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 know a woman who did the opposite to get her September born son into the year ahead as he was a right pain and she wanted the childcare

As a parent we have the right to ask the schools to allow our child to enter school after the child has turned 5. They can go into foundation rather than year 1. However parents often find that they are having to fight the system /head of the school to follow the government rules. There is a lot of statistical evidence showing that Summer born children are at a disadvantage. Particularly boys. An August baby is more likely than a September baby to fail the phonics test in year 2. My son was 4 years and 2 weeks old when he started. I wanted to delay him but the head refused. In addition my son is developmentally delayed and an extra year at nursery would have really benefited him. Whilst foundation is play based, the toys go away in year 1 and the expectations of the new curriculum are ridiculous. They start doing fractions in year 1. A lot of kids are struggling to meet the standard so I wouldn't blame anyone with Summer born giving their child extra time to develop before starting school.

Both my dc are summer children, DS is end of July and dd end of August. DS did struggle initially mainly due to emotional maturity rather than learning but now he is in Year 11 he is fine. I think it probably did them both good as it made them work hard and gave them more push to achieve.

We did look at deferring DS as we are allowed to, but were told that places are allocated to the children who have applied to the school from the correct year first. This meant that as we wanted him to go to an oversubscribed school, which is our nearest, we would be unlikely to get a place there so would be put anywhere in the borough. Saying that he has been fine and we don’t regret not fighting it.

My son is born at end of July and there’s no way in hell he is starting school at barely 4 years old, madness.

DD will start reception in September, 2 months after her 5th birthday. She is young for her age, tires easily, had issues concentrating, and has disordered speech. The last two issues have improved a lot since September, she will be much happier going to school this year - and it mean she is a much easier pupil for her teacher. Better motor skills, more capable of toileting, changing clothes etc independently too.

Just leave her to it. The summer born excuse is normally used by parents who can't face their children going to 'big school'.

It makes no difference and if anything, makes starting school even harder for the child.

I'm a summer baby and when I started at school (many years ago), they had different times you started compared to when your birthday was.

If you were born September- December you started in September.

If you were born January- April you started after Christmas.

If you were born May - August you started after Easter.

This seems a daft way of doing it as we all went up a school year together and started high school in the same year. It meant the earlier born children had six months longer at school.

My Mum always said I wasn't ready for school when I'd just turned 4 so she thought it was a good idea.

I have an august born, desperate to get into school at 4yrs and a few days. Now however at 9 - yr 5 she is struggling with maturity and all sorts of stuff. hates school, has no friends and is getting nowhere. I wish I had considered keeping her out the extra year - although for her that would have meant starting in yr 1 - now that you can start them in reception I would definately look more seriously.

My Jan born is doing so much better.

In out area you can choose whether they go into yr1 or reception
However I believe when you go to secondary school you have to re apply for deferal, and if you change areas or school.

I think it really depends on the child, I thought about defering my ds but the system was slightly different, He’s a clever boy but lacked maturity socially, however I had children stay in my nursery a year longer and I’m not really sure they had their needs met socially as they stood out as being older.

Also, I was youngest in my year and young for my age in secondary school. Although I had no issues academically, socially I really could have done with being a year older.

However it worth thinking that developmentally some of the younger children when they were born some of their peers would have just started walking so it’s a lot to catch up with

Any reply on that post who consider that "one rule fits all" is basically bollocks. You just need to look at the 30 kids of a Reception class to see it.

My mistake. Phonics test is year 1.

I have delayed my kids had we been allowed to back in the dark ages. Personal choice - I think just turned 4 is too young for full time school especially for ds.

Lots of people do this now. I have summer born dc and I didn't feel it was right for them to delay starting school but it works well for many children.

This has been an option for a while in Australia. Apparently far more boys than girls are deferred, so girls are often in a class of older boys iyswim.
In the uk, competitive tests like 11+ are adjusted for actual age, to keep things fairer. (No idea about Australia, the study was for Early Years)

It always been the norm in Ireland - parents of May (and April and June, but it seemed to mainly happen with May babies) born children would often choose to keep them back a year, and so May babies would be the oldest or youngest in their year. Not a big deal. Between that and the optional Transition Year in secondary school, finishing secondary school any age between 17 and 19 was completely normal.

Surely it's wise to trust parents to know what's best for their child?

Where I live - not uk kids born in the summer wouldn’t be eligible to start school that year. The cut off for my child’s school is born before March 31st of the year to apply. Most kids in my ds class are 5 or about to turn 5 starting junior school

But what about when they do need to eventually go into the correct year group? Whether that’s yr1 or y7? Won’t They will be at an enormous disadvantage then?
Im August born myself and whilst I don’t believe it held me back st school, I never realised what a disadvantage it was in sports until a football coach explained to me; it’s generally only ever the kids who are sep-dec born who are chosen for football academies, as they are physically at an advantage being potentially 9-11 months older, stronger and more physically mature than summer borns ☹️

I had an August 4th baby and was told by the infants headteacher that if he didnt start in the September when he was just 4 , he would lose his place...so I reluctantly accepted. It was a disaster as the school was 'vertically streamed' so he immediately went into a class with 5, 6 and 7 year olds who bullied the crap out of him in the classroom and playground..it was a chaotic start to his education that he didnt want to fuss about- he was and is very bright so could handle the work- ( his teacher actually told me off because he could read and write when he started - yes it was mad ).
Took him out after he was injured and moved him to a traditional class school which he loved and thrived at...but I still regret giving in to a 'Professional' who was effing incompetent.
Rant over....he eventually went to Oxford and is now..well, very ok !!

At 4 that extra year is a massive proportion of their overall life experiences. My daughter still seems young compared to her friends... She had her 8th birthday party just before they went back to school for yr 4 and within the first fortnight was at 9th birthday parties.

No child has to attend school until they are compulsory school age and this is the start of the school term after they are 5 so your friend is perfectly entitled to do this but I am not sure if the school has to comply with her request in the sense of keeping her place open.

She will be able to give up her place and reapply for the following year - I also assumed Year1 but maybe reception. That would not mean there would be a place available for her at her chosen school though She needs to check out where she stands or she may find herself without a place at a school she would like. She could wait and HE until a place came available but she probably needs to know where she stands.

I'm a June baby and I wish my school entry had been delayed by a year. I struggled for the first two years at secondary school and ended up having to do the third year twice.

It makes no difference

Except the statistics beg to differ.

DS is summer born and started in reception in England at 4 then started again in P1 at 5 when we moved to Scotland the following year. The difference in terms of how ready he was to learn and cope with the whole experience is huge and had I realised I would have pushed to delay him starting reception. Having experienced both I would say the later start is much better. Incidentally it’s much easier to defer up here as well and accepted as a normal thing to do.