what way? And to what detriment?

That’s very unusual to have such a large number of deferred children. After teaching for 35+ years, I strongly believe that there should be a cut off age and that should be stuck with. A good Early Years unit will have staff that really understand child development and as such can cater for a range of needs within the unit. When parents say ‘my dc isn’t ready for school’ what do they actually mean? What do they think will happen to their dc in Reception? I’ll tell you what usually happens:
-children play alongside and with other children
-children learn to build relationships with other adults
-children sing songs that help them acquire good language skills, practice number sequences, count, acquire rhyme skills
-children get to be creative
-children get to expand the spectrum of gross and fine motor skills
-children practice turn-taking, patience, sharing, problem-solving
-children become confident individuals ready to explore the wider world

In addition to all the above, where a child may have an additional need (speech + language, physical, SEM ect) that need would be identified and steps taken to assess, bring in specialist support and target provision to help with that need.
Early Years units are not awful places where children are left to battle with other children who may well be up to a year older (or younger) than them. They are places where ALL children are nurtured.

You know the class has 15 deferred from previous year , but do you now the spread of ages for the other 15? Are there more from the autumn term, or is there a good mix through the year?

15 seems completely insane. There isn't a single deferred child in either of my children's classes.
My son's best friend since reception is a late August born and he's never had any issues.

Academic results, of the pupils, SATS and other nationally recorded results - there is a gap between the oldest and youngest (on average). So a blanket "He'll catch up to where he should be" is not strictly true.

Obviously it depends on the individual child, and is a parental decision. But some of the posts on this thread are totally misunderstanding why some parents choose to defer and seem quite short-sighted. For every summer born that was "fine" others will not be fine and will struggle.

Also all the mentions of how reception is like an extension of nursery. That may be true, but the expectations of children ramp up quickly in Year 1 and beyond. Formal education starts too early in the UK IMO.

It's good to hear that deferral is becoming more common and mainstream. Hopefully that means given time more people will actually understand what is involved. And obviously means it is getting easier to get a request granted at entry to reception, which will have a knock on effect with secondary schools further down the line.

By advantaging some children, you are a placing a disadvantage on others

IF - and that's a big if - you look at school as a competition. But this will always be true, for any metric you care to mention. You're talking about children's age giving children an advantage, but you could easily be talking about children who have tutoring, or children who don't have siblings and get their parents' full attention. Or children who come from a family whose parents are university educated. Or children who have stable home lives and haven't moved around due to parental jobs or divorce. THEY will have an 'advantage' through life too, especially compared to the children in the class who have the direct opposite situation.

So why this focus solely on children being older - when the reason to delay is to escape a known and built-in disadvantage?

I don’t understand why so many parents are deferring. All of my DC are summer born, one is late august and it wasn’t an option when they were starting school. They have had their struggles but are doing ok (secondary school now) and I’m not sure things would have been any different if they had deferred.

I don’t think it is a fair process- it should be looked at on an individual needs basis.

I'd assume that the op knows that in her specific DC's school that 15 have chosen to apply, and been allowed to defer.

You're talking about an average group.

In dd1's reception class there were 15 winter babies, 3 Spring babies and 9 summer babies.
That was just how it worked out for that class.

My class at primary had only 6 winter babies out of 32 starters.

When you start looking at specific groups then you can get a misbalance.
And one child deferring probably does make it more likely others defer. Both on the basis the school may encourage it, but also that parents talk. A parent who isn't sure, may be reassured to find their DC wouldn't be the only one. A parent who didn't know you could, may discover they can when talking to another parent.
A parent who wasn't going to may change their mind when several others say they are etc.