Unfair to defer summer borns

[ifyoudont]

Dd was born late august, is the youngest in her year but instead of rest of her class being just under a year older than her , there’s 4 children who are nearly a year and a half older because they were born April -august the year above and deferred.

Somebody has to be the youngest and somebody the oldest but surely the fairest way is to keep the age difference within a year.

Dd is doing well academically and socially and only really struggling during playtime and PE as she is smaller. A boy in her class has early May birthday but because he was deferred instead of being 3+ months older than her is 15+ months older and the biggest and strongest in the class leading to several incidents where he has injured her.

A family member has a baby due in June and is already mentioned deferring them without knowing how advanced or behind they are going to be.

I definitely do think there are a few exceptions where it can be necessary but it seems to to be often done just because it can. Maybe there should be be stricter guidelines and some sort of test required?

AIBU? If so what am I missing?
I don’t hear people share this opinion often and haven’t shared it with family member

There are two separate issues:

1 - Older children have a proven educational advantage. The youngest in the year (whether that is summer or May) will always be at a disadvantage. This is unavoidable, and widening the gap between the oldest and the youngest makes this inequality worse, not better.

That is true, and is why it is unfair to defer.

However:

2 - the UK is an outlier in global terms. We start kids in "formal" education far to young. Most countries have a more split program of "kindergarten"/Pre-school, from 3-6/7, and then "school", this allows for a much better separation and transition between no school and school. Parents don't care about their child being slightly behind for the 2-3 years of pre-school because there is an extended period of "getting ready" where there are no exams, no tests, no comparisons etc. After 2-3 years of pre-school/kindergarten, many of the disadvantages of being younger are gone (not all) and every child is "ready" to start school.

So given the poor system in the UK that expects children who have just turned 4 to suddenly be as ready for school as children who are 1 day off 5, is it wrong for parents to want to avoid this disadvantage for their children? Of course not. Parents naturally want the best outcomes for their children. You can't fight that, or try and make parents not prioritize their own children.

So yes, it isn't fair.
But yes, the current system is also unfair.

Of course parents will choose the unfair system that suits their child, rather than the unfair system that disadvantages their child.

It would be lovely if the UK would consider a better, slower transition into school...

That’s fine but then you can’t critise others for doing the same. Currently autumn born children get an advantage. There is a wealth of evidence to back this up.

A ten year old could not be in the class because that is not the rule.
I have one summer born who was ready for school and started in the right cohort. Still struggled a little socially but I have no regrets, it was the right decision. I have another who is absolutely not ready to start school at literally just turned four. He needs his full entitlement of the early year’s curriculum, which he would have automatically got is he had been born a couple of days later.

People have for years tried to make sure they have an autumn born children, I know so many teachers who have planned this. People will always try to ensure their child have the best start .

You haven’t seen the research (despite being a teacher so arguably someone capable of reading it and who should take an interest)

Instead you have relied on anecdotes from colleagues (I would be keen to see the research they refer to as I’ve never come across anything suggesting evidence of long term detriment to those who started at csa).

Yet you feel comfortable to express opinion on whether reform of the policy is required and what the policy should be.

How would you feel if your students approached critical thinking in the same way? Not many future lawyers or doctors or journalists or (good) teachers coming out of your school if so…. Maybe you also live in humble town 😂

Working with preschoolers it is clear
which ones really wouldn’t be ready for school if born end of July/August. However the majority are usually doing fine and schools know some will only just be 4 when they start. Reception is still part
of the Early Years EYFS.

In my own case my daughter was August born. She went to school in the right cohort. The main issues I found were she was still very tired in reception and it was obvious who was older and that she was younger but the the vast
majority of school you wouldn’t have known. I also found she wasn’t quite mature enough to
study properly for GCSEs but had much more focus for college exams. She also hated being the youngest when all her friends started driving but she was still too young to start.

I live in a country where deferral is common and there is a grammar type system. The problem is it has become common for parents to game the system, making classes much older. On top of this SEN kids may be down a year or two. So old classes, which the younger children struggle badly in.

A friend put their child up a year. They are fine in the main language and maths, but struggling in the other subjects and PE, with a real confidence knock.

Fairness is about providing equal opportunity. That does not mean an equal outcome for everyone. If the schools offers that opportunity fairly, I don’t see why it is an issue. In reality, some children will be exceptionally high performers and some will be exceptionally low performers and all the others are somewhere in between. Intelligence, looks, charm, sportiness, musicality, creativity aren’t dished out in fair portions.

I didn't have to look far to find a thread regarding parents having to make additional payments to cover the additional costs of the government 'free funding'.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5331002-to-think-this-happens-everywhere-nurseries-forcing-parents-to-pay-towards-gov-free-spaces

Is your child now in a fee paying school and that's why the costs are the same?

I think this is possibly what makes the difference. I live in a high deferrals area in Scotland and when it was coming up to school application time was invited along for a nice chat with the school nursery who explained my options.

They don’t recommend you stay in nursery an extra year but are very supportive of parents if you’d like to choose that option. As school is quite a while away( this is in January) it’s recommended you apply both for a deferred place at the nursery and for a school slot and make your decision in June as children can change so quickly.

Once you’ve made that decision you will have to stick with it so children will be with your chosen year group throughout primary and secondary. Absolutely no skipping a year in Secondary.

I agree with you. I'm also disagree with secondary schools allowing students to stay back 2 years. My daughter is 15 and two 17 year old (boy and girl) are in her classes. They look like a woman and man! When my daughter is 16, they'll both be 18 years old!!! Personally I think if they're struggling at school then appropriate courses need to be made available at college, school is not the place for much older kids/adults due to safe guarding issues.

Yanbu. I've got a petite august born and it gets really annoying. She was 100% ready for school and does well academically & socially, she's very independent. But there are a couple of very big DC who were basically deferred due to SEN. Their needs haven't magically gone away and so they are just two physically advanced children who struggle regardless. Their behaviour is awful and DD doesn't stand a chance against them.

Some schools do use mixed age classes but i would never have chosen one as I don't think they are as effective.

My child is not in a fee paying school. The nursery was a state nursery and offered term time hours of 9-30 to families entitled to 30 hours. The school where my child now goes is also a state school.

I thought the school had to approve deferrals ? We tried for my daughter but were told we couldn't because the school didn't agree, even though it was already clear that she was SEND. It still rankles, she's in year 3 and they just let her struggle until this year when it became a mixed year 2/3 class, where she had less academic difficulty.

The 30 hours is term time only so you will have to pay if you need childcare 52 weeks a year. But that’s no different to school? So my point is using the 30 hours at a state nursery (usually one attached to a school or children’s centre) will give you the same hours that you get at school. So your costs will be the same as when your child starts at reception.

It absolutely is! Whether is should be is another matter, but under the current system it absolutely is a competition.

I’m in Scotland and it’s the same here.

my son is p2 and was born in May 2018. He should be one of the older ones (March 2018 being the oldest) but there are children as old as August 2017 who’ve been deferred. Add to this the fact there are also children in the class born in Feb 2019 (who are in the correct year given their birthdays) and it’s a bit of a nightmare from what I gather.

children born 18 months apart and at completely different stages.

Of course I can criticise them and want the rules changed. There always has to be an oldest and a youngest and the former will always come with advantages and the latter disadvantages. I say this as someone with two summer born kids so understands the feeling of seeing a September born tower over your child as they enter into Reception. The age gap ultimately though is less than 12 months and it gives summer borns a fighting chance of catching up. Stats show that the gap never completely closes but lots of summer borns thrive and do overtake winter borns. My children were absolutely ready for school and it would have hugely detrimented them to defer them.

What isn't acceptable is that some April born kids are being deferred to join the year below them and this extends the gap unnecessarily to 16 months. This means that summer born parents feel forced to defer too or accept that some deferred kids have a ridiculously large advantage over their children. The deferred parent's right to choose is effectively hugely impacting other summer born parents and their ability to opt to stay in year and not be too far behind.

People will always do what's best for their child even if it's at the expense of other children. We see this time and time again. It doesn't mean the system should allow this though.

The height thing seems to be a real issue…my deferred child is one of the smallest and the tallest child in her class, by a long way, is a not-deferred May born child. Height varies so much anyway. It doesn’t seem like a good basis to decide who goes in what year group.

school is not a competition. Why does it bother you so much which choices other families make for their child. I also doubt that all the other kids are almost a year older than your DC. Are you saying that your DC is born in August, and the rest all in Sept? There are no Winter/Spring or other Summer babies in the same classroom?

My deferred child is the oldest in the class but he’s also the tiniest 🤣

If you had to guess from a line-up of all the kids in his class, which was the deferred child my son would probably be the last one to he picked 🤣

My other son is small too though (one of the smallest in his class), so I just think I produce small children.

I agree though, height is just another random concern that is thrown about. The heights of children are so varied, even more so when puberty hits, that I doubt the height of some deferred led children will cause the classroom to fall into chaos

My October born child started school at the normal time but then repeated Y2 when we moved schools. He remained in the lower year group for 3 years until we managed to get him a place at a special school. It was the only way of keeping him in education until special school became an option.

He was absolutely tiny, and socially and emotionally very young for his age, so nobody would know he was nearly two years older than the youngest in the class.

Our situation is different to the norm because he has multiple special needs (born extremely prematurely), but it’s interesting from this thread to see different experiences and opinions.

Pretty toxic to view tall or bigger children as a threat or cast aspersions generally about anyone’s behaviour based on their size.

Arguably the older children have more time to develop socially so are likely to regulate impulse control better; thus being more sociable and less of a ‘threat’ to the younger ones. If a child has SEN then likely that is the explanation for their behaviour, not their size or age comparatively to the others.

Your height or size also wasn’t relevant to academic performance last time I checked ? The education system isn’t a rollercoaster, there isn’t a height requirement 😂

I have a September born, I remember at nursery when all her friends left to start school and me thinking she would have been to young! By December/January she was bored at nursery and it was a real struggle those last 9 months before she started school!

I wander rather than a deferred year a more staged approach for summer born. I have a memory that this was how it was when I went to school. I was May born and didn’t start FT till much later. Even the Sept - Dec only went PT till January. My Sept born would have hated that though she was very very ready for school.

Deferring is very common in Scotland. We didn’t defer my son and so there are children over a year older than him. He’s now coming to the end of his second year in secondary school and we never regretted the decision not to defer. You make the decision based upon your own child’s needs and development and don’t worry about other kids in their year.

Oh come on! Height is being mentioned as it's often a physical manifestation of someone being notably older. Older children tend to be taller and bigger than younger ones. Not always, but the trend is emphatically observable and it's something that can be judged by eye in the way that academic ability can't be so will be the most obviously sign of difference that's initially picked up.

You can't have it all ways. Claim summer borns are disadvantaged because they're younger and smaller and less advanced than their peers and then suggest that all of these factors don't confer an advantage to deferred children over the rest of their cohort.

You can't have it all ways. Claim summer borns are disadvantaged because they're younger and smaller and less advanced than their peers and then suggest that all of these factors don't confer an advantage to deferred children over the rest of their cohort.

So if parents have the option to give their child advantages during their schooling as opposed to them be disadvantaged, surely you can see why so many parents defer?

Why would a parent want their child to be disadvantaged?