To defer my Summer born daughter’s school start date?

[ThornAmongstRoses]

I have a daughter who should be starting school next September but she will have only turned 4 about a week before the start date.

For the last few months I have seriously been thinking about delaying her starting until the following year when she will have just turned 5.

I have done so much reading up around the subject and it’s quite clear that statistically (because I know there will always be exceptions) starting school after just turning 4 can be very detrimental to their education and achievements through their schooling compared to Autumn, Winter and Spring borns.

My husband is a teacher and is absolutely on board with the deferral.

I mentioned it to my brother a few days ago as his child is summer born (a year behind mine) and he totally laughed me off.

He said it was a pointless thing to do and if the younger kids struggle then it’s down to the parents to do more at home with them.

It was a bit of a black and white attitude I thought.

I told him that if it was as simple as doing some work at home to get the Summer borns to the same level as their peers, then there wouldn’t be so much information out there about the disparities between Summer borns and other children.

I’m not being unreasonable to consider this though am I?

I do understand there will always be exceptions and there will be many stories abouthigh achieving Summer born children, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that overall, Summer Born children do fare worse at school if they start when they have just turned four years old.

My brother has made me doubt myself

@arethereanyleftatall it doesn't work like that.

Parents who are invested in their child's education, regardless of when they are born in the school year, are the ones who have a better chance of their child being "top" of the class. Then again I'm biased as I've got summer-born nephews, including August born, who were definitely top of their classes in some subjects.

Incidentially there are quite a few kids including myself who could read before we started school. Didn't matter where we were born in the school year.

It’s difficult because it’s a choice you have to make with no real idea whether it’s the right one or not, and only the use of hindsight can tell you if it was.

This is very true, and it makes deferring the less risky option.

My birthday is late August and I started when j was 4.
My mum said I used to fall asleep at story time because I was still having a nap at 3.
I was also behind on my reading but caught up in the end.
I don't know if it was because I was a younger one or not. I was also 2 months premature so that could also be a factor. Not sure.

Teachers have come on here and said don’t do it.

I'm a teacher and I'm planning to do this with my summer born.

It’s so hard because something inside me is telling me that deferral is the right option, but then whenever I read a post on here about possible downsides to deferring I just start doubting myself again.

This is how I felt - DP was similarly for it through his teaching experience but I kept doubting when I read negative experiences (primarily with getting the OK from schools).

Now it's done and all gone OK I will stop worrying until secondary applications come around.

This is very true, and it makes deferring the less risky option

I think it’s the opposite, it’s the riskier option. There is no reason to believe this child won’t be ready for school and no way to know if her missing a year later will damage her and cause her problems.

@Bluntness100

This is very true, and it makes deferring the less risky option

I think it’s the opposite, it’s the riskier option. There is no reason to believe this child won’t be ready for school and no way to know if her missing a year later will damage her and cause her problems.

Such as?

EugenesAxe sats are not adjusted by age. Which is why the youngest do worse.
11+ is but schools still take fewer summer borns as you cant just adjust it as basically the kids can be not ready to learn.
If we were taking height people would realise expecting an average aug born to be as tall is silly. Whilst some can be taller than many years above. n
5yo should be able to go into reception on day 1 and do the whole eyfs curriculuum. afterall an aug born would only be 4y9m maybe when assessed.

DS definitely hasn’t suffered any problems from deferring. He went to preschool and easily transitioned straight to school. It hasn’t prevented him from being on sports teams either, in fact he’s been allowed to “play up” on an older team before, because he performed well in the tryouts and there was so little age difference. That might not be allowed everywhere though.

BigBigPumpkin: I'm a teacher and I'm planning to do this with my summer born.

How old is your child at the moment? Do you think anything will make you change your mind? I.e if she seems ready (whatever that means?)

Or are you 100% going to do it?

I think it’s the opposite, it’s the riskier option. There is no reason to believe this child won’t be ready for school and no way to know if her missing a year later will damage her and cause her problems.

How can holding someone back damage them and cause them problems?

On the flip side, sending a summer born to school at just 4 can cause them problems.

I spoke about this to the school and they said that if a summer born defers and if, when they complete reception or Year 1 and appear to be too advanced, they will just be moved up a year.

I asked if we didn’t defer, and we sent our daughter when she was just four and that as Reception and Year 1 passed and she was struggling, could we move her down a year and she said no and she would just be supported to do the best she could.

I know which scenario I would prefer...

But i do think it's the attitudes of staff and sports clubs etc that wont help. As in the best get the reinforcement they get the parts in plays they get on the team where they get to practise more. In our school mary was actually mar/apr born but still that is quite a way from the part going to an end of aug child.
Egs
Sept born 12m ahead 5-> 6 yr old starting yr r. So into yr 1 ability comfortably
Sept 12m behind - bottom of yr r ability
Aug born 12m ahead 4-> 5yo starting yr r. So top end yr r ability possibly. ability
Aug born 12m behind would be like a 3y0m so starting preschooler and 24m behind the 5yo in reception.

The sept born barely noticed a problem vs the Aug maybe nor speakig clearly cant read or write etc.

My 8yo has a reading age 11 but that is either 2/3 years ahead depending on where dc had been born in the year. If dc reading age were 7 that wouldnt be too bad as was that age a few months age however with 9yo in class that is a long way behind.
The uk make it worse by calling it ability tables etc. When it is not their ability in primary

@ThornAmongstRoses

BigBigPumpkin: I'm a teacher and I'm planning to do this with my summer born.

How old is your child at the moment? Do you think anything will make you change your mind? I.e if she seems ready (whatever that means?)

Or are you 100% going to do it?

She's still only two, so I won't need to start the wheels turning on the process until next September. There's nothing to suggest she's got any SEND and she'd probably cope if I sent her at just turned four. But if I can give her an extra year of free play, the chance to not have to play catch up, why wouldn't I? I teach lower key stage 2 and I see a lot of anxiety in the summer borns and often low self-esteem. Studies have shown links between being a summer born and developing depression in adult life. They're more likely to be diagnosed with SEND than DC born at other times of year because they're being held up against a yard stick that a lot of them are too young to reach. Finally, we start formal education stupidly early in this country and I'm in no rush to push DD into that because it's the done thing and we don't like to make waves culturally.

It's bot LAs that make the decision about which year group a child must be placed in at secondary school - the decision is forced by the fact that secondary school GCSE results are based on the Y11 age cohort.

Secondary schools therefore are forced to place a child in her appropriate year group because if not, that child registers no results achieved in their statistics.

This was done priginally to prevent schools holding children back on purpose to 'game' the results.

I have a late August baby and although I didn't defer I can completely see the sense in it. Mine was never behind academically but emotionally the gap was huge at times. I wish my baby had been a few days later in retrospect and been the eldest

If you are going to do it please check out the High Schools in your area.

Its not clearcut acceptance there and you do have to make sure they are accepting of a different year. DD had a friend who it was complicated with for this reason starting high school this year. (He was a complicated case not based on this)

Partly because as an option this is a fairly new idea and the first ones havent actually hit secondary age yet so they arent use to the idea.

And Schools dont have to do it - ours only agreed because he was 7 weeks early.

How can holding someone back damage them and cause them problems

Because if she’s not moved up a year she has to miss one at some stage and it could be critical for her learning curve

When we were tying to conceive our second baby my husband used to joke (sort of) that as long as we didn’t have a summer baby he didn’t care what we had

We started trying to conceive in January and it took until December for me to get pregnant hence why we had an August baby.

After my initial happy and excited thoughts, I then had a thought of “...that means we’ve got an August baby!”

When I told my husband he had a similar though

We laughed it off obviously as it was just light hearted, it wasn’t like we were disappointed or anything, it was purely just a reaction to the little joke we’d always had about not wanting a Summer baby

How can holding someone back damage them and cause them problems*

Because if she’s not moved up a year she has to miss one at some stage and it could be critical for her learning curve

The information the school gave me was wrong - children do not have to skip a year at some point just because they went into reception a year behind they were ‘supposed’ to.

Why do you think the children in the year group below should have to keep up with your DD who will be the oldest of the group by more than a year?
Or would you be happy if in her class there were not only September born children but July/August who had been held back from the year above, so 14 months older?

There has to be a cut off somewhere.

I agree the school starting age is too low but good schools have a gentle start and a lot of play time in yr R.

@Bluntness100

How can holding someone back damage them and cause them problems

Because if she’s not moved up a year she has to miss one at some stage and it could be critical for her learning curve

Not the case. The government has committed to changing the legislation to say that children admitted out of cohort automatically remain in their adopted cohort throughout their education. This should be in law by the time OP's child reaches secondary school anyway. Even if it weren't, children aren't routinely forced back into cohort at secondary even now.

Socially oct -feb/mar etc seems to be the best.
With my dc (2 form entry) there are just too many kids closer in interests and age to each other. Her friend from yr r (jan) is now friends with the apr. Her nov friend now friends with jan. But where her other SB friend ever played with her they got in trouble...
Other friend groups are jan with the sept borns.

Also if they do play up at school (tiredness etc) the other parents all know and judge both you and the kid.

It helps noone if some youngest kids cant cope need intervention they wouldnt have had if they were older.

Why do you think the children in the year group below should have to keep up with your DD who will be the oldest of the group by more than a year

As opposed to my daughter being expected to keep up with the children in her year who would be a year older?

I dont expect any child to do anything.

If there are any Summer Borns in the year then that means their parents are happy for them to be there.

I doubt very much a parent who does not want to defer their child will suddenly change their mind if they find there’s a child in the class who may be 13 months older than hers as opposed to the 12 months she thought would be then maximum.

Also the SATs are used to predict gcse results and the schools have to try to get them to achieve this. Well a SB will have done worse at ks2. They may have to work their way up from a lower set on starting secondary. My dc only had ok maths ks1 sat so the school dont need to put the effort in to get them to exceeding at ks2. And yet the result was probably pretty good by age...

Why do you think the children in the year group below should have to keep up with your DD who will be the oldest of the group by more than a year?

And realistically, it’s likely there will be children in the class who turn 5 within just a few weeks of mine turning 5. Hardly a huge age gap.