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.

"My feeling is the 'Summer Born' thing is a fallacy"

As a group summer born children do consistently worse at school throughout their academic career - right up to GCSE.

Obviously that doesn't mean summer born children can't be super bright and successful, but as a group they do worse overall.

Read the study ekidna links to:

"These odds ratios are derived from the percentages of pupils achieving a good
level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (24
percentage points difference), the expected level in both English and maths at
Key Stage 2 (8 percentage points difference), and five or more grades A*-C at
GCSE including English and maths (6 percentage points difference). To put
this in context, 10,000 summer-born children per year fail to achieve this
standard at GCSE, which influences their chances of progressing to A-levels
and beyond, purely because they are the youngest pupils sitting the GCSE
examinations due to the timing of their birth and the school year"

DD is an august baby by 4 hours (her own fault, we were ready for her from mid July!) and I wonder about this. However we are seeing the impact of terms now, her nursery shifts it's children up in September and they have held DD back due to not having space in the room above. It has been detrimental as she now plays at the younger children's level and as the staff say she needs the challenges of the bigger children.

That said. I won't have another summer holiday baby, I'll aim for autumn term and spring term because I can see summer holiday parties being harder to arrange! No winter babaies. I was born in January and as an adult I don't celebrate my birthday, I hate the miserable grey weather.

ekidna thank you got the link

DS is a late June baby and is just about to finish reception class. He started in September and so has done a full year. I was a bit worried at the start of the year if I'm honest.

But he's been completely fine and if anything was ready for it. He didn't jump straight into wanting to read, write, and do sums but he's there now. Reception class teachers are very used to disparate ages and have just let him learn at his own pace. He spend much of the first term and a half playing aliens, learning to sit on the mat for more than three minutes at a time, and making friends.

He's got friends of all ages in his class and I honestly can't see much difference between them all. It's worth adding that there's a boy in his class who's markedly pretty advanced and his birthday is 29 August.

It depends on the child I think but I really wouldn't worry too much.

stabby he is to start nursery school in November. I hoping that it will help.

It's a very popular school, so no guarantees that he will stay there for reception, which I believe that its also not fair. The system is a shambles.

...and I'm a summer baby and did ok too!

I'm not sure if this is true of all the councils in Scotland, but I do know that in my own, children born sept- dec are also considered as well as those who would normally be considered in jan and feb. We have also had permission to defer our july born ds2 this year (due to language and social difficulties). He has been getting help from various professionals for most of this year- I dreard to think how he would have coped had he been in a school setting from the age of 3. Ds1 is feb born and the youngest in his year (not deferred) and he has thrived in school for the most part. Each child is different though and it is good to feel that as a parent you are able to have a say in your childs education.

Dd was born almost at the end of August and she was fine. She started reception at 4 and a couple of days later some classmates were turning 5. It seemed strange. It didn't hinder dd at all as she is very able though. I talked to her reception teacher about it and she said it didn't matter about the age because they all start together? BUT i found when helping in the classroom that some of the younger ones were brighter than the others. Don't panic.

My dd2 was born 31st August - she will ALWAYS be the youngest in her year group. She is due to turn 3 end of august this year, but because of her birth date, she has already done a full year (3 mornings per week) at pre school.

In september, she will go 5 mornings per week and as it's the term following her 3rd birthday, it is all funded.

When she goes into reception, she will be 4 and a few days, but I'm not worried.

School isn't actually compulsory until the term following a child's 5th birthday - so if I choose to keep her out of school until then, it won't be a problem

Not going to happen though, pre school is wonderful and this time next year, she will be more than ready for school.

It's difficult. These threads are always full of positive anecdotes, which shows that not all summer born children struggle (so the main thing is to consider how ready your own child is) BUT on average summer born children do worse (i.e. there is on average an advantage to be the oldest in the class vs. the youngest, so it's not a baseless concern).

I have a September born DS and about to have an August born DC, and I suspect that if we go Indy, I will defer the August child for a year as there's no downside to it and there is potential upside. If DS had been born a month earlier, I would be quite concerned about him starting school at just turned 4 as I think he will definitely benefit from the extra year in pre-school in terms of concentration and ability to apply himself (currently something of a contrarian)

I can understand why the state system would find it hard to offer this flexibility though. What would be interesting is to know whether relative age, or absolute age is the issue in underperformance of summer born children (i.e. if they made the cut off June 30 for a September start, would this be better, or is it age relative to the rest of the class that's the problem)

In nz kids can start school on their 5th birthday, and must have started by their 6th. Great system for parents, probably a nightmare for teachers. There will always be someone in the class who is the youngest.

ginger does that not mean that the reception class starts off with 1 kid and then grows gradually throughout the year?

Everyone always talks about the academic outcomes, but that's not the whole story. The social aspect of school is important too. My DS is perfectly capable of doing the work but is struggling mixing with children much older (and bigger) than him. This may be more of a problem for boys than girls however.

DD2 has a mid August birthday and was born a month early due to IUGR. She is just finishing reception. She is noticeably "4" at times, according to her teacher, which is fine by me, because she is....4.

She just got 100/117 on her foundation stage profile, which is pretty good considering the last 13 points are 'exceptional', so in effect she scored 100/104 'ordinary' points.

Would she have picked up those last 4 points if she had been born on time? Probably. Would she have picked up some of the 13 exceptional points? Possibly. But then, she would have been the very oldest in the class, so I think she's achieved more now.

If anything, I think it's going to be our chaotic home situation which impacts her.Her sister's SN means that much as I try, it is often impossible to achieve quiet time with DD2.

gaelic My Dsis was a similar story- she was put "up" a year (September birthday so was one of the oldest in her class, but then missed last year of primary and went into secondary, becoming the youngest). Academically was fine but socially really struggled, as was a young eleven year old. Didnt really recover until 6th form.

What they lose on the swings they gain on the roundabouts. DD was born at the end of May, enjoyed a balmy summer and lots of long walks and sunshine. A year later she crawled around the garden and took her first steps on the lawn and her crawly period combined with beach and water play, etc. DS born in the bleak mid winter didn't have that freedom at those key points - he was always wrapped up for an arctic dash and learnt to walk in the sitting room with the Teletubbies.

richmanpoorman, if you go private and defer them to start in reception age 5, presumably this means that if they ever need to go back to state school they'd have to skip a year? Eg schools with 11 plus won't let children sit this later, councils require all DC to be "in year". That would be my worry.

I get really cross when people say stuff like" oh the boy at the top of X class is august born", often to dismiss others' concerns about their DC when they themselves don't have summer-born children. Look at the actual evidence, it's pretty scary.

No one's dismissing anything. That's a quote from my post, and I do have a summer born DS.

All that I and others are saying is that often, it depends on the child and how the school is set up to deal with this level of variety.

My late June born DS has done well academically and socially in reception class. It was the right decision to start in September FOR HIM. In contrast to the one or two other summer born kids in his class who started in January, he is more settled because he hasn't had to try and fit into a pre-existing group. His teachers have been incredibly pro-active and flexible and all in all, it's been a positive experience. He's by no means exceptionally bright or confident incidentally and he's state educated. He took a while to want to do 'proper learning' but reception is very similar to pre-school in that it allows them this time to settle and to work out how to do the important things (bum wiping, finding your peg, and making friends included). And his August born friend doesn't seem to have had any problems either.

But it can of course be difficult for some and there is of course evidence etc. I personally think you should trust your instincts about your child and your school. We did and have no regrets.

An anecdote to counter all of the positive ones. Dd is 7 and will turn 8 at the end of August.

Since she started school, expectations have been set lower for her because she is the youngest in the class. She has bought into this and adopted a very young way of speaking and is ready to give up at the slightest challenge.

The schools low expectations of her have given her low expectations of herself. They have also masked the fact that she may have other problems. Everyone expected her to struggle a bit so when she did, no one asked why, it was simply put down to her being so much younger than anyone else. We accepted this too.

I think this will have a significant long term impact on her and will take us a long time to overcome.

The trouble is that parents (in England) cannot choose to defer, there is no choice but for summer-born DC to start with the older children in reception (other than going PT or starting later, which bring their own problems).

My son is an end of August child. He was the youngest in the school when he started - just 4yrs and 4 days old.

There are no significant problems academically - in fact he is in the top groups for most of his work.

However, he is now in yr 6 (finishes on friday) and we have noticed, since about yr4, that the emotianl differences are greater than his peers.

Anecdotes of DC doing well are a bit like when someone is ill or ttc and people say "oh I know someone who had that and was fine", all very well and intended to reassure, but meaningless and make it more difficult for the worried person to express their concerns.

Have asked around at the school where i work and the consensus seems to be that first born children in a family do better if they are amongst the oldest in the class, second born and later catch up quicker if younger - and the older child going to school already really seems to help a lot....

So when planning for a family you should plan a Sept-Dec first born, then the others can come along whenever.... so long as there is a gap big enough for them to be in separate years at school!! (my sister has a September born and a July born - we joke she had a private room in the maternity unit! )

While my youngest has done o.k with the academic work - sport wise it has been an issue.

Sports day when the race against each other usually end in tears for her - she is last. Why the don't race youngest together as there a few late summer DC I'm not sure but she end up against DC almost 10 months older.

I can't say completely that it her birthday date - as genetics could play a part but I don't think it helps her or her confidence.

I've not had the low expectation issue with DD1. I have with DS as he's a boy and it is noticeable as a late spring baby he younger than the Nov, Dec boys. I hope I'm countering this at home but it is a worry.