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

I will be honest OP you need to stop making these decisions driven by research/data/stats.

@ThornAmongstRoses

I can’t send my child to pre-school because I do shift work, I work different days and different times each week, whereas pre-schools, when I have enquired, want the children to go on set days.

What's your plan for school? That will be set days and times. Why can't the CM / you take her to preschool even for the 5 mornings or afternoons? You get however many hours paid for anyway.

You'd then have a better grasp of her readiness for school. I think it's unfair for a child to completely miss out on preschool education.

@ThornAmongstRoses

I would have hated be held back as an August born just because of my birthday I was in the right year. I know it would have been the wrong decision for me. Academically and socially losing that year would have been detrimental

But such is the benefit of hindsight.

For every deferred child there will be one where it was the right decision and one where it wasn’t (depending on how a person defines what is right and wrong).

It’s a judgement call and there’s no way of knowing if it will or won’t be the “right” decision.

I would love a crystal ball to tell me what I should do, but unfortunately I don’t

Yes exactly - and this is where all the research wont help because it is a judgment call about your child.

As I have said DS best friend was held back a year (he was 6 week premature) and for him it was definitely the right decision to do so.

Now you really do need to look at your daughter and see how ready SHE is and decide from there. And look at her social/academic/motor skills and if there are any gaps or it is one area in particular do (ironically what your brother suggested) and work on it at home.

I think once you do that the decision will be easier than you think it will be. Go with your instincts

@MarvinTheSadMartian

I will be honest OP you need to stop making these decisions driven by research/data/stats.

I stand by this.

She knows all of the research now she needs to look at her individual child alongside this and make the right individual choice

@ThornAmongstRoses

If preschool require set days then you take her on the days you're off work, and if you were at work the childminder would take her.

Imagine her set pre-school days are Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday, 6 hours a session, so taking up 18 hours of my entitled childcare.

This would mean I have 12 hours of childcare left.

However, my shifts mean I have to work on the Thursday and Friday which means that of the 20 hours I need, I will have to pay for 8 of them because some of my entitled hours will have already been used up on days I didn’t even need childcare.

If that happens most weeks then it’s at a cost £150+ a month.

I imagine you could find a way to get her some preschool exposure if you felt it would benefit her, it might mean you do have to pay for some childcare on top of your 30 free hours and only you know of course what your family finances can absorb. I think that the message here is simply that you should perhaps approach it from the perspective if considering whether preschool might be good for her rather than a starting point of “what are the minimum childcare hours I can get to cover my working hours for the least cost possible”?

@arethereanyleftatall

Fgs, just own it op. You want your child to have a better chance to be top of the class.

FGS don't be a shit-stirrer. My summer-born daughter started Reception aged 5 (compulsory school age) and guess what? She's learning the same things at the same time as the rest of her class. I wouldn't have a clue who is at the top of the class... because teachers don't tend to give out class rankings to parents . Her friends of the same age who started school at 4 the year before her are more advanced at reading, maths etc because they've had an extra year of education compared to her. I wouldn't expect my 7 year old daughter in year 2 to be achieving the same as her 7 year old friends in year 3. Don't be silly.

Over ready might be the wrong phrase, but it is possible that the older year group would suit a child more than the younger one.

@lillylemons

we have been thinking about deferring ds because he has severe language delay and communication difficulties, he's in the process of going through assessments to find out why, He can't talk and has very little understanding. I still can't decide what's for the best. it's a difficult decision to make.

In this case I would defer without hesitation. Are you on the flexible school admissions for summerborns page on Facebook? They are really helpful.

@Quartz2208 but the only way for her to judge what is likely to be best for her child is by looking at their curcumstances and comparing against the data, surely? For example research has shown that it is academically able children, and girls in particular, that are disadvantaged most by starting school at 4. Without referring to the research how could she make an informed choice for her paticular child?

@MarvinTheSadMartian I think what I am trying to say is that having done the research she knows all of that - now she needs to take that and apply it to her individual child and make a decision there.

I dont think we are disagreeing per se just coming at a different angle

@ThornAmongstRoses

OP this is exhausting! You are not going to find good-quality peer research for every single parenting decision that you need to make. At some point you have to employ some common sense and I think it is uncontroversial (although no doubt someone will disagree) that a good pre-school is helpful for school-readiness. Certainly this was my personal experience with my own children.

I only asked about the research because people are telling me I’m doing my daughter a disservice because she doesn’t go to pre-school. If people are going to accuse me of that then I would like to see their basis for that.

Like you said, your experience is that pre-school made a big difference to your children, whereas my experience is that my son, who didn’t go to pre-school had absolutely no problems going to school.

There is research. All that it says is that there is a slight advantage in certain school skills for kids who go to preschool but within a year or so there is no difference between the two groups.

Which is also anecdotally what teachers see. A child that's not been to pre-school might have a bit more learning curve around lining up, or the school routine, but they learn that quickly anyway and it's not rocket science.

The exception is children from deprived environments can really benefit from preschool, but even there IIRC the benefits seem to be less after a few years.

FWIW personally, none of my four kids went to preschool, and in fact the youngest any of them went to school at all was at age 10. They all are considered unusually civilised by their teachers and adjusted with no problems.

@ThornAmongstRoses

I would just say base the decision on your actual child, not their birthday.

This is why I’m so glad we don’t have to make our final decision until Easter as by then we’ll hopefully have a much better idea of what will be the best decision for her.

So presume you are submitting an application for 2021 then reviewing? You could leave it later to decide but the earlier you start talking to schools/La the better. Applying for a school place a year later means you will probably have difficulties doing so using the online system , for example.

Yes to the above. My ds was accepted for a place with his year group. Then we were granted permission to delay his start for a year so turned down the place as told by LEA. "He will automatically be added to the list of children to apply next year."

Three guesses what happened there!

If I hadn't been on the ball about chasing it up, he would have slipped through the net and had no school place the following year.

I looked at my class list in the light of this. Over a quarter of my class are summer borns ( as you'd expect).
It's not as though the other children will be all Sept and Oct birthdays and your child is the only August birthday.
I'm was a late August birthday and so is my son.
Honestly, it's fine. Absolutely fine. Keep him in the year he should be in.

@lillylemons

we have been thinking about deferring ds because he has severe language delay and communication difficulties, he's in the process of going through assessments to find out why, He can't talk and has very little understanding. I still can't decide what's for the best. it's a difficult decision to make.

Please seriously consider this. It made the world of difference to my son. That extra year gives time for extra input that will set him on such good stead to start. Or allow time for a diagnosis to help inform school of how to best support him.

If he has such poor understanding, he will struggle at school. You could then wind up with a bored, bewildered child who is switched off from education and isolated in class. Or a bored, bewildered child who begins to behave badly out of frustration and boredom. Or a child who learns to sit there nicely but just let everything wash over his head. An extra year of intervention at his level would be so much better for him. Starting him as expected denies him that.

Similar with my ds, along with physical difficulties. I delayed and would do so again in a heartbeat.

It's not as though the other children will be all Sept and Oct birthdays and your child is the only August birthday.

But it isn’t about the rest of the class.
It isn’t about wanting mine to be the oldest in the class, or not wanting her to be the youngest in the class. It’s about the fact she will only just be 4 when she starts which is the issue.

The fact is, research and data state that children starting school at just aged 4 are shown to be at a disadvantage throughout their education. This fact doesn’t change whether she’s in a classroom of autumn borns or a classroom full of summer borns.

So presume you are submitting an application for 2021 then reviewing? You could leave it later to decide but the earlier you start talking to schools/La the better.

The school told me they’d be happy for my daughter to start September 2022 as opposed to 2021, not to apply for the 2021 intake so she definitely has a place. They said that then, come Easter we can decide whether to keep that 2021 place or make the final decision to defer it for a year.

What do you think of the Scandinavian study that showed that by the time kids were 30, the youngest in the year group were out earning their older peers?

What do you think of the Scandinavian study that showed that by the time kids were 30, the youngest in the year group were out earning their older peers?

What has that got to do with me not wanting my child to potentially struggle during school?

A close friend held her youngest child back a year as she felt he wasn't ready as an August baby. He started this year, straight into Year 1, and adapting to this has been really tough on him and on them all as he gets used to it.

All of his friends from pre-school are together in Reception while he's with a different cohort that already have formed friendship groups so he is the outsider. He's missed out on all the gentle play-based learning in reception and has gone straight into a more structured type of learning and he's struggling with it. He also is nowhere near as capable as the kids in Year 1 whose learning during reception places them much further ahead.

While it's really hard on this little boy, I can imagine it's really challenging for his teachers too.

leopardprintknickers - that sound so hard for him

Our plan is to defer our twins starting date because they are 9 days short of the cut off but were born premature and are boys so we have 3 triggers for them possibly struggling at school. All we are doing is planning on them being in the school year that they would have been in had they been born at term.

You need to stop focusing on her age!

You haven't said anything about:

• is she shy and struggles to make friends
• does she seem uncomfortable in a group of kids
• does she get upset easily
• does she struggle with commands
• does she struggle with paying attention
• does she struggle with waiting for her turn
• does she struggle with putting her clothes on/off
• does she get tired quickly and still need a long nap during the day
• does she get intimidated easily

All questions that will address whether she's ready or not rather then 'but shell only be 4 an a few days'.

Age is very important if you believe just 4 is far too young to start school no matter how well you think your child will cope.

@Shantotto

Age is very important if you believe just 4 is far too young to start school no matter how well you think your child will cope.

It's child dependant regardless of them being 4. Hence dontdisturbmenow list is relevant.