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

I defered my daughter (July born) she's autistic and due to covid she would have had barely any time in nursery/reception if deferring her hadn't been an option, I'm forever thankful I was able to make that decision, it was the right thing for my child.

I do kind of get this if the person was born at a very specific time - around 1979.

The difference between my experience (born 1978) and my brothers born in 80 and 83 in our early adult lives was huge. I got to go to Uni with no fees, and get on the properly ladder before the crash in 2007. They didn’t have those advantages.

They’ve over taken me now but that’s because I had children and they didn’t until my youngest brother did very recently. I am now a single parent. And they are men of course.

So perhaps I’m not agreeing as it can all change later on!

I think we're getting ahead of ourselves. I think we do what we think is right at the time (that is, allowing an August born child who is no way ready for the formal setting of school, to start a year later), and take life as it comes after that.

I think that's an excellent example - life changes so much when you live it, there's no way the year earlier = year better off theory can possibly hold any merit.

People choose to do so much in their lives, not just work work work. People take breaks, have children, spend money on luxuries and essentials. And the different career/life path you may be set on by 'thriving' (sorry @Ablondiebutagoody) or struggling will impact your future way more than how many years you've been saving.

The ones diagnosed with ADHD probably do have ADHD and it's more likely imo to be that Autumn borns with ADHD get missed because they have the maturity to be better at masking it. When I was teaching, unless a child was completely out of control and academically completely failing, the SENCOs weren't in the least bit interested in ADHD symptoms and generally just gave you weak advice about behaviour management or tidying the classroom up more.

I'm summer born and got diagnosed with ADHD at 24, but it's very obvious I had it the whole time and would have done regardless of when the school year started.

@MrsSunshine2b yes I agree it would be costly that's why I said money/resource no object it would be the best way to manage it, we live in a medium sized city and all the primaries are 2 form entry, so it would be a huge and prohibitively expensive undertaking but realistically it would have better outcomes for more children - because on top of everything else the class sizes would also be smaller. It's absolutely 100% unrealistic unfortunately.

They're now 23 so probably not!!!!

You should have deferred your summerborn