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

But if they are deferred because their development is slower than normal, they are just slotting in with kids at their level. Those kids might be 18 months or whatever younger but it wouldn't be a problem. In fact, probably less of a problem than for them to really struggle and need lots of extra support if they are put in the previous year.

i remember when i started school, being a May baby, i was allowed to start reception class at Easter instead of the prior September. My school did 3 intakes, september, january, and april, then we all went up to Yr 1 together.

I think that system works better than deferring kids an entire year.

The thing does depend on the kids though, my son was the oldest in his year missed cut off for the previous intake by a couple of days, and his cousin only just scraped in with an august 29th birthday.. he was all bar a week, almost a whole year older than she was... academically it took until yr4 for her to catch up.

Would it have been better for me to be able to start DS in the year before his? Or perhaps for his cousin to have waited a year?

Yes agree I genuinely don't understand why there's so much to say on it. I'm in Ireland and I have never heard any issues or discussion with the age your child starts school. Legally your child has to start before their 6th birthday so parental choice up to that. Schools have different policies on it with most now cutting off in march for 4 year old Sept starters. My two summer babies started at 5 my spring baby started at 4 and 5 months. It's not called deferring your not deferring anything you're choosing the age you would like your child to start their formal education journey.

My daughter is a late August baby. She's also dyslexic and mildly autistic. We thought of deferring her, but she already towered over her peer group, and I didn't want her head and shoulders over the rest. Kids can be cruel, and as 6ft woman myself, I didn't want her to go through the bullying I did. It's a shame that it was a consideration, as she was quite immature for age and may have benefited in the early years.
Now in Yr 8. 5'8" and doing well at school. Socially still struggles, but that's more due to be autistic, and not always reading social clues.

No reason except I like to correct misleading information in case it leads anybody reading astray.

You stated there is a two year age range in Irish kids starting school and this is just not true.

You are right about the legal situation, but it does not reflect the reality in Irish schools and the age at which schools actually accept a child starting.

Don’t worry, I’ll say no more about it now.

You really don't seem to understand your exceptional situation regarding nursery costing you nothing do you.

My nearest nursery (not the most expensive) charges £1368 a month for a child aged over 3 and that's WITH the 30 hours free funding applied. It's just over £2000 a month without.

It's £33 a day to put your child in my nearest holiday club from 08:15 - 18:00, and they can go from the age of 4. It's nearly half the price.

This 👏🏻👏🏻

It’s not at all exceptional - we just chose a completely ordinary school nursery? And paid for holiday clubs / childminder / took annual leave for the 14 weeks we needed cover for. Childcare is crippling my expensive but paying for 14 weeks while mind child had holidays from school nursery wasn’t any more expensive than paying for 14 weeks while my child had school holidays?

At no point in my career could I have afforded those nursery fees.

Funny how practically every European country can produce effective education and workers without dragging kids out of a nursery (play based education) and start school at 4yo. Most start at 6.

I regret allowing my 4yo (July born), to go to school at that age.

Ive just checked and there are 16 maintained nurseries in my county. Our nearest one became a private nursery around 2019 because the council couldn't afford to fund it anymore.
School deferral also isn't an option in our County. Things vary so much area by area.

Typically nurseries are much more expensive than that- they don’t really do the “free hours” so much as use them to subsidise fees. It’s rare that you can actually get full school hours for free and no extra costs

I mean a school nursery. Almost every primary school in my area has a nursery attached for children aged 3 and older.

That’s a pity. Do the primary schools not have nursery classes then, for children aged 3 plus?

I agree with you, there has to be a cut off point somewhere. When I was headteacher I tried not to do this, to keep all the children together in their own year group. It seemed to me to be doubly disadvantaging the younger children. For the same reasons I didn't encourage the younger children to come part time when the rest were full time, or to come in a term later in reception.
My own son was summer born and I held the same principle for him. He always looked younger than the rest but he kept up.

Why do you want to say to other families how to do is the question…

In some other countries, children don’t even have to attend before 7years of age but yeah…

I only know of one of those in my area. None of the schools local to me have them. Also where they do exist they aren’t always viable for working parents as , unlike schools, they don’t have after- or before- hours clubs.

There's one church school in our town that has a nursery. It's subsidised, but not free.
We also don't have many primary schools. We have separate infant and junior schools, but they don't feed into each other so you still have to apply.

If my grandson had been born one day later, he would have another year before starting school. He was born a couple of weeks early too. I'm pretty sure he won't be mature enough for reception class in September and he'll struggle as his speech is poor. I'd defer him for sure but it isn't up to me. It's nothing to do with wanting him to be better than other kids, it just wanting him to have a confident start to his school life.

The whole system being based on age is the issue. I have an October born who is more than ready to start school in September but has to wait another 12 months. Starting (& moving up years) should be based on the actual child not an arbitrary birth date.

Just go back through my posts and check what I actually said. It’s not misleading unless you have trouble reading.

Saying “there can be an almost 2 year age range within a class” is correct since that is what the law allows (as you accept). I didn’t say anything like “it is common to have a 2 year range” or “there is always a 2 year range”. In fact I said the vast majority start between 4.5 and 5.5 which is the case.

What is common, and relevant here, is for there to be 16-18 month gaps within a class (eg between a child starting at 4 years 3 months, and one starting at 5 years and 7 months), and for that not to be an issue whatsoever.

Well, at least you’ve reduced ‘the almost 2 year age range’ to 16 - 18 months now 😉
Seriously @harrietm87, you’re the one who keeps chipping away at this!

I don’t agree that large age gaps cause no issues btw. Every year there are children who would have benefitted from starting a year later, maybe at 5 and a half instead of 4 and a half. More of the younger children need additional support from the SEN teachers. It’s not a coincidence.

If they all started later, then you’re right, the age range wouldn’t matter as much (this has been shown in studies, it’s not just my opinion btw, but I’m not going to search for the references now.) The vast majority would be developmentally ready then. However, at the age they do start in Ireland it does matter. In England the average starting age is younger, which makes things worse.

I’m in England, and can see why people are tempted to defer. It can feel like late August babies are very young - only a few days from being 3. Scotland’s answer has always seemed an easy solve to me - setting the birth date as March, even though their academic year starts in August. So no child starts younger than 4 years 5 months old.

My son was summer born…literally the end of august. If he had been born only two days later, he would’ve been in the year below and the oldest in his class. He started school just after he turned four and has never suffered for it. He’s now 14 and about to take his mock GCSEs in year 10. My daughter on the other hand is a September baby and is the oldest in her class. By the time she was old enough to go into primary school, she was so ready for it. My children mirror myself and my brother. I was the youngest in my class and my brother was the oldest.

We deferred our son he was born in august, what with covid and his first school being a steiner school we decided we would rather him be the oldest rather than youngest as boys generally develop slower and he was quite behind anyway. So glad we did. He's also small for his age so for his self esteem worked out doubley well. It's totally dependant on the child, parents and school and if it's right to wait regardless of April or August then people should do what's best for their kids. And no the rules don't need tightening, school sets u up for life if in doubt u need to makebthe best decision for their future.