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 summer born children who are born later than mid June should be allowed to start the year later . My DS massively struggled when he started and he was labelled really early as naughty because he just didn't have the capacity to focus. I always feel he's at a disadvantage during tests against those who are almost a whole year ahead of him in age. How is it fair that a child born on the 28th of August should sit the exact same test as a child born 2nd sept the year before them. It doesn't make sense and it can have a detrimental effect on a child who can seem behind or not academic enough (which is what happened to me!)

So YABU if the parent of the child wants them to start in reception with the children the year later then why not however schools don't do this without a fight!

I'm a July baby and went to school at 4 and never struggled and know many other summer babies who did similar. My DS's best friend is also a summer baby and he does struggle though.

I would say that if her child was generally doing well then it won't do her harm to start at 4 but at the end of the day it's entirely up to the parents.

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

Yes, I do think that about my own summer-born (who is currently still a little 6 month old) - he has an October-born cousin and it does feel quite mad that these two children, one of whom was walking and saying his first words before the other one could roll over, will be treated as 'the same age' in a few years.

I don't think it's appropriate to compare Australia to the UK. Australian schools have always had the ability to hold a child back in any year, if they didn't feel they were mature enough or doing well enough to progress. I remember starting high school and a girl started with me who had repeated year 7 (year 8 secondary start). In the UK the child continued to progress, but just did really, really badly.

Our secondary school won't accept deferrals. So, what year do you choose your child to miss if you defer? Surely that's more detrimental than being behind for a few years.

Your secondary school is not allowed to have a blanket policy on deferrals and must show how it is in the child’s best interest to miss a year of school.

I’d like to see how they’d argue this...

If this is genuinely their policy it would be easily overturned at appeal.

Both my DDs were carefully planned because I definitely did not want a summer born baby for this reason.

Hmm interesting to hear about the problems only showing later in primary or in early secondary. When considering whether to defer or not I only really thought about my boy's readiness now, for reception...

YABU, the admissions guidelines now give summer borns the right to request deferral (into YR) and in some authorities, including ours, that it will be automatically granted. Given that your child is also summer born (the cutoff is 31 March) you could have considered this yourself, you made a decision to send her this year without doing your own research!

Of course someone has to be youngest in the year but the point is that if everyone deferred, the youngest would be 4.5 rather than 4.0, which is widely recognised is a huge difference in terms of school readiness. So this is a silly argument.

My DC2 has a mid August birthday and was a month premature so should have been in the year below anyway. Before applying for her place we will be researching the possible consequences of moving area and transferring to secondary before we decide whether to defer her entry into Reception.

Credit to your friend for doing her homework on this, I say.

Statistically the youngest in year groups are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. I'm sure there was a study in the US recently as well.

My primary school had a system with a staggered start I reception. As you progressed through school, half of the class moved up at Easter, and the rest followed in September.

This was brilliant for me with a birthday at the start of September as it was the only time I got to work and play with children of my own age. I hope it was good for those younger ones in the year above - they certainly seemed happy too.

However, by the time we reached the end of primary, we were in the strict Sept-Sept year groups, before the dreaded 11+.

It was a high achieving and friendly school (although over strict in places).

The only place I have seen work like this was a small school where there were not enough children to have separate year groups, but big enough to have more than 2 or 3 classes.

My DD started her school education in Scotland and did p1-6 before we moved to England.

The schools are back to front on Scotland with the age cut of date being winter (think start of February) which made her only 4 and half when she started school and the youngest in her class alongside some nearly 6 year olds.

It’s didnt make a huge difference when she 1st started as she held her own and was a bright button but in hindsight wished we had delayed a year as had various issues from P2 onwards socially and where the school though she should be stage wise...

Your friend is doing what’s best and as not two children are alike probably doesn’t need your judgement or critique.

I went to a selective grammar school and it's very noticeable how the birthdays of all my old school friends are weighted towards pre-Easter. There are some summer babies but September to March are the predominant months.

I'm not sure if that is of any help to anyone, but an observation of my school year (albeit it was almost 30 years ago since I started at grammar school!)

@Billben my DC 2 was carefully planned too but born prematurely taking her across the cut off. It impacts even more on severely premature babies - a child born in August could have been due in November or even December.

I’ve seen first hand how my DC1 benefited from having a September birthday. She was ready in every way. If she’d started school at 4.5 or earlier I’m sure she would have struggled with toileting, getting herself changed, the five day week, etc etc.

I now have a May born boy with speech and developmental delays. He’s supposed to start school this year but I’ve successfully deferred until 2020.

She might have to start in year one (and still be the youngest in the year but having missed a whole year).

My dd was 4 and 4 days old when she started school. We did consider holding her back a year as she is also very petite and tires easily. There was no question about her going straight into yr1, she would have gone into reception a year later. She is doing really well though, as its not compulsary to be in school until 5 we gave her the odd day or afternoon off and took her out for a 2 week holiday. She was emotionally mature enough and has thrived. We haven't pushed her at home with homework and reading and let her set the pace. Every child is an individual and we are lucky to be able to choose what is best for them.

NC0301191141 I went to a selective grammar and now that I think about it, all my old school friends from my year are a lot older than me. The next youngest in our group has a January birthday, all the rest have birthdays at the start of the year.

My dd is a late April baby, due to start school in Sept 2019.
She will definitely be ready for it - shes ahead of all her development milestones, has brilliant language skills etc so I’m not overly worried.
If she was a July or August baby, I’d definitely hold her back.
Im September born, so was one of the oldest in my year - I turned 5 a a week or so after starting school. I think there’s a big developmental difference between the average just-turned-5-year-old and a just-turned-4-year-old. My sister was born late August and turned 4 a few days before starting reception
I wish this country would just get on board with the Scandinavian education model and be done with it, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish for another day

ehlana the point of the comparison was to explain that, despite the ease of being able to hold children back a year, it did not create the situation the OP feared regarding the "youngest in the class".

Both my DDs were carefully planned because I definitely did not want a summer born baby for this reason.

Lucky you that you got to plan

I wish this had been a possibility for my DD1. Academically she was always capable, but emotionally very immature (& eventually diagnosed ASD, which explains it). She would have definitely benefitted from being the oldest rather than one of the youngest.

I went to a selective grammar too, and birthdays were definitely heavily weighted to pre-Christmas. Interestingly, almost all my closest friends were spring or summer born though - I wonder if we were a bit different socially to the older kids in our year, even at secondary age, and so clumped together?

My end of June summer born DS was ready emotionally and socially. He has four older half-siblings and really enjoys the social side of school, loves being around people and really wanted to go. He does find writing difficult as he wasn't handed when he started and only became left-handed half-way through reception. So he was ready socially but perhaps not so much academically. His reading is absolutely fine though but his comprehension is not as good, I think just due to his age.
He'll get there, but is probably about a year behind the brightest girls in his class. He's very happy and that's the most important thing.

I have an August born Son and he started Reception this year. He should be in Year 1 but I decided as his parent that he wasn’t ready. This was from an emotional and social point of view as he definitely needed that extra year at Nursery to mature a little.

My decision was helped along by reading what the current expectations of Reception and Year 1 pupils are and how much they have changed since I was at School. The Head at his then School and his Nursery teacher said he was ready and would be fine but both agreed when I said the Curriculum had changed beyond recognition. Year 1 is a huge jump and not one he would have been ready for at a very young 5.

It wasn’t about him ‘getting ahead’ or being the brightest in the year but there are very clear statistics showing that Summer-born children (boys in particular) are at a disadvantage throughout School. I think the Scottish system is a little better in that Children generally start between 4.5 and 5.5.

My ds was born on 30th Aug. I started him at nursery as soon as he turned 2 so that he'd have a full two years there. Wouldn't have held him back from school because I figured he'd have to catch up at some point and if he'd have just started in year one, he'd have missed out on all the valuable reception year. Plus others would have made friends already. Seemed very pointless. For the record, he's done really well- academically and socially. A couple of years on and you'd never know he's the youngest. In my humble opinion it's best to throw them in at the deep end at the beginning of reception. It's very much like preschool anyway