Summer born babies - am I wrong?

[Sunflowermuma]

Hi all, I'm probably BU particularly as my friends plans don't actually have any impact on me but

I have 2DD D1 is 3 and May Born. DD2 is 6m July Born

My friend has 3 kids. DS aged 7Sept, DD 3Aug and DS 5mAug

Our two daughters are both due to start school in September at different schools, my friend told me this week how she is in contact with the school to have her daughter start Sept 2020 instead as she's summer born. I asked why as her daughter is already in nursery 5 days, has no health issues and certainly isn't behind on development. Her reasoning? She just doesn't want a child to be youngest in the year.

Her son is very bright and doing really well at school and she puts that down to his sept birthday.

I queried her and said someone has to be the youngest and surely if she doesn't have any developmental issues the school will just say no. She replied saying that she'll make something up as she'll do what she can to get her DD ahead. Again this made no sense to me as surely having another year at nursery won't be good for her and she may get picked on once the other kids realise? She got a bit snappy with me and told me to mind my own so I now feel bad for questioning her, I was polite and tbh just trying to understand her thinking

Do people really do this? I understand delaying for developmental reasons but just to make your child the oldest instead of youngest?

I think it's unlikely that your friend's DD will be allowed to start school a year late if there are no special needs, but if she needs to be aware that if it does happen, at some point her DD may be expected to miss a whole year of school in order to rejoin her "true" year group, most likely at the start of secondary school. This sometimes happens even when there are special needs involved.

For what it's worth, one of my DC was born in August and had very few problems on starting school. In his first term he occasionally fell asleep towards the end of the school day, but he was happy and making progress and if anything he was socially more ready for school than his January born sibling.

That national guidance doesn't say what people up-thread are claiming.

I don't think it is saying that being summer-born is enough to join a different year. It says you should be able to ask, and they must take the child's best interest (and opinion of the head) into account.

In fact they make clear that if your child starts school at 5, it is for the head to decide what year they go into. The fact that they might have been at a disadvantage if they skip reception is given as a reason why the head might choose to let them start reception. It looks like it's a gamble, where by making your child miss the normal year of reception, you might get the result you want, or you might get a result that's worse than them having started a year earlier.

Secondly, it says that head teachers can reallocate a child to a year they deem suitable at their discretion, presumably overrriding the initial choice, and that secondary schools can on admission put them in the year they deem appropriate. So it's actually saying the opposite of what was claimed up-thread, it's saying that any initial decision can be overridden, rather than it will definitely be preserved.

I delayed my late summer born daughter under the rules that allowed me to automatically do so - we are in Devon. She’s 1 day older than a September born very bright boy in her class. No issues with being bored, she got to enjoy 2 full years of preschool and I got to spend more time at home with her. It was the best decision for her and our family. She’s doing really well now and suffering no downsides at all.

At the time we applied to delay we received a letter from the local authority to confirm that she was entitled to remain in the same cohort throughout her school life until the age at which compulsory education ends. Ours was the first year these rules came in and I am so glad for her sake.

I teach and believe quite strongly that deferring for a year is absolutely in the best interests of some children. Not always because of their age/gender, but there's a definite pattern for some summer-born-boys that's almost become a cliche.

Both DC here are winter-born but if they were August babies I'd have considered deferring them if I felt it was appropriate. I see it so often where little children come in to Reception when they're simply not ready, and working closely with our local nursery means I see how beneficial another 12 months at such a wonderful setting could be to their development. It's a shame it's not more widely-accepted.

YANBU generally

In our area, I am pretty certain that children go into Year 1 so they would still be the youngest and would've missed a chunk of reception...so would still be behind/catching up (in my opinion)

I am August born (the very youngest of the year!) and never had issues at school- the only time I ever felt it was when it seemed like everyone else was passing their driving test or managing to be served alcohol on nights out.

My youngest is August born too, and unless there are developmental issues or other problems, we plan for them to start reception at the age of 4.

I do think the rationale of not wanting your child to be the youngest is rather silly- there will always be the youngest/eldest in each year, they have to cut it off somewhere.

Your friend sounds very sensitive about it all- maybe she had a bad experience herself as a child?

I wish we'd been able to do this. Dd is a late July baby and was the youngest girl at her infant and junior schools. Reception was ok because they split the dc into youngest and oldest and her class did half days until Easter. For the first few months she came home and slept every afternoon but she would have been happier with her yoinger friends at pre-school I'm sure.
She's doing ok academically now but really lacks confidence and has always been intimidated by the bigger, louder more confident children. Sport was a disaster! She's just played catch up since she started school
In her GCSE year now, many of her friends are already 16, into boys, parties, alcohol etc and she just isn't ready for all that stuff.

I am actually with your friend on this OP.

My birthday is 30th Aug and whilst I was actually mostly ahead academically, Social I massively struggled.
Especially in high school omg it was hell. I spent the entire first year crying and trying to find reasons to be sent home ill. I just wanted to go back to primary school, I was far far too young to be at high school from a developmental standpoint. I had only turned 11 a few days before.....

Oh and my mum already had had me start school the January after I turned 4, instead of the previous September. Still wasn't enough.

When in year 7, they tried everything to send me back to primary but the LA weren't having it. I ended up at school 2 days a week and with a LA funded Home Tutor the other 3

Makes a lot of difference. I am late August. For me, it wasn't the academic side, it was the physical problem of being among the smallest in the year. My son is also August, and had similar issues.

For me, it wasn't the academic side, it was the physical problem of being among the smallest in the year.

That's interesting - I didn't suffer too much from being July born (like a pp, my only real issue was being annoyed when everyone but me could go to the pub!) but I've always been very tall for my age - I was the tallest girl in my primary school class and since I was 5'8 by year 8 I think I'd have been even more self conscious if I'd been in the year below! Since I married a fellow giant, perhaps our (currently 90th centile) summer born DS will also get a slightly easier ride of it by being big for his age...

We did the same as your friend OP and I'm really glad we did.

I have 3 sep/Oct borns and 1 summer born. I would say that the older ones were advantaged earlier on but by year 2/3 it was much more even. I did consider deferring dc4 (summer born) as she also had a few issues that I thought may disadvantage her but, when I looked into it, I realised that transfer to secondary would be a nightmare. There was a very good chance that she would have gone from year 6 to year 8 or year 5 to year 7. All things considered I would have wanted any 'disadvantage' to happen at primary rather than secondary level. As it happens she has thrived and school has undoubtedly been the best thing for her. Year R is really, in my opinion, just an extension of nursery with much play led learning.

I'd have held back DS1 if I could be sure he'd remain in that year group through school - but the option wasn't there when we applied. He'd have gone straight to year 1. He's 9 now, mid-aug birthday, and in year 5. He's got ASD and is pretty immature, working below the expected level in everything, in intervention classes. He's already at a disadvantage because of his disability, socially etc. However, you would never know to look at him that he's one of the youngest, he's a tall, well built kid wearing age 11-12 clothing.

DS2 (7) has an October birthday. Their school experiences have been entirely different.

Emsonline so far it is definitely the right decision. He has always been really spirited and very sensitive, he has just started to calm down a bit and be easier to reason with at 5 so it was perfect timing for us.

He doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb as being obviously older, he’s not bored or any of the things people said to try to put me off.

He’s bright, but lazy. For him Reception is too much work so I can’t imagine him being at all happy in Year One at his age.

I am torn 3 years ago I would say defering was ridiculous but now as I see the difference between summer born ds and September girls in his y2 class I would definitely defer to give my ds confidence and a better chance in sats and life. Motor skills were slower to develop and it’s always nicer to be academically ahead!

My ds is late August

Ds suffered from his maturity being compared to the Sept borns...I think school would have been a better experience for him. But the teachers saw him as a problem - he took longer to develop listening skills...
He's fine now but those first 3 years at school were very hard on him.

I agree it is a bit of a gamble but...
There is no way it should be in there best interests to miss a year so i envision this going to court because
1 at the moment the postcode lottery is ridiculous
2 there will be kids started at csa who are asked to move up when changing schools/area
3 it cannot be reasonable for a non sen april born to start at csa but for a prem end aug one to be denied and i think it is likely that within the same school this will both happen.
4 it is ludicrous that it is down to individual heads who could leave before you even apply again or start school. And they often have no reason to disagree they just dislike it. Or are misinformed.
5 starting to 4yo it is the child and family that suffer most. My dc has been so tired that they couldnt do after school clubs until at least yr 2. We couldnt go anywhere at weekends and still cant.

There is clear evidence and efen if there wasnt logic would tell us you cannot be as developed as you will be in a year to argue against that is ridiculous. It is more unclear exacly why it still affects up to alevels. But what is true is that predictions for gcses are based on yr 6sats where there is still a difference.
A bright child can also be impulsive.
Dd hated yr r for about 6m, i had to drag her there. It may not have been her age but it was too strict for her.

But i also think they cannot base the decision on sen because
Many children are not diagnosed at 3-3.5yo and adhd etc isnt disgnosed until 6yo anyway.
Many are not even identified as being different then
Things like speech may improve but behaviour issues may worsen in a school environment especially with how tiring it is and loud with 30 kids and more freedom.
1 kid 0-5m older than the others would have no negative effect on the others, more likely positive and certainly for the school thsn the same kid being the youngest in another class needing help to read/write/maths or not sitting down.
The unfairness is stark. But clearly some youngest will be top and oldest bottom. The difference is that a sep could be developmentally 12m behind and probably not bottom whereas the aug could be 12m ahead and still not top.

What @ItsQuietTime said.
We criticise parents for doing wrong by their children but also for wanting the best. It's sad. If your friend can make it happen then she should.

I can't find any information on a recent policy change in England that PP mentioned- has anyone got a link?

I would like to join the campaign if there is one. Summer borns should be able to permanently defer- skipping reception year or skipping year 6/8 is not enough of a solution. Is there a petition?

Every parent has the right to delay or defer a summerborn. If you delay they start reception a year later, deferring they start January or April of the year they were due to start. There doesn't have to be any medical reason or developmental delays etc although some Local Authorities do still request this. We've delayed our youngest son and he's just started reception this September aged 5 & 3 months. Best decision we ever made as he just simply wasn't ready for school last year and he definitely would have struggled academically and mentally. We would rather he thrived than just coped. Every child is different and as they start school so young here compared to other countries the more choice parents have for their children the better. Statistics show summerborns, in particular boys, often do far worse all the way through school and a lot get labeled with ADHD or other behavior issues when in fact their behavior is perfectly normal for their age but too much is expected of them when they are not quite ready.

www.facebook.com/groups/121613774658942/?ref=share

Facebook group for Summerborn delaying and deferring school info and support

My sister was born late August. She always felt it was a real disadvantage being young for her year.
I'm fairly sure she made sure her children (born in October and November) wouldn't be young for their year when she had them.

This thread has caused a bit of a panic attack for me.

My DS was born very late August and was slightly premature. He has many developmental issues and is very immature for his age. I have opted to hold him back a year and start Reception a year later. I am very anxious about how other parents and children will see this, but felt he would just not cope starting so young. His nursery and the school both strongly agreed with me and encouraged me to hold him back. To be honest even with the extra year we are doubtful he will be ready and won't be able to access the curriculum - he may need to go to a special needs school, but only time will tell. I am beyond relieved that the school system can now grant him this extra year so we know what suits him best.

Would the 'you have to cut off somewhere' sort of attitude apply to my boy!?

@ReaganSomerset I don’t believe a petition would help - this is supposed to be being debated in parliament (but I believe Brexit is putting everything on hold so it can’t be scheduled into the timetable).