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?

My DSs are May born, so not really that late, but for all those who say 'My DS in Y8 is August born and top of the class!', I'd say 'Come back in 5 years and tell us how it all went...!'

Anyway, both of mine have or will effectively 'defer' a year via DS1 dropping out of sixth form after AS levels and restarting Y12 (now at uni); and DS2 opting for a Foundation year prior to uni.

I, and many teachers over the years really felt so many of the younger boys, in particular would have benefitted from redoing YR. One manifestation was SATS. At the end of KS1, DS1's Sept born mate got 3s, Well done, Stephen! DS got 2s. The school used SATS scoring for a lot of things to measure progress, so I know that 6 months later, my DS1 was getting 3s i.e. actually a couple of months younger than Stephen had been, but no one was publicly congratulating DS1.

I know mine would have done better academically and socially had they deferred in infants school, as for them the 'reckoning' has happened as older teenagers.

@3out

I thought we had Bingo triple-plus as it were, as @AntimonySalt was eager to state her opinions And that she hadn't read the thread And that she hadn't given it a moment's thought. Boom!

However, @AntimonySalt has subseqsuently disappointed me though, by showing a genuine interest and willingness to learn about the issues.

Therefore, the search for this thread's bingo winner must go on......

@snog no one holds a place for you. You apply for a Reception place a year later - it's not kept open for you

the school admissions code was changed in 2014. All parents of new starters have the right to request a compulsory school age start. Councils and academies have to publish how parents go about this in their admission guidelines. They cannot have a blanket 'no' policy, this is against the law. Lots of children are now starting school in Reception at 5 (including my own son who started Reception September 2018 aged 5 and 6 weeks). He will continue with his year group for all primary. He will then go into secondary with them. It would not be in secondary school interest to make him miss a year and in order for them to do this, they would have to prove it's in my child's best interests (which I am unsure how you could every do).

Yes so as I said for an oversubscribed school it only works if you wait a year and apply for reception. You cannot wait a year and apply for Y1 or wait one or two terms because the class will be full.

@snog so what's your point?

Why would you want to do that anyway? That's precisely what parents have been campaigning against being the case for decades.

And another point snog it is your right to send your child part time or later in the year if you wish. It is illegal for the school to refuse. They may not like it but tough. Say I could apply and accept a place for my son who isn’t yet CSA and then it would be my right to say he will only do mornings, or won’t start until after Christmas etc. They can’t kick him out and replace him with someone else!

Snog, you would apply for A Reception start like everyone else. There is always different numbers of children applying each year due to birth rates etc. It is never a static number.

My point is to warn people whose school is oversubscribed that whilst applying for reception a year late is ok variations on a late start (starting one or two terms late or starting a year late but in Y1) are unlikely to work out and you will probs only be offered a place at another school where there is space.

It’s not true though. 🤷‍♀️

@snogbut you are wrong as you can defer for a term or 2 terms or just do part time, it is your legal right to request that as CSA is the term after their 5thbirthday so by law they don’t have to be in school.

@snog on yr 1 you might be right but we don't want our kids to miss Reception so it's a moot point.
On deferred start you're incorrect. If you want to start later in the academic year the school MUST hold the pkace for you in the original cohort. Like it or not they are legally obligated to hold it for you until your child turns 5 then the child must attend.

Snog- if you wanted to delay your child's reception start within same academic school year, you would negotiate this after you were allocated place. You therefore have a place and the school would have to by law hold this.

If you want to start your summer born child at 5, their application would go into general pot along with all other applications for the year.

I have an August boy and while he was fine in primary, he started to struggle in junior school.
We only had the option to defer a year and go straight into year 1 though so I think that probably would have been worse.

Just want to say something more about my DS to highlight that it's not about intellectual ability in many cases.

My DS read early and didn't get tired out by long days. He could do sitting still for circle time and so on. But he was tiny and emotionally immature. His physical difficulties only slowly emerged during the last nursery year (after we'd kept him back a year) when I'd finally managed to get someone to help regarding his motor skills deficits.

Being able to read and have a reasonably intelligent conversation is a tiny part of what's useful skill in Reception. In fact, EYFS then (2009/10) wanted all the qualities he possessed in small quantity at 5 and not at all at 4 but wasn't the slightest bit interested in his intellectual ability.

Additionally, a parent may know and see with a summer born which set of peers seem more like their child's peer group. I was never in any doubt.

@Angela712

I'm not wrong - I am talking about by the time they apply to secondary school. I work in this sector so I do know 'my stuff'. You will have to have a whole portfolio of SEN needs/ access arrangements in place to show to the secondary school if you have a year 7 child that you want to remain in year 6 for another year. Even if they allow it then, they will push for your child to be taking their year 11 exams at the same time. You will have to pushing for this for all of their school life - is it really worth it?
If you find that they cannot cope or struggle in their 'real' school year then the school can provide additional help, tutoring etc but you will not get this if you have chosen to delay their academic learning for the only reason that they are a few months younger.
Perhaps give them some extra support/ tutoring outside of school to allow them to catch up.

In the long run, it doesn't help to hold your child back, socially or academically. Maybe wait a term if you really feel that reception class is so different to nursery, but they should be growing up with their peers, not stigmatised that they are in some way inferior or lacking.

Please don't misinterpret what I'm saying because I understand very well that some children to have SEN and learning difficulties but they are not in the same category as just 'summer' born babies.

I myself have 3 children spanning birthdays from September - February and I have actually found that it is the June, July, August children who get all of the attention and extra help.

I know @nojellybabies so disappointing to see rational growth. Where’s the fun in that!

@lynney88 I’d quote the hell out of the government’s GIRFEC stuff. ‘Getting It Right For Every Child’ (which is the biggest joke going and the most infuriating slogan known to mankind). These are the Gov’s own aims and ethos. From the sounds of it they’re certainly not ‘getting it right’ for your child.

But they are still growing up with their peers, one. An August baby who goes to school a year ‘late’ will be the same age as the September babies. If they’d gone to school in the year they could have started then they’d be a year younger than the September babies in the same cohort.

@onegiftedgal

The Department for Education, local Secondary heads and our local grammar school say you are wrong.

The research proves - categorically undeniably that summerborns remain behind their peers for their entire school lives.
Children who are summerborn are 90 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with SEN than their Srptember born peers.

No summerborn delayed child has started secondary yet so i appreciate that despite working in the sector you will not have cone across this yet.

I like to think of myself as a responsible parent so i did my research, wrote to secondaries, granmars and the DfE multiple times. They all confirmed in writing that under the Advice for Summerborns whuch is entirely different than any other out of cohort application children will nit be forced up a year at any point, they will be able to sit all KS tests, SATS and 11+ with their adopted cohort so i will not have further battles ahead.

They will be growing up with their peers, they will be educated with children up to a year younger than them - exactly the same as any September born child.

I do not feel Reception is a huge leap from preschool actually but Yr 1 is a huge jump and i think they would be better prepared for that at 6 rather than 5.

All of the headteachers at our local schools - who work in this sector agree with us.

It's precisely because i don't want them to struggle later that i am delaying them.

onegiftedgal, you are wrong tho. There are lots of us who work in this sector including me. Children in secondary school will do exams with year group not earlier- why would a school want this anyhow? Access arrangements if children have Send use standardised tests to show difficulty which take children's ages into account, below average scores in the tests would indicate that pupil needs access arrangements, these would be provided and young people would take GCSEs.

As Angela says this is a new cohort of children for whom the rules have changed.

It's precisely because i don't want them to struggle later that i am delaying them.

That's the point really. It's about going on to secondary and university/college when you're at a better age to handle it.

Sorry to detail but does anyone know what happens with nursery funding if you decide to delay starting school?