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!

Who is upset? Also can’t you see the other side of that? The deferred July child is now closer in age to the September child in the academic year below them, but OVER A YEAR OLDER than the August child in the academic year below them (the year they have now joined).

Look beneath your post at @Sparae’s comments.

Unsurprisingly, deferment is a privilege that widens inequalities and can lead to a LARGER than 12 month gap between the oldest and youngest child in the class. Parents with all the advantages that life can offer (wealth, education) now insist their summer born babies are the oldest in the year, OVER a year older than children - many of them without all those advantages. If you support that system, fill your boots. I think it’s shit so I don’t participate.

I'm German and started school aged 7, because my mum thought I needed a bit of extra time, having been born premature. The normal starting age is 6, but deferring is easy.

I don't know anywhere else where school starts as early as in the UK. I suspect it's a function of the exorbitant cost of childcare. My first two kids started school in the UK and I found it very stressful - not-yet five-year-olds going from nursery with four children per adult to a class of thirty kids with two grownups, being socialized into conforming just to keep things under control.

There was this song they were taught:
'if you're feeling sad and dreary and you're down in the dumps, down in the dumps, down in the dumps/there's something you can do: don't be grumpy, don't you spoil the fun/count your blessings, think what God has done...' (CofE school)
Ugh...

But my kids were OK in the end. Deferring was unheard of then (ten years ago, not London). OP, if you have serious doubts, presumably you can still change tack now - but probably there are advantages to getting reception class out of the way early, too. Whatever you do, don't blame yourself.

God knows. I totally get the finding it boring part. My just turned 5 year old twins went to nursery 3 days a week from 2 years old until they were 4.5 but the rest of the time were home with me along with their little sister who is now 2. Until they started school im August this year, I had all 3 at home with me every day for about 5 months because we moved out of the area and they stopped going to nursery. Omg is all I can say. And I'm pregnant too 😂 For now it's just me and 2 year old at home until baby comes in the next couple of weeks which is a reprieve in a way. I'm so tired 😂

My two DC were born in August. DD on 4th, DS on 27th, 9 years after DD.

When DD started primary school the school had two intakes. Children born between 1st September and 31st March started school in September.
Those born from 1st April and 31st August started school in January. So DD was 4 yrs 5 mo the when she started. She was fine and thrived. It was a small single class of 20 which was lovely for the August born children.
However by the time DS was born the January intake had been scrapped. DS clearly had undiagnosed learning difficulties and I enquired about deferring until he was 5. This was in 2000 and there was no parental right to defer a child's place, it was up to the school. The school said if we deferred his place he would start in Y1. That seemed even worse. So he was 4 years and one week old when he started school.
He did struggle with the long
days initially; and ended up coming home for the lunch hour to have a break for the first term. Later he was diagnosed with autism and dyslexia which was ignored at primary school. He didn't get any support until he went to his wonderful secondary school which saved his education.

I don’t tend to live my life like that. It wouldn’t sit well with my values and my conscience.

This is so interesting I’ve just had a February born baby in Scotland this year and I’m already stressing about this 😂

It’s been an option to defer summer borns in Herts for 8 years now. Nothing special needs to be done you just have a 16 month birth window you can apply in and if you’re a summer born you have the choice between two school years.

Aside from your deliberately inflammatory phrasing, you have the causation wrong here. If our DC2 had been born five days early (and we hadn't deferred, which we would've in truth), our nursery would've been £12k down.

DS was born at the end of August. I also wish that there had been an option to repeat a year.
DS spent the first three months sleeping in lessons and during assemblies because he had been used to having several naps while at nursery
He was academically able as I had made a concerted effort to help with his phonics and numeracy skills but it wasn’t easy.
However, he was not emotionally ready for school and I almost wished I could have waited until September to have him.

I'm not a fan of the 'someone has to be the youngest' argument. Yes someone does have to be the youngest but it should be children who would benefit from being the youngest - confident children, usually girls who develop language skills earlier, those who can wipe their bums, who aren't small for their age, who have the emotional maturity, who aren't still napping in the day, children who like playing with older kids. Really at the cutoff it should be a case of each child being treated as an individual. Numerous studies show that it can be really detrimental to a child's development to be a summer born baby and that's not fair at all, middle, working or upper class.

It's not nonsense. You can't leave school until the last Friday in June of the year you turn 16. You can't leave in Sept if you have a birthday then you have to wait until

I don’t tend to live my life like that. It wouldn’t sit well with my values and my conscience.

You would struggle with your "conscience" to do something beneficial for your child because others might choose not to take the same action for their own child? You have very strange "values" if they compel you to do something optional that robust research demonstrates is likely to cause your child harm, simply because others are doing the harmful thing and you think it would be "unfair" not to therefore do this to your child, too.

Do you apply the same logic when you see parents neglecting their kids, or yelling at them? "I must shout at mine tonight, can't have her having an advantage over other children by growing up with a loving parent!". Do you make sure you never drive them anywhere? Some people can't afford a car, after all. I presume you never take your kids on holiday, or give them hugs, or read to them, or play with them because some other parents don't and you wouldn't want to be entrenching inequality.

I think it depends on the child. Of my kids’ friends the four August babies all ended up going to Oxbridge! They are also socially mature and very confident.

I had a July baby and did not defer. No regrets whatsoever.

I don’t agree. I think most people want their children to do well at school.

Data shows children who are nearly one year behind their peers are at a disadvantage. If there is an option to hold the child back a year and offer them the best chance to succeed you’d be a fool not to do it.

Obviously if you had a child who was showing every sign of being ready for school that’s different. I’d send them. But many children are starting school still in pull ups and whimpering for their mummy. If I could avoid that I would.

I don’t think you understand what is being said here. It’s not “dragging everyone down”, it’s not allowing a group of people who have wealth, resources, education, to benefit in an unfair way (unfair because the benefit is not equally spread out amongst all people). All children staying - for the most part, in their correct age based academic year stops those with money and power from creating a situation in which they doubly benefit themselves.

However, I do agree there is no rush to start the school curriculum. But we don’t have a really good universal early years provision. How long do we have to wait for that whilst the rich get richer/better jobs/better health etc.?

@TheAlchemy For us, because you get the 30 hours for an extra year, it was sort of a no-brainer because nursery for 3 days was so cheap (and also another year before we had to deal with school holidays and school logistics!). If they're in a quality setting, no 4yos should be bored at nursery anyway. Kids that age don't get bored of playing!

P1 is very play-based here anyway though, DD1 is doing some light stuff with letters but mostly seems to be outdoor play, crafts, and other kinds of play from what she tells me! The classrooms are like a nursery room, no rows of seats or anything like that, all open with different play stations.

Coming from a different environment, this is much like term time holidays - I don't understand the angst. Let families do what's best for them.

I don’t think all kids are the same though. One of my kids definitely needed structure and formal learning. They hated preschool and cried all the time. The chaos was too much for them. As soon as they had a desk a chair and a blackboard and structured lessons, they were completely transformed.

Not all children love to learn through play. My child definitely needed to be learning reading, writing and maths!

I'm from a country where children start school aged 7.

4 is a baby!

My children were born in autumn but I'd have deferred a summer born in a heartbeat.

My August-born son is 19 now, and I'd have deferred if it was allowed back then. There were some years when the Autumn term started before he'd even had his birthday. He was still only 10 when he started secondary school, due to the term starting late August in our area.

Academically he caught up with his peers by year 1, but emotionally it took much longer. It was probably about year 9 or 10 before the ages seemed to even out.

Then he was the last to turn 18, so had to miss out on all the pub/club nights, the last to start driving and so on. He struggled to get insurance for his post A level lads trip as he was still only 17.

The ability to defer is a really good development in my opinion.

US here and my daughter's birthday was October. She went to preschool for 3 years because the school had a cut off of September 1. She was more than ready and she was very mature all through school and no struggles. I think 4 is too young for school.

It’s not “dragging everyone down”, it’s not allowing a group of people who have wealth, resources, education, to benefit in an unfair way (unfair because the benefit is not equally spread out amongst all people

Everybody has the choice to defer if they have a child born in summer. It's not a "benefit" or only available to "wealthy people". 🙄 Stop using children as pawnsxin your attempted class war.

There's a lot of dc who differred and should have started reception in 2023. They are the 2019 summer borns. Their parents have chosen to do this due to the pandemic.
I only know of 1 2020 born who has differred.

Again, you are really over-egging the pudding here. There is absolutely no evidence showing that starting school at just turned 4 is likely to cause anyone 'harm'. It does show it gives them a statistically higher chance of performing less well academically than their peers. For most children this will be one small part of a range of factors that can predict but not determine their educational outcomes. The evidence is mixed on how long this effect persists.

Given only 1.5% of parents of summer born in England defer, it really isn't, as you imply, some sort of neglectful or abusive thing to not do it.

Oh god. What illogical logic. Such a poor sensationalist extrapolation. Can you explain the “logical” steps for me again between 1) I don’t try to game the system to benefit myself at the expense of other people and 2) some children experience neglect and abuse (a criminal act) so I must do the same to my children?

Honestly, tell yourself whatever you like to make yourself feel better. That’s what cognitive dissonance does to you I guess.