Summer born headache.

[Highfivemum]

So my youngest was a prem baby 28weeks and was born on the 30 march. He is due to start school next year. I always knew he would be slightly playing catch up with the September born children. Found out today that in his class he will have 15 !! children who all have deferred to start a year later. (This is their right being summer born.)But all is has done is shift the youngest in class to the march children! I can’t defer due to being March but he is socially nowhere near the level of his peers as it is.
anyone else feel that is sounds a good idea in principle but it doesn’t solve the problem of DC being to young for school. Surely it should be on the individual child.

Attainment results, broken down by birth month, (particularly for boys but girls also), would say otherwise.

You are misinformed. Schools do try to say no, but government guidance on this is very clear and there are avenues parents can follow to overturn a "No". The school needs to demonstrate why it would be in the individual child's best interests to miss a year of their education, which is difficult to do. Socially, emotionally, academically... how could it ever be in a child's best interests to be forced to skip a year of education? Would the school you are a governor at allow a child to take an entire year off school? I highly doubt it.

Some schools don't like it, because it is "different" but that doesn't mean they can just blindly say no. They need to follow the admissions code and associated guidance.

All deferring does is shifting the problem to those born in March, and for parents who don’t understand about summer born deferral. PP has already linked to a US study of this.

That said, if I have a June to August baby now, I would absolutely hold them back for a year. Maybe too for an April or May child. I will absolutely pay for all the advantages I can get. Don’t blame those parents at all.

I wouldn’t worry about secondary either. The drop in birth rates mean there are loads of places around.

Or they are aware, can afford it but still feel their child is ready? Dont have to be disengaged to not defer your child.

I think people who are simply doing it to try and give their child an advantage are so selfish.

Ive got a prem late summer born who would have had an october birthday if born at due date.

Did not defer

Absolutely fine. Reception is still EYFS and more like what would be deemed nursery in other countries.

Very interesting to read how this has changed since our DS was in school. We had to apply to defer and present as many reports and documents as we could. Being from a different system - as we were returning from a spell working in the US - held more weight than being a premmie baby.

However, once we were in we didn't have to reset for secondary. The only difference was that we couldn't apply on the automatic system. It had to be a 'paper' application online and we were notified 3 days later than everyone else by both email and letter regarding his secondary place. They were an awful 3 days as there are 3 local secondaries and some didn't get their first choice.

It was very much the right thing for our DS. In terms of physical readiness he was actually still the smallest boy and the last to zip up his coat etc. He was wearing age 2 clothes at 5. But his epic catch up was great to watch. He's a 19 year old 6ft 1" now.

This just illustrates that every child is different. My DS same in respect of timings. We did defer and even in a deferred year EYFS was very much not his friend as a premmie. Physical milestones were always our problem as he was so tiny. But give him a book and he'd read it from 3 onward

Oh yes of course. I was talking about August babies who may already have additional disadvantages such as disengaged parents being further disadvantaged by the system. I wasn’t suggesting all parents who don’t defer are uninterested or uninformed.

Sorry, attainment results for who? And say otherwise to what? That he'll be fine?

Yes 15 does seem a lot. They all go to the same group.

Sats results and gcse and alevel all at national level decrease from sept to aug.

Part of that is likely that skills depend somewhat on each other so a child later to read or write affects other subjects.
Part of the issue is that we put so much weight on a child being brighter if they get higher gcse grades but actual intelligence may not be higher.
At 11+ even with the score adjustments more sept at taken in.

Many countries allow children to drop back a year. Overall its pointless pushing a child through for them to then fail maths or eng.
I would move to a more stabke exam system where tests are more similar to past papers and if a higher number do well then they all pass.

Somewhat its to balance out the rather crap state school system. My dd was bright but not pushed at all really all primary cared about was meeting expectations in fact pretended in reception that it was only met despite reading chaoter books.

Secondary even more shocking. We've had hardly any engkish homework. Theres a lesson for reading... They set tests and put the wrong date. Dont let kids with extra time have extra time then use resukts to set them.

Gcse maths is more like my as level. However the foundation paper could probably be passed by y6 kids.

This is what I was thinking - that it will make a two tier system - that those who can afford another year of nursery or another year of a parent at home will defer, and end up with a huge advantage over those who can’t afford this.

There’s also the OP’s point of the cut off becoming March, but in fact that’s what it is in Scotland (I think) and it seems to work well.
Just turned 4 is too young for many children, but 4.5 isn’t, even if they’re the youngest in the class.

We didn't have to make a separate request, and our summer born ds starts Y7 in September. Might have been different as he has an EHCP in place though.

Dd was born at similar gestation and is about to go into Y5. Our local schools are all mixed classes anyway (Y1/2 together, Y3/4 together, Y5/6 together) so dd has been in some ways affected more by the ability for summer borns to defer. She's held her own well enough so far, so try not to panic about effects of prematurity. I won't say it's all been plain sailing, but she's certainly not had any major struggles. I think it's probably the combination of natural worry plus knowledge of deferred children making you worry more than you need to.

Edited to delete message posted twice by accident.

I hear you. There will always be a year between kids on a class, but all this deferring means there can be almost 18 months. I think it should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances. I think sometimes parents defer for their own reasons, not for the good of the kid too.

I think OP and others are missing the point of deferring. It's not about not wanting your child to be the youngest in the year or them compared to others or wanting to take away some 'disadvantage' of them vs other children etc - school isn't a competition! It's about that particular child not being ready to start school at just turned 4 - not 'compared to others', just thinking about them as an individual in the school system.

As a PP said, your child starting at 4.5 is very different from a child starting at just 4.

There'll always be a mix of maturity, ability etc within a class but all anyone needs to focus on is their own child, not their child compared to other kids.

But that won't be the case for OP. Even if all the delayed children are April-born which is highly unlikely, they'll only be a year older than him, well within the acceptable age range.

The problem is that some parents are making the judgment that their children aren’t ready without any really knowledge of reception class and how it works. So children who would have been fine starting school in their correct cohort are given an advantage over their entire cohort, because they weren’t delayed or born so close to the cut off that it makes no difference.

By advantaging some children, you are a placing a disadvantage on others, especially those who were genuinely not able to start school at just turned 4 but their parents can’t afford to keep them in nursery for longer.

It means the class teacher has to teach to an even wider range of ability than is already present across a year group of children with different EY experiences. Schools will give children an extra year in reception if they really need it.

Everything about it is unfair unless it is restricted to children who are genuinely delayed developmentally and who are August born. All others should be catered for within their correct cohort and when deferral happens it should be because it is recommended by professionals not desired by anxious or ill informed parents.

It's strange too, if your child is average or above average all they are getting is a disadvantage. I'd rather mine could start school earlier not later!

I’m a late summer baby and was fine at school. As were all the other late summer babies. The whole notion of ‘deferring’ is strange to me. It really wasn’t something people used to do unless their child had SEN.

I'd assume that the op knows that in her specific DC's school that 15 have chosen to apply, and been allowed to defer.

You're talking about an average group.

In dd1's reception class there were 15 winter babies, 3 Spring babies and 9 summer babies.
That was just how it worked out for that class.

My class at primary had only 6 winter babies out of 32 starters.

When you start looking at specific groups then you can get a misbalance.
And one child deferring probably does make it more likely others defer. Both on the basis the school may encourage it, but also that parents talk. A parent who isn't sure, may be reassured to find their DC wouldn't be the only one. A parent who didn't know you could, may discover they can when talking to another parent.
A parent who wasn't going to may change their mind when several others say they are etc.

I don’t understand why so many parents are deferring. All of my DC are summer born, one is late august and it wasn’t an option when they were starting school. They have had their struggles but are doing ok (secondary school now) and I’m not sure things would have been any different if they had deferred.

I don’t think it is a fair process- it should be looked at on an individual needs basis.

By advantaging some children, you are a placing a disadvantage on others

IF - and that's a big if - you look at school as a competition. But this will always be true, for any metric you care to mention. You're talking about children's age giving children an advantage, but you could easily be talking about children who have tutoring, or children who don't have siblings and get their parents' full attention. Or children who come from a family whose parents are university educated. Or children who have stable home lives and haven't moved around due to parental jobs or divorce. THEY will have an 'advantage' through life too, especially compared to the children in the class who have the direct opposite situation.

So why this focus solely on children being older - when the reason to delay is to escape a known and built-in disadvantage?

Academic results, of the pupils, SATS and other nationally recorded results - there is a gap between the oldest and youngest (on average). So a blanket "He'll catch up to where he should be" is not strictly true.

Obviously it depends on the individual child, and is a parental decision. But some of the posts on this thread are totally misunderstanding why some parents choose to defer and seem quite short-sighted. For every summer born that was "fine" others will not be fine and will struggle.

Also all the mentions of how reception is like an extension of nursery. That may be true, but the expectations of children ramp up quickly in Year 1 and beyond. Formal education starts too early in the UK IMO.

It's good to hear that deferral is becoming more common and mainstream. Hopefully that means given time more people will actually understand what is involved. And obviously means it is getting easier to get a request granted at entry to reception, which will have a knock on effect with secondary schools further down the line.