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Original poster

Summer born babies - am I wrong?

749 replies

Sunflowermuma · 08/01/2019 12:31

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?

OP posts:
jamoncrumpets · 08/01/2019 15:34

Just had a read back and want to point a few things out:

You can defer Reception by a whole academic year IF
a) your child is born in the summer term
b) the headteacher of the schools you apply to agree

Local Authorities generally leave it up to the headteacher.

I just went through this process with my late August born DC who should technically be in Reception now. I got the head of our first choice primary to agree to the deferral (I met with him for a five minute chat about my DC), he wrote a letter, I enclosed it with our application. Now we wait for the LA to assign places, just like all other parents at this stage in the process. There is a slim chance that DC won't get into our first choice, but it's very unlikely - we live 0.2 miles away door-to-door.

Very worth doing IMO, as a mother and ex teacher.

Franheaton · 08/01/2019 15:38

How does it affect you?

cookiemon666 · 08/01/2019 15:43

I have 2 September born kids, oldest daughter has always excelled, oldest boy has massively struggled despite being the oldest in his year, he has other issues tho
My youngest daughter went part time in reception as she was tiny and had health/ development issues. My youngest boy was born in June but being a summer born baby has not affected him at all.
I think every child is an individual and we can only do what we feel is best for them.

WeirdCatLady · 08/01/2019 15:43

My dd is an August babe. She has always been top of her classes. It very much depends on the child. Dd was always head and shoulders above her classmates, she aced her GCSEs and is currently sailing through A Levels and aiming for a Classics degree.

ReaganSomerset · 08/01/2019 15:47

What about premature babies who were supposed to be summer born but weren't?

Also, can anyone who deferred by a year tell me what impact it has had in the transition to juniors/secondary school? Did they sit their gcses a year later or did they have to start secondary school in year 8/after year 5? My DD is a June baby, so I'm interested in case I think she needs more time before she starts school.

SevenStones · 08/01/2019 15:47

Both my friend's children are summer babies. When they started school they started part time a couple of afternoons a week, then increased over the months until by Easter they were full time.

mondaysaturday · 08/01/2019 15:47

Most children in other countries don't start primary school until six years old (or even older). I don't understand the rush in England to force kids to start school as early as possible.

ribblerobble · 08/01/2019 15:48

We've just applied for my dd's school place but are considering deferral: She was born prematurely in August and has taken a long time to settle at nursery. She has much bigger and more confident 'friends' (of which she would have been the youngest if born when due) who are not due to start school until 2020.

No-one we've mentioned it to, including other summer-born parents, the prospective headteacher and ex-teacher grandparents, has been aware of the legal rights with regards to delay school starts.

If kids didn't have to start formal schooling and testing so young it would be much less of an issue.

PookieDo · 08/01/2019 15:53

My 4yr 1 month old child was not ready for school and when they scrapped the other intakes (jan, Easter) you aren’t left with much choice. Also it’s fine to choose

Silkie2 · 08/01/2019 15:56

The 4 year olds can be too tired to enjoy school, just getting through the day is hard enough. Then Home in the evening are too tired for anything, even their meal.

chocorabbit · 08/01/2019 16:01

I have seen friends' children who were Autumn born struggle a lot at school and I have many times wondered how much worse it would have been if they had been summer born.

Having said that, I am from a different country with a different system and some of the winter borns i.e. youngest in the class were always top of the class, some others were immature and flourished later, especially at maths.

Thistly · 08/01/2019 16:03

My secondary age dd says that almost all the kids in the top stream are September born. Obviously there are people who will say ‘being summer born didn’t hold me back’ but each child is an individual. I think it’s good there is some flexibility now, but hope it will be assessed on a case by case basis or my summer born boy is going to be even younger than his cohort than he already would be.

NC0301191141 · 08/01/2019 16:04

@LisaSimpsonsbff that's true with my lot too now that I think about it. My closest friendship group are all October to February and the May to August born friends had their own close-knit group too.

I'd never realised that before!

I think the selective nature of grammar schools exaggerates the differences and perceived "weaknesses" of any pupil, so perhaps people generally gravitate to those similar to them?

I know my friendship group was created by the form tutor who mixed up all the pupils on the first day so no-one was sat with anyone they previously knew from their old school. I doubt she'd have arranged it by age, but who knows. However she did it, it worked! We've been firm friends ever since!

CmdrIvanova · 08/01/2019 16:05

I thought competitive out of school sports went by age? So if you played under 12s football, as a pp said, you would have to drop out of your team in Yr 6 at some point anyway. DD's gym club sorts its classes by age, and they tend to have some overlap. She's just moving from the 3-4 (preschool) to 4-5 ('afterschool') class now, but could have left it a while.

FraterculaArctica · 08/01/2019 16:08

@jamoncrumpets it's not necessarily the case that the local authority leaves it up to the headteacher. In our LA there is a blanket acceptance policy. So some of the headteachers hate summer borns deferring, but in a maintained school, they have no choice.

Thistly · 08/01/2019 16:08

Reagan Somerset... from what I’ve read, the secondary school, or any other primary school the child transfers to has the right to change the year the child is in. I would imagine it would be unlikely they would do this, as it would probably negatively impact their results. I think the right to hold a summer born back a yet has only been in place for 2 or 3 years, so nobody will yet be able to say how this affected a child on transition.

FraterculaArctica · 08/01/2019 16:09

Competitive sports usually work with an age cut off either at 31 Aug or 31 December. So yes some children will not be with their school cohort.

tubspreciousthings · 08/01/2019 16:11

@ribblerobble - if you want to defer please do it soon! We have applied for delayed entry and were told it had to be done before admissions closed (next week?).

For us, it included meeting with the head teacher, filling out paperwork, getting supporting evidence from nursery & HV and then the head submitting it to the education admissions. Unfortunately not just down to headteacher say-so around here.

Your best bet is to phone admissions for your local authority and ask what the process is

Samcro · 08/01/2019 16:11

nosy question and sorry if its been covered. but what happened at secondary. do they go up a year "late" or miss year 6?

Thistly · 08/01/2019 16:11

NC0301191141

Do you think your form teacher was into Chinese astrology?

My dd always preferred to hang out with the other monkeys, and not the gaggle of roosters!

thegrassisgreenifyouwaterit · 08/01/2019 16:14

My child is behind on speech and July born. I would like to defer him from starting at 4, buts he's a giant. He already gets mistaken for a year older than he is ( apart from he doesn't answer anyone's questions) It would be like elf if I defer him Confused

Do you still get free pre-school/ 15 hours if you defer? I mean what would I do with him for an extra year he drives me crazy now at 2.5 years old

Oh and I started in the Easter term for reception at infant school. I'm an August baby and it was a massive disadvantage. Everyone knew the score and each other and I was clueless and very behind. I never caught up so in that sense I'm glad they all start in September together now.

Summer born babies - am I wrong?
tubspreciousthings · 08/01/2019 16:15

@Samcro - I've asked two local secondaries. One say that they'd stay in the year group they'd always been in. The grammar school said that they'd make them take the 11+ in y5 and then they'd decide which year group to put them in.

Hopefully new national guidance will bring in some consistency

tubspreciousthings · 08/01/2019 16:16

@thegrassisgreenifyouwaterit - you're still entitled to 15/30 free nursery hours if you delay entry.

blackteasplease · 08/01/2019 16:17

I don't think I would.

It seems odd that you can't put your Sept and Oct borns in the year above if you choose by this logic.

ribblerobble · 08/01/2019 16:17

@tubspreciousthings Thanks for the heads up but we have already done what was needed having spoken to admissions (school completely ignorant that they were their own admissions authority). We may ask for more 'evidence' but county generally quite accepting so will see what happens and if agreed make a final decisions when offers made in April.