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

I wish we had been able to defer DD - she is August but at that time deferment meant simply skipping Reception and that would have been worse. She is mildly ASD and is dyslexic - both of which were diagnosed late - I think to some extent because they made allowances for her being young rather than look at why she was struggling. We also moved just before she started Reception and she started a little late (November) would have benefited from a year in Nursery getting to know local children and all moving up to Reception together.

DS is a late July and he was sooo ready to start Reception and is consistently achieving academically well.

I have also seen families who deferred and then changes their mind as the children were bored in Nursery essentially repeating what they had already done and seeing their peers and old classmates in Reception.

Most schools are good at dealing with the differences between the oldest and the youngest in the year and most summer borns cats up - but there are some that benefit from starting Reception a year later.

It suits some kids but not others - only you can really know you child

My dd is July born - and about to start secondary school.

We didn’t defer her.

Academically she has more than held her own from the start. She has always enjoyed school and got a lot out of it BUT, being younger has had an impact. There were some things that she just had to work harder for early on, and emotionally it has been a challenge at times.

I still don’t think we would defer her if we went back again but if she were a boy, or had she not been as capable academically, I would seriously consider it.

As a teacher the summer borns as a general group are disadvantaged. No question about it. And that doesn’t magically end somewhere in y1 or even ks1 for a lot of children. I remember teaching y6 and an Educational psychologist coming into my classroom & picking out nearly every summer born in the class (without knowing their dob etc). I’ve also never known a child who has been deferred (& I’ve taught around 12 of them now) finding the deferral has caused them problems or it not having been a good decision for them. In general, I wish our school system were more flexible on this like it is in Scotland or Australia. It would be better for a lot more children.

Thank you all. That's all very very useful and interesting to read.

Did any of you have a very energetic (or ADHD) toddler who started school so young and it ended up being a problem for them (mainly for their concentration and energy levels) at school?

I'm part of the "Summer born" FB group but most people seem to be pro deferral on that group so I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

My son went with no deferral and I have no regrets

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…

If you defer, they will have the opposite problem - they will be having their 18th birthday in the summer term/summer holiday before Yr 13 but can't celebrate by going to the pub because all their friends will still be only seventeen. And if some of them are summer born, they could be still only sixteen.

My DD is definitely of the never still variety - and I think that the effective deferral by moving to Scotland would have been a disaster if the curriculum were less flexible - she's in the top groups in a mixed age class... She does have the ability to focus on what interests her though, always has.

She's always had good fine motor skills (Lego, drawing) which makes school work less challenging.

Sports wise the coaches at athletics have assumed she's older than her age.

Some of that is the extra time at school and in school type settings compared with her peers- she started school nursery (half days in the EYFS classroom and shared with actual reception) at 3, then did reception until first lockdown before moving to Scotland giving her as much school environment time as the then P2s...

I think it really does depend on the child. DC2 has an early September birthday and was ready, academically and socially to start the year before he could. If I had been able to start him as the youngest in the year above I would have. He was bored for the last 6 months of nursery. DC1 is a March birthday so the September start was perfect.
If you think DC is ready and will be bored by more nursery, then let them start.

I regret not deferring my late Aug child they were due early Sept it i had a week early. Emotionally still behind as they go into year7 in Sept and it’s very evident but academically bright so no issues there. We had no choice to defer and stay in year group just miss foundation class.

I didn't defer my mid aug dd2. She was tiny going into reception and has always had a bee in her bonnet about being small until now when she's entering Y10 and taller than a lot of her friends.

Her school had mixed year classes and she spent a lot of time in a class with the year below. She has always said she would have hated to be in that year group as they all seemed so immature to her and said thank god we didn't defer her. I do think it can have an impact on them not being in their 'proper' year as they get older.

She did really well on SATs and got a straight pass on her 11+ into the grammar school. Her sister (Nov born) passed but wasn't in the top 150 so had to wait to see if she had a place.

Now heading into gcse year and she's in top set maths (the only subject they stream in).

We didn't defer our late summer born.

She was absolutely fine, a little behind at first with writing and now has just finished Y1 top of the class, reading at end of Y2 level and her writing is just fine.

No issues with physical activities and sports either.

The one thing we did notice was that she was very tired after school and would sleep on the way home (20 min car journey), and was particularly tired the first term. She seemed more tired than her classmates

I have two August born babies! Well they’re not babies any more; they’re 12 and 9. It would have been a disaster for DS1 to defer. He’s exceptionally bright and was very much ready for school at 3 when I moved him to a pre school at an indie as he was bored at his day nursery and the indie offered a more formal pre school similar to reception in state schools. He read fluently by 4 and is now in a superselective grammar school. DS2 struggled a bit in the initial stages with formal learning but has caught up now and is ahead of age related expectation for some subjects. DS2 is very very tall for his age and I think he would be uncomfortable in the year below. He is the tallest boy in his year despite being the youngest! So all round, I have very glad that we didn’t defer although I was worried in the beginning with DS2.

I'm glad I didn't defer my August son, he would not have been pushed if he had waited a year and although emotionally he was younger, academically he did extremely well and is now at uni. The same as my other 2 summer babies.

Regardless of anecdotes, research shows that summer borns in the UK (where the school age cut off is 1 Sept) are disadvantaged in terms of academic and sporting achievements and that this disadvantage persists to third level and beyond.

My 14th August baby has just finished secondary school achieving A A A* and will take up a place at a top university in the coming weeks but there have been many times that I have thought he would have been better off with children in the lower age bracket. Academically, he has always held his own but socially, the difference have been evident, these differences compound themselves as summer borns never get to be at the same level as the older ones, they are always playing catch up.

He is lucky that the sport he plays is not very popular and has age divisions that span 3 years and the country he plays in has a 31 December cut off for age the result being that while he never shone in school where the cut off is 31 August for sport, he never received extra attention, outside of school he was player of the year, and ultimately team captain of the team that won a national competition as well as being selected to play with the national team and the local adults side.

All anecdotal, but, as I said, the research shows that this advantage persists beyond further education. On a population level, it does not level out in year 1.

I'm not in the uk, so had a little flexibility.

My first 2 are middle of the year group age wise. My younger 2 are summer born.

#3 really didn't seem ready to start and we ended up moving schools and having her repeat FYOS.

Based partly on that, we held our youngest back and he had a bonus kinder year. He had significant speech/communication problems and is happier being amongst the eldest. No regrets despite him being gifted and needing to be extended significantly in maths.

That’s not entirely accurate these days @Iamnotthe1 - there is national statutory guidance which more or less guarantees the right for offset reception start for summer borns, if parents wish. There are some inconsistencies in application but they rarely stand up to appeal.

If you’re in England there is a statutory right for parents to request offset reception start @Mumteedum - some schools and LAs resist it a bit but it’s very difficult for them to decline and they almost never get away with it.

My little one is august born. She took a little time to settle in socially but totally found her feet during reception year. She just finished primary with beyond year expectations in all her sats. It was fine. All turned out well!

This is a common misconception: the right to defer is guarenteed but the rest is up for debate. The legislation states that the decision is the authority's to make, taking into account what they believe will be in the best interests of the child, and parents can only request it. Some authorities do this themselves after seeking the views of all involved, some create panels of 'experts' to discuss it and decide and some have panels which include the parents of the child (but not all do).

The legislation also states a similar discussion will occur at the transition to secondary school after the parent applies for a deferred start there too (whilst in Year 5). In most situations, they'll just let it continue but, again, the local authority can force a child to move year groups there if they believe it's in the best interests of the child.

I have a late August dd. She was ready to go to school at 4 and we've never regretted it. She is very bright and was very socially aware for a 4yo. She's 17 now and about to apply to university.

Yes she was born August 29th and we didn't defer, it was totally fine.
She seemed very young to go but she was sociable and happy and loved school. Always got good grades.

I think the only noticable difference was that she was one of the smallest in the class. This did not matter in terms of PE or anything because she caught up by year 2 and all 4-7 year olds are awful at sports :)

It made no difference at all to her life that she was the youngest in the class- somebody has to be.

My mums due date with me was in September, I was born early August. I don't know what happened but my parents were given the wrong information about when I should start school so I was thrown in the deep end and had to start in Year 1. So not only was I the youngest in the year, I'd missed Reception as well. I learnt to read at 3 and remember my primary teachers being amazed by my reading and writing skills. Throughout school, English was the only subject i really did well in. I really struggled until the end of A levels. I'm not the most academic anyway but I also think I struggled with emotional maturity. I took a gap year before starting university and I remember feeling so happy when I did start, I found that for the first time ever that I was at the same level as my peers. I always felt so out of place before.

But then, someone has to be the youngest. I do feel for parents of summer born children.

Are you currently receiving the 30 hours free? If so that would continue

DS born mid August. Went to Reception age 4. He was very ready for it. He was a fluent reader when he started, so ended up mid year going to year 2 for Literacy each morning, and was the best in that class at reading and composing stories, less so at writing them.

Continued excelling at reading and maths, writing falling further behind. This meant his teachers in UKS2 & secondary were getting more and more frustrated with him, as he had ideas and could verbalise answers but wouldn't put them down on paper.

GCSEs he got 6s-9s during COVID. He thinks he'd never have got those scores had he actually taken the papers. I agree with him.
College-failed 1st year of A levels as didn't do the work. Failed 2nd year of easy Btech course as didn't do the work.

I put his progressive lack of effort down to 2 things.

1. learning came very easily to him, so he never learned how to learn, how to fail and improve from it

2. only being 4 years old starting reception meant his hand muscles weren't developed enough for the writing being asked of him in the year 2 class. Him going to the year 2 class means he had an hour less each day than his peers developing the strength in his hands and doing all the prewriting skills reception focus on to build those muscles and forming letter shapes. Meaning writing came harder to him.

So whilst I don't regret sending him as an August baby, I do regret the school sending him to year 2 each day. I knew nothing about it until the next term's parents evening and by then it was nearly the end of the school year.

My DD1 is 26th August. I didn't defer her start. As said above emotional maturity is slightly obvious next to an Autumn born child in her year but no enough to be an issue. She had been in nursery 4 full days since 11 months and had no issues settling in.
She's just going into year 3 and she's as expected in all areas but music and art where she is slightly above but she loves creative things so not surprised.

I have 2 friends born 4th and 6th August, neither deferred start in school and one is a Clinical Psychologist and the other a band 8a clinical nurse practitioner so it didn't hold them back.
A husband of one of my NCT class was also August born and was very high up in the teaching profession.
I know it's anecdotal but I found it reassuring as so many people make you feel like your child is doomed to a life of failure if they're summer born and not deferred 🙄.