To Decelerate School Entry

[Bl00dyH3ll]

My daughter was born 26th August due to start school September 2022. I just don't know what to do 🥺. She's small for her age and I worry that she will visibly be the youngest and struggle. Statistically speaking she's likely to be at a disadvantage, who wants to deliberately place their child at a disadvantage? A year is a huge difference! Children in her year group would have learned so many skills when she was being birthed, from words to walking! I can absolutely see the difference in a September/October baby from the previous year, yet no difference between her and October babies who are 2 months younger. As a summer baby, I was all good academically but fell short socially so I just feel she's likely to fall behind in one of these areas.

No developmental issues and is perfectly fine at nursery with children her age, aside from speech regression last March when the nursery closed and lockdown began she didn't say a word for 6 months, not even mummy but her speech is now spot on. I do worry about her ability to deal with change and pressure at this young age. Another concern is potential covid restrictions and I don't want her first year to be tarred by the current crap.

Gosh, why couldn't she have been born on her due date - 1st September!

OP look for the facebook group Flexible School Admissions for Summer Borns. They have a wealth of information there and can help you put a request to your LEA. In my area the council allow you to defer entry, we are deferring entry for my summer born ds, he was due to start this September but will start in reception in 2022 and remain in his new cohort.

Everyone who is saying the child will be started in Year 1 and miss reception, or will have to go into secondary school with the right cohort age m, therefore miss a whole year of school, are incorrect.

That is not the case at all OP so don’t let these myths affect your decision.

If it helps, there were 3 august born children in my daughter’s pre-school year. One deferred which was absolutely right the other two didn’t but it was more borderline. One has continued to struggle in reception and is behind and likely would have had a better time if he’d deferred. The other one struggled for the first 5-6 months, was v tired but she’s doing really well now the end of the year has approached.

My daughter is summer born but there was no question of us deferring - she was v emotionally mature, one of the tallest etc. There is a massive difference between 4 and 5. What she can do now compared to school starting is massive and the autumn born children do have a massive head start. In our year, the majority have sept-nov birthdays so it is quite noticeable.

With does saying she will have to skip a year of secondary, is that taking into account the rule change around five years ago making deferment easier? None of the children deferred under new rules are secondary age yet.

OP, talk to her nursery and potential schools in September. They will know better than strangers if she's ready or not.

I'm an August baby and so is DS2. I never had any problems at school, any of DS2's are probably caused by his ADHD. He's been much better since being medicated. He just had parents' evening and his teacher said that medicating was absolutely the right decision.

I can absolutely see the difference in a September/October baby from the previous year, yet no difference between her and October babies who are 2 months younger.
You are not comparing like for like. Is there much difference between her and June babies two months older? September/October babies are 10 and 11 months older than her, I would expect to see a difference there, the same as if you were to compare her to June/July babies 10 or 11 months younger than her (children who would be in her class if she started at 5).

@ThornAmongstRoses

Everyone who is saying the child will be started in Year 1 and miss reception, or will have to go into secondary school with the right cohort age m, therefore miss a whole year of school, are incorrect.

That is not the case at all OP so don’t let these myths affect your decision.

This. OP please make sure you are correctly informed before making your decision. The Facebook group PP have mentioned is very informative with the most up to date information.

To those posters saying the child would go straight into year 1, that is no longer the case. The rules changed in the last few years so the deferred children would start in Reception & stay in their new year group all the way through school.

I understand, we went through similar conversations when our August born DD was due to start school. But we didn’t want her missing reception and going straight into yr1. And really, reception class is all about learning through play, I think kids miss more from that reception year tbh.
As your DD has already been at nursery (where they have to follow the early years curriculum anyway), the transition to reception will be easier for her than those who didn’t go to nursery if you see what I mean.
My DD is now in yr 10, no issues academically or socially.

Ah, thanks @Shelby2010, it’s changed in the years since we were deciding this.

Mine are late august birthdays, they were actually due in the October so they were less than 4 when starting. Reception was a struggle, y1 onwards they were on target for everything.

I'm a summer baby. I would have not enjoyed bring the eldest in the class as I was always very competitive/did well at school and would have been bored and possibly a bit disruptive in the year below. I actually used to challenge myself to get better grades then the people almost s year older than me. I probably was a bit less mature but it never really impacted me however if it were my DS I know he would struggle.

I’m a late August baby and I did fine, blah blah blah, but I didn’t do my nursery schooling during a global pandemic with massive disruption to both my social and formal learning. In your case op I’d definitely look to defer.

I would speak to the school deferring is an obvious solution but can you send part time and build up to full time?

We are in the same position and will likely be going with the latter. Children don’t need to be in school legally until they turn 5 so there is flexibility for summer borns if the school allows it.

They do grow up a lot in the summer before school, and again during YR, they're unrecognisable by the time they start Y1! My two are May birthdays and I would say YR was a struggle socially. I must admit my main concern was them not getting bored academically, also I had no desire to pay for another year of nursery!

I agree with everyone else, get confirmation in writing from the council that they won't force her to skip Y6 or anything because I think that would be far worse than a potentially tough year at the beginning.

The myths around deferring shouldn't influence your decisions.

Get the fact. You can delay reception for 1 year and follow that all the way through. Sounds like it would be the best decision for your family.

I'm going to second the Flexible School Admissions on Facebook if you can, they have up-to-date information on the situations around this and are more likely to be able to give information on what the current situation is in your local area (some areas it's easier to arrange than others - for some it's as simple as asking, for others it can get into different types of evidence to provide).

There should not be a case of being pushed to enter into Y1 straight away or to skip a year for secondary if deferment is arranged though some still use this either out of misinformation or to spook parents. They'd have to prove it's in the best interest of the child to do those and its hard to argue its best for kids to skip a year. The schools in your area should have the steps for an out of year application on their website.

I considered this for DD2 (currently Y7), though chose to with her year group -- but I'd home educated for primary so was looking at it as a secondary option with a child who I did 'repeat' a year with due to SEN so it's a bit of an unusual situation that was made more unusual with COVID.

When I had my daughter I needed planned c-section and pushed for a sept date as I didn’t want her to be an August baby. To be honest I didn’t know but she would have been fine being an August baby - she is a confident child and can cope well with change etc. You know your children well enough but I would say the schools are geared up with knowing how to support the whole cohort of children with a range of ages.
I do worry if we end up removing the ‘even’ spread of children and end up with classes that are weighted with older children - I do think that will impact the August babies that haven’t been held back a year as the balance will have shifted.
My husband was a child that was held back a year for numerous reasons - he never noticed until secondary school where he did experience bullying as they’d question whether he was to stupid etc and he hated that! And waiting for people to turn 18!!

If you have the option to defer and start reception a year later go for it. Did it for ds(17), in Scotland, and have never regretted it.

Following-

We thought about this for our summer born DD. In the end we didn't hold her back and I'm still 50/50 on whether it was the right decision.
Things to check:

• Speak to the school. Are there other July/August babies? If so, that will be easier.
• What is the LA policy on skipping a year? In some areas they put them straight into year 1 which is the worst possible outcome because then they just miss the reception foundations. In others they start a year later in Reception
• If you can, find out about secondaries. I have never taught in a secondary where we have moved kids back to their 'age' year, we keep them with the year group they have been in at primary, but it sounds from other posters like that is an area thing too.

It should not be the case that there are difficulties with school transfer. That is not the same as saying there won't be. That is why I advise getting in in writing.

And definitely finding out the facts of policy and practice in your potential new area if you move.

I’m a summer born baby and started nursery (in a primary school) when I had just turned 3, whereas Autumn babies were almost 4. I was one of the only children who could read and I was never behind academically or socially.

However, you know your DD the best. Has she socialised with other children before at pre-school or crèche? Being a summer born baby doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be behind academically all your life. Just like how being born in the autumn doesn’t guarantee you’ll be top of the class.

Yanbu to worry but I would send her anyway. One of my daughters has a slightly later birthday than yours and there were (and still are) clear differences between her and her friends. She still has friends though and was at the top of her primary classes academically. I do think she would have done better emotionally in the year below but that isn't an option in England as far as I know.

Oh but reading some of the answers here looks like I was wrong. Maybe it's just a definite no in my Lea. I'd consider a delayed start then if its possible. But not just skipping reception and starting year 1 later.