Can we have ages instead of school years?

[LadyoftheMercians]

I have no idea how old a year 11 child is? And therefore no clue on of they should be allowed a phone in their room overnight.

Inspired by a thread, not necessarily a TAAT

If you don’t know then it’s probably not relevant to you.

Sometimes it’s relevant especially if it’s an education related question. How much homework does your Y7 get for example- you wouldn’t want to say 11YO and that get non relevant responses for 11YOs that are still in Y6 at primary school. If it’s about a 4YOs behaviour it can be helpful to know if they’re in nursery or reception. If it’s about kids walking home from school alone the school is more likely to say from Y5 than 9 years old. Etc. etc. If you’re from somewhere with a different schooling system then maybe those are not threads you’d respond to and that’s fine.

If the school year is totally irrelevant to the question being asked e.g. ‘where are you taking your Y3 on holiday’ or similar then I agree why not say 7YO but I don’t think I’ve seen that much of that. It’s usually only on the education related Qs.

Or people could just type a couple of extra digits on their posts.

If it's a school related post I would need to know the school year rather than age.

Are you new here? That’s just not how MN works. MN uses abbreviations. You can’t expect the whole of MN to change.
And saying “age 15” does not provide the relevant context - for example, Year 11 in England involves heavy-duty exams, whereas the general equivalent in say North America, Grade 11, may not, so what the 15yos are going through in different countries is very different and very relevant.

But what is the big issue about supplying BOTH bits of information?
Why are some posters so determind NOT to give the age as well as the school year?

The determination not to supply age is coming over as really weird.

That's a silly response. Children can be the same age all over the world, and someone not in the English system may have amazing experience of a similarly aged child.

I have had DC go through school and I still work it out on my fingers 😂

Using school years rather than ages muddies the water somewhat. A "year 1" child could be either just turned 5 or about to turn 6 so any advice would be age depending and 9 times out of 10 the OP states the age in an update, so why not just put it in their 1st post? It would save endless posts of "what age are they OP"

No not new.
I just find the abbreviations a bit naff.
Dthis and Dthat.
All so daft IMHO 😂

Sure. But loads of posts use school year for topics that have nothing to do with education.

So age would be a lot more relevant than class unless it's related to education.

School years are easier to define development than birthdays imho

I think stating the year group and the age is probably more useful.

Summer born DD took 2 GCSEs at 14 (because this was the way her school did it, not because she is a genius), 8 GCSEs at 15, and A levels at 17.

Agree and it can be so confusing. Like DS could be son or sister, DF could be father or friend!? Also I love when people write DDog or DCat 😂

But back to the OP, I agree the school year thing is annoying especially for those of us not in England and who don’t have kids.

To use Y11or13 when speaking a out English exams is normal, when speaking about Scottish exams using S4/5/6 is normal but so is using exams rather than year so saying my DD is doing highers rather than S5.
Overall years don't quite equate as Scotland is 13 years of school Primary (P) 1-7 and secondary (S)1-6 while in England there are 14 years including YR but due to different starting ages, like school year starts mid august but the youngest will be 4.5 not 4 and with a right to defer . As cut off is 28th February not 31st August.

It depends on topic so anything education related using school year works but for general questions like phone use getting bus, understanding right/wrong, empathy, development age is better
Eg is it ok for my 9 year old to get the bus outside our house and travel two miles and get off at Grandma's house it doesn't matter whether they are Y5/6 P5 4th grade or whatever to answer question

I just ask. It’s only an issue if you make it one.

Please stop that's just too much like...common sense!😱🤣

I have had dc go through school. I still have to count backwards. It’s annoying

Not if you are in any country other than England and Wales and I’m assuming NI. Otherwise it’s just babble

MN is global even if majority are British. And Scots don’t use the same system anyway

I remember reading a thread started by a woman who said that her son was 60 months old, or something like that.
It took me a moment to make sense of it!

Just add 5 to the school year => age child turns in that academic year.

What's even more fun is when someone mentions the English 3 tier school system and while the year numbers are the same a Year 7 in middle school is going to be likely having a different educational experience to a Year 7 in a 2000 pupil secondary.
Totally blows people's minds 😂

So if I said that I was worried about leaving my son in fifth year alone over night, you would know what I meant, and have advice?

But they might have a child a similar age is a different country. I. Scotland I don’t know if that is S3 or S4. Think it might be S4 but see the confusion. If a Scottish poster said S3 would you know age they were?