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?

Arethereanyleft & theressomething

I rather think it is you missing the point.
No they will not be further behind. The summerborns 'heldback' do not get better results than September borns. They may not even do as well as the September borns THEY ARE JUST NOT AS FAR BEHIND AS THEY OTHERWISE WOULD HAVE BEEN

Outpinked - all the statistical evidence sats you're wrong. Why not have a look? There's plenty out there including a handy link i posted above

Angela. There is no data yet available for whether they get better results or not, as it hasn't really started happening much yet. I have literally no idea how you're not getting this, sorry.
You are saying that you don't think a child born in April 2018 will do better than a child born in September 2018, when they both start school together in September 2022, but that THEY WILL JUST NOT BE AS FAR BEHIND AS THEY OTHERWISE WOULD HAVE BEEN.
How on earth would they, generally, be behind?!?

It’s quite simple really. Look at how babies reach milestones at different ages, some walk months before others, some talk months before others etc etc. They don’t all suddenly become a capable of the same things when they hit 3 & 4 therefore not all children are ready for what is expected of them at school which lets be honest it’s a hell of a lot and summerborns having the right to delay entry is simply giving the parents the choice to decide whether their child goes to school ready and able or delay a year until they are ready. If a child really struggles form the off they are more than likely always going to be classed as behind and will always struggle to try and keep up. They can get switched off from learning at such an early age if this happens so having the choice to delay is a good thing, for some, not all summerborns, to go to school and thrive not just cope.

Obviously sunshine.
I think we all agree with that.

If a child born in April 2018 and a child born in September 2018 both start school in September 2022 then, of course, generally speaking the April child will be advantaged surely? They are 6 months older than the September born child. This whole thing is just about giving advantage to summer borns. Fine. But it just moves the disadvantage to the Spring born children. There is no data available for this yet as this is a relatively new change to admissions policies.

Summer borns statistically do worse at school. That could be because;
A) they are the youngest in the class
B) they start too young

Delaying entry by a year addresses B.

But all it does to A is shift the youngest in the class from August born to March born. And potentially widens the age gap from 12 months maximum, to 17 months.
That is what we were trying to explain to Angela.

I think the "shifting advantage" point fails to take into account that most (I'd wager) parents are keen to get their children into school rather than defer, from a cost and logistics POV. At it stands, not every parent of a summer born defers - is there data on how many do? - so I'm not sure it follows that Spring will become the new Summer. It also doesn't seem to me to be a "top of the class" issue - more, can they dress themselves? Wipe their own bum? Recognise their name? Sit still for however long?

Looking at the evidence, it's clear that summer-born DC are disadvantaged all the way through school if they remain within their 'correct' school year.

My DS was due in mid-August, born mid-July. I will certainly be delaying his school start if I'm able to, and DH agrees. Based on the evidence we'd be foolish not to, we want every advantage possible for him and luckily we can afford another year of childcare.

It's known as red shirting in USA. Keeping kids back a year to get an advantage academically or sports wise.
It's one of the downsides of allowing parental choice on admission date. Better educated wealthier partents will choose to keep back to give any advantage and can afford extra childcare for year.
Summer borns from poorer families or less 'sharp elbowed' will not be held back and instead of being 12 months younger than the eldest could be 16 months younger so at even more disadvantage.
Other than cost of childcare I can't see any reason why you wouldn't defer if you could. Expectations on young kids are very high. Always better to be older, can get first pick at part time jobs, first to be able to drive and first to legally drink, older sitting exams.

@Theresomethingaboutdairy I disagree.

Firstly, you're presuming every summer born child defers, which is unlikely.

Secondly, the spring born will still be at least 5 years 5 months old when they begin accessing the Year 1 curriculum (taking Spring born to be January to end of March), regardless of when the summer born- who may otherwise be only 5 years exactly when they begin accessing the curriculum - start. Allowing the deferment simply means that no child who is only just 5 has to start when not ready.

Which is exactly why, havelock, that I disagree with this deferral option. It doesn't level out the playing field at all, just widens it for those who can't afford to defer, giving yet another advantage to middle class children.

A lot of summer born parents are lulled into a false sense of security with oh reception is play based it's just like nursery. Which it may well be but then yr 1 can be very formal and the summer born who will have just turned 5 a few days before is expected to sit and work in a much more formal way. Knock on all through the years, a just turned 10 year old sitting 11 plus if you are in a grammar area, 15 year old sitting GCSE's, 17 sitting A levels.

To my mind there's something to be said for having a two year reception nationally and making compulsory school age six rather than five, but I doubt that'll happen.

Not sure how money comes into it as you still get the 15 or 30 hours funding for that year. It’s about doing what’s right for your child. To me it’s more about suffering the disadvantages not gaining advantages.

Or making KS1 play-based and reigning in the academic expectation in years 1 and 2.

I'm end of august born and really couldn't cope at school for the first few years. There was talk of holding me back a year between years 2 and 3, which didn't happen, and then by mid way through year 3 they were talking about putting me ahead a year (which also didn't happen). The point of all this is that children develop at different rates at different times.

A school system that fails to acknowledge that will continue to be rubbish no matter what delayed entry type sticking plasters you deploy.

Interesting thread. I've got a summer born that I can't see being ready by September. Does anyone know how I can find out more? I've spent the afternoon researching stats and feel that I certainly need to look into it more.

I'm interested to know about the transition to secondary school. Am I best just asking my local authority how it works?

If you get 30 hours funded then there's no difference but not everyone is eligible for that. So if you defer a summer born you may be needing to pay for nursery for aother year as opposed to a free reception place.

Weekfour you need to look on your local authority website under school admissions and the same on the schools you are interested in. Also the his Facebook group has loads of info i the documents section
m.facebook.com/groups/121613774658942?ref=share

weekfour Depending where you live your local authority might not even follow the legislation properly! Your best bet is to join the flexible admissions for summerborns Facebook page and ask questions, search for your area to find other people’s experiences and dig through the files and approach schools and the LA fully armed with all the correct info. Depending where you lives it’s an automatic yes, I know Cumbria Hertfordshire and I think Liverpool do amongst others.

m.facebook.com/groups/121613774658942

Wish I had done with mine. He is great academically but struggles socially.

They should have 6 monthly intakes rather than stretching it out to a whole year. But number of teachers, number of classrooms etc means it's not possible.

@weekfour
Whatever you decide, I would be really wary of what might happen in the future. Whatever your own Lea or people on this thread have said with what's happening right now with regards to 11plus/secondary school/sports, that is 7 years away, and could all change. Maybe for the better for you, maybe not.
Even if your child is not ready in September, I would consider whether it's not ready in a 'it's not going to be a fun few years, and they're going to be bottom, but they'll be fine in a few years' way, or 'this is going to be catastrophic, beyond repair' type not ready!

Thank you @shantotto and @sunshine6. I've checked my local authority online and there's no mention at all of a policy. I'm going to check out the FB group. I like to be as informed as possible before I speak to them. We've been through an appeals process with them in the past and I can't help but think, somewhat cynically, that their lack of published policy is so that they can make it up as they go along.