To be shocked deferring by a year has become this common?

[Killiam]

My DS is 4, his birthday is august 28th, he started school this year.
Today I went to a session at his school where parents were invited in to see what they have been doing etc.
After I was talking to some parents and they noted more than once how tiny he is, I said ah well he has just turned 4 so makes sense. This is when I learned of his class of 24 kids, 4 of them should have started the year before 1 June birthday, 2 July and 1 August. The next closest in age to my son is a June baby so no other July or August babies born his year at all!
DS seems to be doing well but when I asked the other summer parents why they decided to defer they basically all said they just felt their kids needed more time, nothing the separates them from DS.
DS does cry most days going in and couldn't write his name or anything before starting.
The school is in central London and is very diverse but lots of Eastern European and Asian parents and Ive learn that in most of those countries 6 or even 7 is a more common. starting age so I wonder if that plays a role?

AIBU to be shocked it is so common to defer now? Starting to wonder if I made the right choice!

DD1 is a June baby and the only option for us would have been to skip reception at age 4 and send her straight into Y1 at 5, which seemed worse. I don’t know of anyone round here who deferred their summer born.

DD1 went to nursery for 3 full days since the age of 1 and has never struggled with school, so I think it very much depends on the child and is certainly not a given that they will be disadvantaged.

And many of the selective schools have overcome this by standardising entrance exam results by age.

In the normal run of things they are the same age as some others (there were 4 August birthdays in my sons class) and then there are the July, June, May babies that aren't that different. The September one could easily say they were 11 months older than some of thier peers and it was boring.

The deferred entry thing is meaning less summer borns in each class and making it worse for those that stay. Then the new struggling group will be April, may, June or match, April, May.

If they just made the first few years of school more play based it wouldn't be such an issue.

This is vastly overestimating the effect on an individual level - there's clear cohort evidence, but that doesn't mean that it can predict how an individual child will do. Nor is age the strongest predictive factor, by some way: parental income and education is much more so. Realistically a middle-class summer-born from a family that values education comes in with a significant advantage over a child who is 11 months older but doesn't have those other advantages - but actually, none of that is enough to tell you who will do best academically out of any two actual children, rather than an average cohort of them. Data isn't destiny.

This is what I thought happened but I take it deferred kids now start in reception?

Yes once I heard this I didn't feel so bad about my choice to stick with her "correct" year

Around here they start in reception if deferred and stay with that cohort throughout primary and secondary.

We are on the border of 5 counties so kids go to school in any of these areas and they are all the same.

I never knew this was a thing. DS is August 10th. He was on half days until Christmas I think. He went to nursery so was toilet trained and could cope with a classroom environment. He was a little behind his peers at primary but caught up in high school. Now in Year 4 at Loughborough Uni. If it was an option I don't think I would have taken it as he seemed ready.

Sure, it has data, but it's a virtual obsession among middle-class English people. I mean, the data crosses cultures, but the competitive, insecure, socially aspirant type of attitude to parenting and education you get among the MC in England catastrophises it. Someone will always be the youngest in a year group.

What a nasty comment. You've also completely misunderstood the issue. 🙄 It isn't about who is youngest or oldest. It's about the fact that it is not developmentally appropriate to start formal schooling aged 4. Even 5 is too young. It has worse outcomes educationally and for health. It even impact life expectancy.

Therefore, given the option to reduce the negative impacts by starting later of course people choose not to subject their children to unnecessary harm. If I could also have deferred my child with a winter birthday to start at 5.5 instead of 4.5 I would have, but we can only take the options allowed in our system so I could only do it for the one with a summer birthday.

Interestingly, these negative effects on the younger children in a cohort do not occur in systems where all children start at 6-7. So it's not a relative age issue about them being younger than classmates, it is about them being objectively too young for a school environment to be appropriate.

Damn straight. @GildedRage - it’s called ecological fallacy. Population level data makes sense at a population level. It can’t be used to make inferences about individuals in a population. So “my summer born child is fine” is totally valid.

Nope. The Department for Education has been crystal clear that children should stay in the cohort with which they started school throughout their education. A school can only suggest they move cohort if they can prove this is in the child's best interests. It's never going to be in a child's best interests to be ripped away from their friends in YR5 and told to start YR7. If schools are ignoring the process they are required to follow then parents can take them to tribunal and they will win.

I deferred my 4 year old August born daughter, no additional or medical needs. There is absolutely no need for just turned four year olds to be learning reading, writing and maths. They should be playing and learning social skills in nursery. He started Reception at just turned 5 and is 3 weeks older than the oldest kids in his class who are mostly September/Oct born. No regrets at all, best decision we ever made for her.

I was the opposite with DD1, she started school at 4.5 in the January as summer borns started later by default then. But she was ready at just 4. In fact she was probably ready at 3- born ready that girl. I felt it was harder for that cohort to settle in and make friends as class friendships had already formed, plus having four months less education hardly helped any who were already behind. DD1 was luck as a good friend came up with her from nursery. They are still best friends now aged 19.

With DD2 on the other hand I was glad she was February born and 4.5 when starting school as she was just ready then. I think starting a year late is great depending on the child as long as they get the same number of years of education overall.

I live in the US, many parents do this here, one extra year of preschool is an advantage. Socially, physically for sports, and academically they have an advantage. In the US we call it preschool. Our college system here is very expensive and to get an academic scholarship you have to have a brilliant academic record, the kids need to have perfect grades and be in the top of their class plus have community volunteer hours. A parent that may have gone to a college like Princeton may want their child to get into a school of the same notoriety. A child that plays basketball for example at 16 will have a physical advantage over a child that is 15. The cut off date to get into kindergarten is Aug. if a child has an Aug. birthday the parent has the choice to go ahead and go to kindergarten or do one more year of preschool. Preschool here is not free, kindergarten is free. It’s the wealthy, college educated people that usually choose to hold the kids back. It looks similar to what you are describing in the UK.

Our youngest ds is a late august baby, and although he’s only just turned 2, we are planning on deferring for a year so he will start reception just turned 5 rather than just turned 4.

Our eldest ds is an early September baby, he started reception the day he turned 5 and still seemed so small even then as the oldest!
Although he was confident and academically always very advanced and could have coped at just turned 4, I want my kids to thrive not just cope!
essentially ds1 had an extra year
before starting school than his younger brother will have, and it has really benefited him.
Hence why we’re considering deferring ds2 when the time comes. Again he is already a very bright capable boy he would cope just fine, but I think giving them an extra year to mature and just play can only be a benefit to them in the long run.

I don’t worry about them being ‘bored’ as I think formal schooling starts too young in this country anyway and lots can be learnt through play and following their lead.
I do think i am only considering it because it has become so normal to do so for summer born children, otherwise I wouldn’t consider it I suppose, as I wouldn’t want them to be stigmatised or teased. It’s so normal to do now that I don’t want ds2 to be the only summer born because everyone has deferred! lol

Doesn't this make it even more important?

For example if you're a family on a low income with a summer born.

You can't change your income. You can defer entry for your August child.

I don't know anyone who does this, in my area they start full time at the school nursery the term after they turn 3!

DH is a very late summer born I’m not quite as late and it was no issue for us at all. DS went to school when they still had two intake so he was sent when he was just 4 as born in March at the Easter time intake. They do not do that anymore, he was fine.

Biggest indicator of educational attainment is Mother’s educational level, ethnic group and socio economic grouping. Always outliers but they are the strongest factors.

Also worth bearing in mind that year R is early years curriculum - the same as nursery settings. Year 1 is key stage 1, when all children are of compulsory school age (in this country).

I didn’t want to (and I didn’t) defer my August born child’s schooling. I think it has been beneficial for him starting school when he did. Of course, for those who do not defer their August born children’s schooling, they may end up in a situation where the oldest child is actually OVER a year older. There has to be a cut off point, and I’m not really supportive of parents choosing to do this. I think it should be in exceptional circumstances only.

It depends on the child. I was August born and although I was physically very small and had some social challenges (possibly neurodiversity rather than age) I found academic work and sport easy so would not have liked being in the year bellow. My second DD is Summer born and I don't think it would be in her interests to defer her as although she isn't academic she has settled well into a structured pre-school and is good at sport so I think she'll be very ready for school when it comes round.

Well, actually it's probably an argument against allowing it. Because a family on a low income is much less likely to have the means for an extra year of paid childcare to facilitate deferral, and they're also on average less likely to have the knowledge to investigate deferral. Deferral is largely advantaging kids who already have the advantage of invested parents who are savvy about the education system. It's a bit like school choice - it's popular with parents as it allows the more advantaged to pick options that further advance their own child, but it's not great for population-level equality of educational outcomes.

My 4 year old (April born) hasn't started school yet, although she was due to start this year. I feel that if she's at home with me, then I get bored of doing 'kids stuff' all day and she gets bored of not being with friends. We are only entitled to 15 hours a week nursery, so that's 2 full days. Other than those days she is home with me. What on earth do people do all day with a lively 4 year old if they're not at school?! If they are at nursery full time, what's the difference between that and school? The best scenario for me would be 3 full days a week, but even the extra day is 60 quid!

That's really interesting so we could change nothing but the curriculum basically and iron out this issue. By that I mean extend eyfs up to year 2 with its indoor outdoor continuous provision stuff.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell explores success in sport based on birthdays - hockey in his example. Many parents feel this applies to summer babies and starting school year as youngest and this disadvantage lasts entire school career. There are countries/private schools where up to 20% of children are held back so will be oldest “most able” the next year.

The Relative Age Effect describes a phenomenon where a child who is born in the early part of a selection period tends to be more successful than a child born late in the selection period. But how does it arise? We’ll discuss the psychological biases, and two examples from Outliers.

I have 2 August born babies. My eldest turned 5 this August and has just started school.
We were on and off about whether it was the right choice but in the country I'm from (Eastern Europe) school starts at 6, yes it's immediately more formal and there is no real reception equivalent but I have been told by several teachers who have worked in my home country and in the UK that in some/many schools it's not that different to just starting with year 1 - though stricter.

Ultimately the school DD goes to encourages those at the associated nursery born between June and August to defer so it is very common in her school, she isn't the youngest and actually has 2 children older than her (class of 25 central London, religious school) there are no August 2020 babies in her class and just 1 July 2020 baby.
We have been told that our school of choice is stricter and than lots of other schools now and the religious character is much more pronounced which might be a factor in why they encourage parents to defer.

We now are certain we made the right choice, she would have been 'ready' last year and probably done fine. This year however she is so much more confident, we have no issues with transition, she's very capable. It also meant we had 2 full years at the school run nursery which let us do a much softer transition starting with 3 mornings a week, then 5 mornings a week then 2 full days and 3 mornings. We are certain we will do the same with our younger daughter who just turned 3.

We aren't worried about how this will impact them when they are older as we don't really believe in the rush to grow up. We spend most of our lives as tax paying working adults, I would much rather they take their time at every stage and enter the work force at 24/25 than rush to join the rat race (so gap years, year abroad while at uni, starting school a little later etc). And I say this as someone who was married at 21, first child at 22 and only 27 now!