Research: September-borns do better at GCSE?

I made the wrong choice for my 7yo as i thought academics would be enough. They are very hyper though and at 4yo couldnt sit for a story in a group. Now very defiant. Literally no close friends in year group.

I would defer any others as i dont see why some families should end up with the crap (and certainly not twice). It is still considerably a worse position than bring sept as
Bullying
They could be moved up especially if moving area or school change HT etc.
Sports will still be Sept so competitively they would have to play up even if not at school.

The emotional and social side of it is often ignored for the academics.

So many stories of “I know an august born who got to Cambridge” or “my August born got all 9s/A*s”

My August born boy is flying academically, but the social and emotional side of it is a massive problem. And I can’t see it getting better any time soon. We debated long and hard over deferring him a year. I’m still not sure we made the right decision not to do it. His school were totally on side and happy for us to it, but left the decision to us. They’ve since said they think we made the right choice (looking at the academic side) but he really struggles with friends, and resilience and all the rest of the stuff that isn’t academic.

Such an interesting thread. I teach and where we are in the country we have children who are actually still 3 starting reception because they have the latest August birthdays and we go back at the end of August.

I think children are a bit like puppies - they establish the position in the pack they are comfortable with. It doesn’t mean they can’t move up the pack structure, but statistically they don’t.

So if they establish a position at the top, which would be easier if they are 20% older, they work towards keeping there. Individual children will obviously buck this trend - but it is a well known phenomenon. In countries where the school year runs Jan-Dec January born children do better in examinations. It would be interesting to allocate schools by birthdate in urban areas where there are a number of schools in a geographical area. One school takes Sep-Dec, one Jan-Feb etc and see if this nullified the difference at 11. Pita for parents though 🙂

My daughters' secondary school was certainly aware pupils' age. End of year written reports recorded their exam mark, the average exam mark for the year group, their age and the average age.

My children don't conform to the stereotypes. The one with the summer birthday (2nd half of July), was always a high achiever academically, and went to Oxford. The one with the autumn birthday is dyslexic. She was comfortable at primary but usually at the bottom of the class at secondary (very selective independent). I was very relieved that she was one of the oldest.

They didn't conform physically either. The one with the summer birthday was one of the taller girls in her year group, whereas the autumn one was tiny until the age of 15 when she just shot up, overtaking most of her friends.

I think size/skill is a huge issue.
DS playing rugbytots 4yo vs an almost 5yo. The 5yo is only slightly taller (ds is pretty tall), but between behaviour, kicking, running, listening it's overall a big difference. Then add in DS younger than average behaviour.
Another Jun child is good at kicking, passing etc is still smaller and listens less. So despite being probably good for age is still identifiably younger than the other child. Other children have dropped out due to not liking it but they were all worse/small etc.
Ideally everything would be max of 6m age difference.

I dont think 22% passing is bad. It means 1/5 would have passed if they had either done an extra year/dropped back/been a year more mature. And it's not like all will ever be capable of passing. As it's set so some fail.
We need to focus on the bullying/worry about it that puts everyone off delaying to CSA or dropping back a year.
But also 16 is too late to undo years of being behind and lost confidence. They would likely be stuck in a resit group so not exactly top set.
As well say doing not as well as you could have affects alevel choices. What you imagine you are good at. So getting Bs instead of As. And fundamentals of maths and English.
I would say my level of English wasn't great (we werent set though) and that affected choosing non-essay A-levels, it affected essay writing at degree level. Not necessarily age related but it has had an impact.

I suspect the biggest difference is to the average student, average IQ as they get stuck in lower sets.
Some friends at school suddenly did better around 13/14 and moved up as they put the effort in. However they went from set 2 of 2 to 2 of 3. Or in one subject up to 1/3. Possibly that subject less background knowledge was needed.

quite, not quick (amongst other typos)

I was seriously thinking of taking DD (finishing Year 8) out for a year and homeschooling her, then putting her back into the year below (who would now have caught up to where she left school, ie be about to go into Year 9 of a three year GCSEs), so as to deal with these issues (July born, really really immature in many ways, ie late in terms of physical development even for her age), and everybody I talked to thought I was mad.
Have decided not to do it, because DD has over the last two years found a lovely group of friends, and while school itself is not great, the friendship group is, and she (and I) don't want to jeopardise that.
But I have an awful feeling that i am sacrificing her ability to attain at GCSEs for her social life. Amongst other things, I am really suspicious that the extra time she needs for exams (which she really does need, she only finishes 70% of an exam if she doesn't get extra time), is actually about being young in year, and wonder if she had an extra year to practice speeding up she wouldn't need it, or need it so badly. We are probably going to have to really fight for it for GCSEs, because at the moment we don't have any "diagnosis", just what is obvious to everybody, which is that she is so much slower at doing work (that includes homework, not just exams), than the rest of the class, even though when she actually completes it, she can do it to a high standard (eg she knows how to do most of the maths problems on the paper, just if she doesnt' get extra time, she will only solve 70% and run out of time).
Starting her off on the GCSE journey next year is making me feel quick sick in my stomach, as I really don't think she is ready for it, but I don't want to break her out of her social group either, that is so important, given that up until Year 5 she never really had friends at all (and for many years, didn't even notice, again I think because she was too young to, she was happy parallel playing).

I hear you, pebbles!

My DS was actually a talented sportsman but gave up both cricket and football. In football his relative size was a disadvantage and in cricket it was arrogance, bravado and public school dominance , so a different issue. But his smaller size did mean he was terrified by boys a year older than him bowling at him
British sport refuses to address these issues at junior level.

Late summer DS here and I am convinced this has had a HUGE impact on his life

Big issues with sport as he was labelled as 'not very good' from age 5
Only went to school half days for first term and struggled to catch up after that.
He has always had massive confidence issues about being the smallest, slowest, etc.
Was impacted socially by some clubs/events where he was separated from friends/ his peer group by virtue of his age e.g. cut off points being age at the end of the school term. I seem to have spent my entire life sending emails begging for him to be allowed to be included with the 'older group' and signing waivers.

He did OK, but not outstandingly in his GCSEs, but they seemed to co-incide with maximum hormonal changes and growth spurts which many of his friends had already been through up to 12 months previously.

With the idea of children moving years etc, the GCSE resit pass percentage is incredibly low. (I think around 22% last year). There are obviously other factors influencing this but if all students needed was another year, would we expect that percentage to be higher?

Personally, I think a child retaking a school year should be more commonly allowed/encouraged. At the moment, it seems to be only in extreme cases, but, especially for younger children in the class, there may well come a time when it's clear that stepping back and re-taking a year may well be the right course of action.

I know there'll be the howls of anguish about them being stygmatised etc., which I understand if it's a one in a hundred, but we need to find ways to overcome it, and the impact would be less if more kids did it. There'd also be less of an issue if the child moved schools and went back a year as the new peer group probably wouldn't know that the "new kid" was a year older.

And surely better GCSE results is something to try to attain, even at the cost of a bit of disruption, than potentially a lifetime of poor jobs/careers due to not getting the grades they were actually capable of.

Academically however younger students can be taught rote! We lived in South Korea and the maths standard was phenomenal, but ask those 9 year olds the reasoning behind the calculations and they had no idea!

But by the fact they are younger implies they are less developed emotionally?

I agree that quality teaching is the priority, absolutely. Nonetheless it is interesting that we view students as immature academically and/or emotionally without considering whether they are just younger!

Piggywaspushed interesting that you think this will be the next thing we are expected to know. I'll be honest I don't know pp kids in my classes. There's too many and teaching them all well should be the priority. I don't agree with labelled seating plans and visiting students first just because they are pp, younger etc. If they are struggling I will know and help them.
Nature/nurture is fascinating. It'd be interesting to see this study repeated over a few years to see if other years are the same.

That's why I put it in speech marks...

Tbh I find I am fascinated by nature/ nurture

But ‘ behind’ is so open to interpretation

But maths, I think the argument would be that we should know birth months and should , therefore, teach differently in some ways. When we find children are 'behind' , for example, at secondary, do we look at their chronological age?

When I was a HOY, I always made sure I knew who the oldest and the very youngest were in my year groups (400 students so quite a good number to draw some conclusions) and the differences were really really obvious. They were mainly emotional and social but that will usually impact upon academics , too.

Socio/ economic background
Private/state educated
Large family/ small family
Cultural heritage
Gender

Could be any reason
Sept/oct/nov are for this reason high burth months
I imagine dec to be low. So more volatile data.
Sept -dec get more preschool (5terms).
Jan for eg are the oldest swimming wise for age cut off. And may be the oldest in other countries which could have a very minor effect when coming here.
I imagine classes clumping from oldest down. Leaving youngest out.

This data it for 1 year i think so not necessarily a pattern.

Schools do know age im sure particularly in multi form as they will try to divide equally (primary).

Ultimately I believe there are too many variables to discern a conclusive outcome.

Why such a gap from Sept to Dec? Surely if it was "just" age then the spread would be even?

Or is it that sept/Oct borns are treated differently from day 1?

At Secondary I don't know pupils birth month, therefore it has no impact on how I teach students. I can imagine in reception that teachers do know this information and perhaps have an unconscious bias?