Have you sent your August-born to school at 4 and later regretted it?

[Sandrine1982]

Hi

I know this has been discussed many times before but I'd like to hear from parents who have not deferred the school start for their kids.
I know some parents with August-born children and they all want to defer their children so they start reception at 5.
But I want to hear the other perspective.

Our DD is just 3 but the registration period will start soon and I really don't know what we should do. She was born 25 August but her due date was actually 1 September. She was born a bit early as I had to be induced.

She seems very bright and is an extremely active, lively, friendly and sociable child. She has been at nursery full time since she was 1 year old.
Her speech is developping fine and physically she's also developping great - she's quite tall and athletic for her age.

The only thing I'm worried about is emotional maturity and just general readiness for school. I'm not really worried about reception but her schooling later on, and the impact of school on her confidence levels if "it doesn't work out".

Can people offer their experiences if they haven't deferred and it all turned out ok?
And if we do send her to school and she's really struggling later on, can she repeat a year or something like that?
I'm not familiar with the UK system as I wasn't born here..

Thanks in advance.
xx

My DGS just turned 3 last week, he’ll be in reception next September, I think it depends on the child, his Mum ( my DD) is a Maths teacher and he will definitely be ready, he barely spoke a word last Xmas and she was worried 🙄 but his vocabulary now is unbelievable for a 3 year old.

My DD is a mid August baby. We didn’t defer. She spoke and toilet trained pretty early and went to nursery from 10 months. She’s always
been pretty sociable.

She did struggle initially especially with reading and writing but had a big catch up in year 2 and is similar to her peers now. She also used to get really tired after school in reception but this settled with time. I didn’t sign her up for activities after school until year 1 due to this.

Her main complaint about a summer birthday is that she can’t bring in sweets to the class on her birthday due to the summer holidays but there is no easy way round that!

Haha @pushpushthebutton about the sweets! But at least she gets to have a birthday party in the park or a do a barbecue which is surely a plus, no?

We did not deferred
DD was ready, she wanted to go and even at her pre-school sessions she was one of the most determined kids to learn and get ready for “ big school”
she was the youngest of the year all through primary school, some girls were a year older and you could see a massive difference - saying that most her friends were between 2 months - 2 weeks older than her, so not that big of a gap
she is dyslexic… before the diagnosis I thought it was maybe not deferring what was keeping her behind, but once she got the props support, she flourished and finished primary on the top percentile of her class (both maths and english!)
would keeping her a year would have been beneficial? Maybe… but socially and academically she seems to be doing well
Will it be hard for her later when all her friends are turning 18 and she has to wait to legally drink and go to clubs? Again, maybe, but most kids will be drinking and using fake IDs well before anyway…
she can always take a gap year later on, and then that year disappears

My DD is mid August-born and due to go into year 3. She’s doing really well so far and got either ‘exceeding’ or ‘expected’ for everything in her end of year 2 report. I have zero regrets about not deferring her.

I didn’t defer my august born who is now about to start y5, but did think about it and
worried about it a lot.

He was very small starting school and def seemed emotionally and physically behind some of his (autumn born) peers but def not all. Academically however there’s not been any real issues, in fact it’s clear now that holding him back a year could have been detrimental. He’s now exceeding expectations in most areas.

My second was a June born and similar story.

I will say that even if your dc seems very very young now, it could be a different story in just a few months’ time.

I'm in Scotland where deferral is more common - kids here start at 4.5 at the youngest and it was previously 5.5 at the oldest (the cut off is at the end of February) but it's now becoming more common to defer autumn borns such that kids can start school at almost 6.

I have two winter babies; I've deferred one already and the other is only 3 now but will definitely be deferring when his time comes. DD was reading, writing, doing sums etc before she started school - but her nursery saw that she was keen and gently encouraged this. When she went into P1 she could basically already do all the work that was expected by the end of the year and that meant she could just focus that year on friendships, new routines, etc. It was very, very obvious all through P1 and P2 who the non-deferred winter borns were for various academic/social/behavioural reasons.

Pretty much everyone I asked for advice - Mum friends, teacher friends, ed psych friends said the same thing which was that you might regret not deferring but you will never regret deferring.

Anecdotally - I was the youngest in my year at school. Everyone looking at me from the outside, including my parents, would have said that it was great that I was in that school year. I flew through my exams, always had loads of friends, participated in sports, etc. In reality as a teenager I felt incredibly young compared to my peers and it made me really unhappy. I took a gap year and felt 'right' going to Uni. One of my good friends was in the same position and she was able to repeat a school year after ill health and she said she finally felt like she belonged, when she was the oldest rather than youngest in the year. Just a thought that things can go very smoothly in primary but less so in secondary.

Someone has asked what we would do if we deferred? She's do another year at nursery. Thinking about that scenario, I can't help but feel that it would be so boring for her...
(and financially really hard for us too)...

The financial aspect is obviously a worry and I can't comment on that! Re nursery being boring - you could talk to the manager about their plans for the older children. Again it is different in Scotland as there is typically a cohort of older kids and the nurseries IME provide well for them.

Go to the Flexible Admissions for Summer Borns page on Facebook they have all the research and how it all works on there.

I was a slightly different situation, born in September and I went to school a year early (the year I was 4) so slightly younger than the august borns. I never struggled, was one of the top in the year and had lots of friends.

I think it depends on the child rather than the age.

my DD has just had her 16 th birthday this week. She started school a week after her 4 th birthday. She went to bog standard schools and just got 11x 9's in her GCSEs. If they are not struggling developmentally so far, they will be fine. However, she is 3rd child so had been walking siblings to school and was desperate to start. Did not even say goodbye on her first day, just got in a queue and went in whilst I was talking to another parent!

My August born started school a year or two before defer Reception start was an option. He's now in secondary school.

He was very young when he started school, but did seem 'ready' - I wasn't worried about him.
He was definitely more socially ready than physically/academically ready, but he did catch up.
He's done well at school and has always been at or exceeding expected level, top sets in secondary etc.

BUT
If I had my time again, I would 100% defer an August born.
Yes, if they're bright, sociable and well supported at home they will probably do fine, but they will not do as well as they would have if they were the oldest in the year and started at nearly 5.
Starting at just 4 is a disadvantage. It makes things much harder for them.
Even at secondary school, although my son is holding his own academically, he is much smaller than the boys a year older.
Just two non-academic examples:
He wasn't picked for sports teams so much in primary as he was smaller and less physically co-ordinated than children a year older, so by secondary had much less experience in sports.
He wasn't given big speaking roles in infants plays as they went to the oldest children who were more confident and able to remember lines so by secondary had much less experience of performing and public speaking.

I have a September born child now as well and the difference in their school experiences has been very obvious. I would never willingly disadvantage my child if I had the choice (even if they would do 'fine').

@Sandrine1982 why would another year at nursery be financially hard? Do you not qualify for 30 hours funding?

@Connie2468 we only qualify for 15 hours and our nursery is expensive.

My step son was an August baby and my own son was due mid August but born late July. Both went to school as normal and did fine. Only issue was when their mates could all get scooters at 16 and they couldn't (and subsequently cars etc). But as kids are born throughout the year it was just their bad luck that their closest mates were born in October/November.

I'm in NI so the cut-off date is different, but my DS1 is the youngest in his class and started school age 4 and 2 months. He has always been fine academically. He is a tall boy, and happens to be in a class where a lot of his friends are summer born so that may have helped? He goes to a small primary school (1 class per year) but initially started at a much bigger school where he did not settle at all - no issues since moving him in second term of P1 (reception). He's now going into his final primary year.

I have another DS who would really have benefited from waiting a year - he was premature, small for his age, very sensitive. He is fine now he is older but really struggled for first couple of years - there was no option to delay school start for him without a statement of SEN or else I would have done it.

Oops - what I meant to say was it is very individual to the child.

she's quite tall and athletic for her age.

I would not defer if she is likely to be "sporty", at clubs etc. she will have to play with her age, so she may miss out if she is slightly too old for the teams/age categories her class will be in.

Sorry posting fail -

DS1 - no regrets
DS2 - would 100% have benefited from waiting a year.

I have 1 winter and 2 summer. I deeply regret not deferring my summer born kids. Life was just harder for them in primary. They struggled with anything academic, always playing catch up. I think 2 years of nursery would have made massive difference with self esteem and their time at primary.

I have an August born and a September born. Didn’t defer the August born. But I noticed that my September born really could have done with starting school a lot sooner than she did. She turned five in her first week in Reception. No issues with my August boy.

We haven't differed our mid august daughter. She does look very little amongst some of the other kids but she has an older sibling so is used to being around older kids. I suspect that has helped a bit. She is fiercely independent and a force of nature and seems fairly bright to us. She is meeting expectations at school whereas her feb born older sibling has been exceeding almost everything, I don't think she is any less bright than her sibling (actually think she may be a bit brighter) so I do think the age makes a difference but I'm glad we sent her and we've never doubted the decision. She took till end of reception to start making closer friends whereas others had more established friend groups by then but by the end of year one she had a firm group of friends established and is friendly with others outside this group too. The friendships probably did take longer due to the emotional maturity but she's found her place and is very happy at school.

I don’t think you are allowed to defer a year because you want to? I think you can delay her start though - like instead of reception she can go straight into year 1 but it sounds like she might enjoy reception.

It's DDs 15th birthday tomorrow. We didn't defer and I am glad we didn't. Ask me again in 3 years time though if she is heading to uni when she has only just turned 18.

Emotionally, she was fine and took it in her stride. She was a bit worried about moving from infants to juniors but was fine in September once she actually started. The teachers were great with the transition.

Academically, she is doing well. She is in top sets and has just had 1 GCSE at A and mainly got As / As in the other modules she took this year (ie she will take the rest of the GCSE next year. I don't think holding her back would have had any benefit for her, she was always ready for the next move.

Did not mean that to be in bold - forgot the star did that.

She got A star in her GCSE and mainly As and A stars.