about summer born children and school

[chilled7up]

My DS a summer born (July). He is 3 and due to start Reception next year. I know that one year will make a massive difference in his development, but I feel he'll be too young and immature for school. I worry that a bad start will damage his confidence on the long run.

I'm I being unreasonable to think that parents should have a choice and should be able to decide whether a child should start school a year later? I know we can defer reception and go straight to year one, but that won't make any difference, just delay the problem.

In scotland the winter babies are the youngest we dont have reception, anyway dd2 was a late winter baby and i did send her to school at 4 but she was to young and i do regret it, you dont have to send them to school until they are 5 up here can you defer him if you feel he isnt ready

even though I regretted she is now 14 and doing fine in high school do look into it but if he is ready send him

there is no solution this (non-) problem.

Wherever you put the cut off point, there will ALWAYS be a youngest in the year.

It's like fighting windmills

Wherever you put the cut off point, there will ALWAYS be a youngest in the year.

It's like fighting windmills

you are right there has to be a cut off somewhere,

yanbu to be concerned but the fact you are AWARE is great, and means you can help your child :)

if it helps any my ds1 is a late aug bday and ds2 is july, so both due to start school just after their 4th bdays, there was no way ds1 was ready so we didnt send him, ditto ds2 and i home-schooled until ds1 was 9 and ds2 was 6. anyway they are now in yr 8 and yr 5 and both top of their yr group and doing brilliantly, you would never know they were the youngest ones in their yr.

ds2 has had a few issues with maturity but in the last 6mths has come on really well with this.

the schools are aware that some children are younger and they dont all learn at the same speed etc and most good schools will take this into account and work with you and your child :)

my ds3 is dec born and did fine starting when 4 and 3/4, tho still struggled with reading etc but it has all clicked into place in yr 2, which is quite common i have found.

my ds4 is march and he starts this sept, he is desperate to go to school and is ready imo, but he has 3 elder brothers and i think that really helps! he wants to do whatever they are doing and strives to compete with the and does so!

all children are different basically but the school should work with that.

talk to the school, reassure your child etc, but imo the first 2 yrs of school are really all about the socialising, learning the rules, how to interact with others, work in a group etc and yes the basics of reading and writing but i wouldnt focus too much on reading etc if he is behind in reception or yr 1. what is important is that he ENJOYS school and loves learning and he will get there with the rest :)

5madthings what materials books etc did you use for homeschooling? I'm not planning to do it due to lack of time (I'll be studying and working), but to give him some extra support.

um not that many tbh, we were more autonomous and followed their interests but we did get basic books from whsmith etc on maths and writing practise etc, you can even get them in the supermarket now and you can get some great wipe clean ones for little ones (my ds4 has some) so they can just practise t heir pen control etc, they arent expensive, my pre-school suggested them and again they were just in tescos.

anything like that as long as your ds likes them is great and very easy to do :)

oh the letterland ones are very good and jolly phonics :)

Thanks

Find out which phonics scheme your school uses first - ours did not want parents to do letterland if possible as they follow the jolly phonics scheme.

That's a good tip bytheway I was just looking them up on amazon. I'm glad I read your post before buying. I thought that there wouldn't be much difference.

We have a choice here (Ireland) and Ithink it's a 50:50 split whether parents send children aged 4 or 5, mostly due to the cost of childcare. DS is a July baby and I will be waiting until he is five to send him to school. It's rubbish that you don't have a choice.

I haven't read the whole thread but I'm interested in the subject as my dc2 is due at the end of August, and I'm concerned that she won't have the start she should when starting school. I think that the autumn and winter children have a massive head start as they get proper nursery school from the term after they are 3 so 18 months in nursery then start school as he oldest.

As a school governor I'm well aware that he summer children statistically don't do as well as the autumn and winter children. Obviously there are exceptions just as every September child isn't guaranteed to be top of the class, but on the whole the summer ones just don't do as well.

DC1 is an end of June baby. All the nursery teachers and I think she's capable of Reception and did very well in nursery five afternoons a week. It's amazing how much they change and learn from 3 to 4.

YANBU though. There should be a choice. A friend's son was born in August and us repeating nursery this year through choice.

My DD is the youngest in her school year. To deny it makes a difference would be sily. It certainly does. She has had to have a bit of extra help here and there but now she has just finished year two, she is almost on a par with her peers.

At nearly 7 (her birthday is near the end of Aug) it does still make a difference. I am sure it will not for many more years though.

I would not suggest starting later just go with it but not expect too much to begin with.

tbh it seems that in reception it is predominantly play orientated - it certainly doesn't appear to be arduous hard work! its a few hours of playing with some numeracy and literacy thrown in. Keeping your child off till later in the year will mean that they have missed the learning that the other children have had which could magnify any difference and may find it difficult socially - although one of the posters said her daughter as the new girl was of interest to everyone.

why not start and see how you get on? Why would you think he would have a bad start? there will be children as young as him in the class, there will be kids who have never been to pre-school, kids who can't speak english - a whole range. give him the opportunity - he may thrive!

DD2 is a late august baby. She's almost finished yr2 now and is above average in everything but PE (flat feet and no confidence!). The teachers have been dealing with summer babies for years, and are well aware of their limitations.
DD2 was 4 yrs 3 weeks when she went into reception. It took a while for the academic side to take hold, but part way through yr1 something clicked and she took off. I would never have held her back, but then i started full time school when i was 3.
DD1 is Dec born, and DS is Sept. He'll have had two years in pre school before he starts reception in 2014.

DS1 is a July born (birthday on Friday actually, the last day of term) and I worried especially as he had some SEN and was a little immature for his age. Turns out he was fine and it was DS2 who was September born who had more trouble adapting to school, perhaps because he spent too much time at home with me and at nursery!

You never can tell. Whilst I sympathise with your worries, it is not a foregone conclusion that he will have any trouble at all and indeed he might take to it like a duck to water. He will change a lot in a year in ways you can't imagine now, particularly if he is your first born and you don't know what to expect so it is too soon to get too anxious.

The best you can do is make sure he can take care of himself. Sort out going to the toilet (DS1 wasn't toilet trained until he was 3 and 3 months so not dry at this stage when he turned 3), and make sure that he can dress and undress and that sort of thing and he will be OK.

And fwiw, I was summer born (August) and always top of the class and DS1 was also pretty much at the top for literacy by the middle of Yr 1 and fine in everything else. It doesn't have to make a difference.

OP - my DS1 is July born, his birthday is next Monday.

This time last year I was really worried about him starting school, very concerned that he would really struggle socially and emotionally more than anything.

A year on and he really is ready to go (except that he still isn't reliably dry but we will ignore that for now!).

My advice is to really engage with his key worker at preschool, find out their view and work with them on the things that they know he needs to be able to cope with before starting school.

EndoplasmicReticulum Mon 16-Jul-12 15:04:55

My boy is now at the end of year 1, and has just failed the phonics test. Age not taken into account here either, it seems. If he took it in 11 months time he would be likely to do better, yes?

Not necessarily, I have spent the weekend going to more birthday parties than would seem possible (six in two days and as Mums we have been talking about the phonics test and we have found that age has had not much impact. My DC2 who is an older child, birthday is usually first day back at school and is Aspergers and he 'aced it' to quote his teacher but then according to other mums so did their July/Aug born children and some older children failed it and some were in between. I know it is anecdotal but it does show that it doesn't matter what age they are.

My dd is end of August. I deferred her going to nursery by a term so she'd be that much older and more mature. Big mistake. All the children who'd started in September had made friends and got to know each other, she was always the "new girl".
Your ds will be fine - teachers do make allowances for August babies.

there are positives to being a summer baby, you get a years grace when you get to A-levels uni time. I didn't choose to but if I had taken a year out I wouldn't have been older than the people in the year I was going into. I actually graduated when I was 20 as my birthday was the summer after I graduated. I feel it was great to get all of my education out of the way before I was 21.

My brother is a November baby and took a gap year, he also studies at a scotish university so had an 4 year degree.. then he went on to do a MA so he only finished his education when he was 25 he hated it taking so long and would say "you had bought a house by the time you were this age and im still at uni."

I never knew about the worries about July And August babies really until I had children and I'm a teacher. I used to think the reception teachers were being a bit daft tbh. I taught year six and the reason I thought they were being daft was that by then I had no idea where in the year the children came until I really thought about it. Also, much as the plural of anecdotes is not data, I have just gone through the list of uni friends I had, at a Russell group uni, plus friends outside who've done well academically and if the twelve who came to mind straight away, eight were may-August birthdays, and four sept-December. So, when they're little, yes it might make a difference but longer term that isn't borne out by my experience. I'll let you know- I have two October babies and one July.

It's not so bad

DS1's an August boy and he lost the sight in one eye in an accident a couple of months before he was due to start school ... He needed some help with his work for the first few years and then took off and hasn't looked back since!