To think a child born on the 5th august isn’t that young for their school year

[Penny779]

As there are still three weeks left of the academic year so still could be many children much younher

My daughter is 8th August and was the 2nd youngest in her class throughout primary school, she started secondary last September and thinks she is about the youngest in her year there, she hasn't met anyone yet who is younger than her. Her best friend is August 4th and in the class of 30 at primary school, 4 of them were August born.

There was only one August birthday in each of my children 's classes. Lots in June and July though.

I'm an end of August baby. Although I did very well academically, I was very much on the back foot socially. Weirdly it was particularly noticeable when I went to uni and some other students who had had gap years were almost two years older than me. I'm a Reception teacher and I had a September baby and a March baby myself. The March baby was conceived in our last month of trying before taking a break to avoid a Summer born. From a Reception teaching perspective, the academic and social gap can be huge between a September baby and an August baby, even one born on the 5th!

So many people actively avoid having summer born DC. Its really noticeable in both my DC classes, that the birthdays are weighted heavily to the first half of the year.

DC2 has their birthday late august. They are the only august birthday in class, there is only one in july and only two in june. By contrast there are 12 children with birthdays sept-nov.

This is very good advice, but just to say it isn't too late to delay summer-borns. For England anyway.

(Flexible School Admissions for Summer Borns on Facebook has more for interested parties.)

And - if people who have a 2 or 3 year born past May of their year then please, please, please take advantage of the statutory opportunity of back yearing your child. They wouldn’t put something like this into law without good reason.

All this does, is drive the level of maturity in reception classes up, to the even greater detriment of the youngest.

At the end of the day, a school class is always going to contain a year long cohort. Wherever you draw that line, someone is going to be the youngest.

If you move summer borns from the class above down, you either:

• make august borns in the class below up to 15 months younger instead of 12

Or

• make May born children the youngest in cohorts, and still up to 12 months younger that the oldest.

Neither create any benefit across the cohort, they simply exchange who is disadvantaged by the rules.

This isn’t true overall, summer months are generally pretty baby heavy months. July is almost always the highest and Feb is almost always the lowest for births.

That's literally my birthday 🙈 I was the youngest in my class at school.

Neither create any benefit across the cohort

I don't think it's supposed to create any benefit across the cohort is it? It's to create a benefit for an individual child, should they need it.

DD is 6th Aug and out of her year group of 84 kids, there is one younger than her apparently.

YABU

Yes of course they’ll be young for their year, maybe one or two others who are younger by a couple of weeks

But yes they will be young for their school year! Well at least here in England

I’m the 24th August and I was the youngest in my year

Oh yes several in our family 11, 17th, 21st and 31st!!! SIL with child on 31st tried desperately to hold on!

Mine was born 4th Aug but learned to read far quicker than anyone else in their class when starting school. Did cry being left there for the first 6 months though

Of course they will! My son is born on 5th August and I know of one classmate whose birthday is after his. Statistically they're highly, highly likely to be one of the youngest few, if not the youngest. What a strange assertion, I genuinely can't imagine what you could possibly be basing it on.
Luckily for my son I knew about the option to request a reception CSA start and did this for him, so he started school at just turned 5 rather than just turned 4. Very glad we did and effectively gave him an extra year of childhood, especially since seeing the insane expectations on small children from the education system.

This is my child’s birthday and they are the youngest in their year. One child who would have been younger deferred into the year below and likewise his year contains at least one child who deferred from the year above.

Yes of course it depends on the child, which is why I said there are wide margins. but in general terms August born children are running to catch up with September / October born peers for several school years.

My son’s birthday is smack in the middle of July. He is the youngest in his school year at primary and when he went to secondary was the youngest in the year then, so yes I would say 5th August would put them in the “youngest” range.
In my other dcs class, the youngest is an early June baby. So it really depends on who else is in that years cohort.
Going slightly further back my DN year had a child born on 13th August who had been “held back” (I don’t know how or whatever as I only had this info 2nd hand off Dsis) due to their inability to cope with the “correct” school year group. As it happens this child thrived in the year below, whereas they were actively sinking in the year above. DN was great friends with said child, as there was only a couple of weeks between them, rather than (as it was) nearly a whole year for the oldest in the previous year group.

My birthday is mid July and there were around 5 kids younger than me in my school year

I guess we are”lucky” with our end of August that there has been no issue.

If she was my first though, I would have probably deferred her.

But she’s she’s the fourth, last, and the most headstrong, and I’m old and tired now, (18 years between my first and last!) so no way was I subjecting myself to another year of her at home 😂

What?!? Except in a very freak year they will be at least one of if not the youngest.

😂😂😂 what the hell.

Unless you’re in Scotland YABU

I have a late July born and she was so fiercely independent from such a young age that it was clear there was no point deferring her! As it is she’s just got an academic and sporting scholarship to a selective independent school (she’s in year 6), so we definitely made the right decision. She also plays county level sport in the age group above hers. I honestly can’t imagine her in the year ‘below’, apart from anything else she’s about a foot taller than most of them!

Yes, wouldn’t have done dd any good deferring
her. I couldn’t imagine her being in reception now instead of year one, she’s absolutely flying and loves school.

I am the 28th August . Youngest in primary - second youngest in secondary school year group.