Can having regular admissions into schools every term work?

[Ilelo]

I?ve just had a light bulb moment for the future of schools admissions- admitting children at the beginning of each term based on the month of birth. It should largely reduce the risk of summer born children not doing as well as the autumn born ones as they should be no more than 4 months younger than the oldest in the class. Though I accept 4 months can be a big difference in young children.

In my hypothetical world, if Sep-Dec born dcs start school in Jan, Jan-Apr dcs in April and May-Aug dcs in Sep with 10 in each set hence 30 in total in each class but taught in sets like they are supposedly done now. Each set of 10 intake can be further divided into 2 sets for example, a higher ability group and others.

Obviously this will mean 3 academic years across each stage of education so Jan intake will always progress to the next class up in Jan, Apr intake in Apr and Sep in Sep. Secondary schools could be changed so that some do only Jan admissions, others Apr admissions and the rest Sep admissions. A few universities already offer Jan or Sep Starts, they would just need an April start. Got it all figured out.

I'm just curious about the Sep-Aug system and I did start a thread about it before. Since I started typing, a downside came to mind- potentially too unsettling for children to have new classmates every term? Could a system like this work or not?

Staggered starts into Reception worked just fine for decades. When I started school you started at "Rising 5" in September, January or April. I started in April and IIRC we went into what would now be Y1 after only one term and stayed in that next class for 2 years.

Don't think it would work to carry it on through the whole of your school life though, and as you get older those few months make little difference.

They brought in the current system so that all children got a whole year in Reception and 3 whole years overall in the infants.

i can see two problems. First you would need more teachers (at least more TAs). Second although age in year is important other factors play a big role. In my ds's class, the second youngest boy (August born) was actually one of the brightest and most confident. The oldest boy (Sept born) was okay academically but really struggled emotionally. In year 1 the top literacy and numeracy groups were working almost a year ahead of the bottom ones. The average ages were the same.

My kids school had this but now have the september start for all. It meant that an August birthday at my kids school got no reception at all - straight into year one (aged 5). THe most anyone got was two terms in reception.

I think it is much better to have them all start together, less disruptive.

Another idea, not as good, but simple to administer, would be to give parents the choice about which year their DC start school if they are born in July or August (so could defer with no penalty)
And for those with DC born in Sept or Oct allow them to begin school a year earlier, if wanted.

What would you do about gcse? Three exam sittings a year?!

I agree with everyone starting together, but at the end of each year in infants there could be an opportunity for maybe 10% of summer children to repeat the year in full consultation and agreement between parents and school. This would be for children who are progressing normally but are e.g. consistently working at a full level behind the expected level. (Academically and emotionally) For younger children who start 'getting it' in yr2, it's a shame that they can't have the extra time to consolidate their learning. Not sure how the 30 limit would apply though.

Um... that's roughly what my primary used to do when my big sister started. It didn't work very well, with the older ones looking down on the younger ones who'd just come up to year 1 as "babies" and other issues relating.

And that's assuming that the abilities stay the same in each birth group, in dd1's form most of the top group by year 2 were in the summer borns (despite doing part time for a term or more) and would have been getting frustrated with staying down for longer.

I'm guessing OP does not have secondary aged children, for I suspect that if she did she might not be so ready to abandon parental choice at that stage, plus make it impossible for schools to specialise in maths/languages etc.

I am also assuming she lives in a town where the number of secondaries is divisible by three, or that she would be happy for her DC, by virtue of birth date, to have to be bussed to the next town (perhaps whilst children from that town are being bussed in the opposite direction as they don't have a tidy 3/6/9 schools either). And I'm assuming that she is not rural, where children who are already bussed in from villages to the nearest town (where there is only one school) which is also the local hub with all the local activities (scouts, swimming pool, leisure centre etc) may, simply because of birthdate, be forced to the next two schools (in the example I'm thinking of it's about 25 miles to sec on closest school and getting on for 40 to get a third). So many extra journeys, and so many children logistically excluded from after school activities.

I really don't think it could work beyond primary, just on logistics.

This used to happen when I started school. The problem? There was still a gap between autumn and summer born, only it was worse because summer borns might only get only 2 years in infants and autumn ball got 3 years.

I think the answer is for more flexiblity when children start school. I know a lovely little boy with an August birthday who is starting school next September. He will be starting a week after his fourth birthday. At the moment he is a typical three year old and really could do with an extra year in nursery. He is being set up for failure.

It would save so much money on SEN if we allowed summer born children the option of defering. I also believe it would reduce the number of children who fail to learn to read if children who are patently not ready for school were allowed an extra year in nursery.

I was born in the 60s and was a september children, my sister was born in april. I know I started a few days before my 5th birthday and my sister started at easter around her 5th birthday,
I do remember my class being split at sometime and half the class going up to the juniors before I did. I really don't know how they worked it at all. i know I did 3 full years in infants and my sister only did 2 years and a term. It may have been some sort of rolling classes with children moving up a class on a termly basis.

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. However, the idea is that every child will have a full year of reception and of every other class in a rolling class structure (using Bruffin?s term). For example dcs born Sep-Dec 07 will be in reception from Jan 2012 to Dec 2012 and move up to Yr 1 in Jan 2013, dcs born Jan-Apr 08 will be in reception from Apr 2012 to Mar 2013 and move up to Yr 1 in Apr 2013 and the May-Aug08 kids start Sep 2012 to Aug 2013 and move up to Yr1 in Sep 2013 etc. There will always be a group entering or leaving each class every term.

I agree - Sabriel the impact of age differences diminishes over time, Dewe- ability will vary across and within age groups, amothersplaceisinthewrong- yes I can see it being very disruptive especially as just as a group are settling into the routine of school, another group are coming in to start the process. And like witchwithallthetrimmings says, will mean more teachers and TAs but there may be savings in SEN spend like ReallyTired has said because most children will be even more matured to settle better into formal education.

Edithweston, there doesn?t need to be an equal number of schools for each term of entry. A very wild guess would suggest there are more Autumn & Summer born babies than Spring babies but that?s just based on my observation on when there are lots of heavily pregnant women around (spring to summer months but they could have been less visible under winter coats in the winter). But if there was a system like this, surely there will be some record the local authorities can use to plan for schools but that?s debatable. I agree, it will be difficult outside of larger towns/cities. I live in London and there are lots of schools within a 2 mile radius of me at all levels of education so do forgive my ignorance.

Titchy, is this not what modular A-Levels are about? Spreading the exams over a number of months or years? If anything, having 3 opportunities to sit gcse in a year will be good for those who did not do well enough last time to retake the exams quicker won?t it? And for those who are academically G&T to sit the exams earlier.

If only RL was a lot simpler ?

Apologies. It's long.

I attended a school in the 1970s which had exactly this system. Unlike the current system where everyone is new to the class in September and then the rules are drawn and we settle down for the year we had a september like upheveal every single term as roughly one third of the class was new. Socially it was a disaster you would have awful terms where everyone in the class was older than you and you seemed to have no friends. Even though it was a private school it took part in no competitive sport as it was very difficult to create teams due to the system.
It was a school owned by an individual in 1981 with my mum as the head of the created board of goveners the parents bought the school an converted it to a charitable trust. The very first thing the newly appointed head did with the full backing of the goveners was to get rid of this ridculous system.
At the other end of schooling there are currently two chances to take GCSEs adn A-levels each year May/June an depending on board November/January o retakes can happen fairly quickly. What would the children who took their A-levels do for the next 9 months till they were able to enter University. The older children would be unfairly advantaged applying to university as they would be applying with grades whilst the younger ones would be applying with predictions. Would this lead to Universities tending to only offer unconditional offers to those with grades?
There is a perfect system, but the current one is probably the fairest over the educational life of an individual.

Also date of birth does not perfectly correlate with how ready a child is for school. I had a July birthday, so was one of the youngest. I started at Easter because my mother fought.
I was one of the best two readers in the year, and by senior school one of the top two overall. There were also a lot of autumn burns who needed "remedial reading".
SEN is normally caused by differences in the brain not by being taught to read too young.
Of course it might be better if kids just started school later.

As LEAs don't seem to be able to plan even for the numbers needing (single intake) reception or year 6 places, as evidenced by the tens of thousands without a place at all, I dread to think what chaos there might be if you throw staggered starts into the mix.

Also, you'd have to run GCSEs, AS and A2 exams with separate papers three times a year. It's bad enough when you have an overlapping two (ie children spaced at roughly 2 years) going through this as it is. I shudder at the thought of having two going through it blighting two different times of year.

And I really don't think a London-centric policy, which imposes what you agree is "difficulty" (but I'd put rather more strongly) to those who do not live in a metropolis, can really be a good national policy.

Dutch system is that you start school on the day after your 4th birthday. Not sure about the need for more teachers. DCs' teacher was seldom seen without the youngest child in the class on her knee! The thing was that while she always had a new starter she never had a class full of new starters.

Year 1 & 2 was mixed. Lots of differentiation of work depending on readiness.

Dutch are very comfortable about holding pupils back if they arent ready to progress.

So far as I can tell the Dutch arent a stupid nation so if it works for them why not us?

That's a little different from what OP is proposing though, as that is staggered start in the very earliest years, and then brigaded into year cohorts. They do not provide separate secondary schools based on which month your birthday is, not do they run 3 separate sets of public exams annually.

I think it's got potential as an idea - though EdithWeston has a point.

My own idea, which isn't that dissimilar, is that each school should have the individual classes segregated by birthday - all oldest ones together, all middle-ones together if there are 3 classes, all youngest ones together. Then the youngest class can keep a playful nursery-style setting for longer and start formal learning a bit later when the children have that little bit more maturity they need. Obviously they would then all be a bit behind the older class, but the school has until the kids are 10 to gradually catch them up with teaching that is a bit more intesive - perhaps by that class having an extra half-hour of teaching in the day, or an extra week of teaching at the end of term, such that by the time they are ready for senior school they can be re-integrated into a single cohort.

As the parent of a summer-born child I do worry about him having to share a class with children who are going to be massively larger physically and more developed mentally and emotionally.

I think that the easiest and most sensible way is to allow parents to choose whether to send in September or the year after. This system works in many other EU countries and it works well. After all all children are different and develop at different rates. Let parents judge when to let their children start!

True Edith but so far as I understand it the 'need' for differentiation unwinds during the teen years so that educationally it is fine for pupils to take exams at the end of the later years.

We do also have staggered taking of GCSEs now. Many pupils take at least some GCSE at different times. I think that very few students take them all in a single go at the end of year 11.

IMO the big issue is the lack of flexibility in the early years at school where there is so close a link between physical development and mental development. The system we have being age dependant makes education authorities unwilling to allow pupils to be held back a year even though that might well be the right decision for many children.

Tricky to work in a smaller school.
DS's class would have had 8 sept starters,10 Jan starters and 2 April starters.
By year one the Sept and Jan groups would each have gained a child ( moved into area) but not the April start group. A child is about to leave the April group ( moving ). A group of one child doesn't really work, what would you do with that one child.

I started school like this in 1970.

You started the half term after you were 5. I was the only new child in the Autumn half term.

Unlike my dcs' start, there was no induction, no visits, no introduction to anything on the first day. I was just "in".

Needless to say I had no idea where the loos were and wet my pants. I can still see my navy tights hanging on the radiator to dry .

I suppose whether the timing public exams matters depends on whether you see staggered starts as something to be managed during the primary years, bribing all pupils to a unified start date for secondary, or like the OP laid it out, as something which leads to totally free standing secondaries which have different start dates deeding on pupils' birthdays.

If it is the version in the OP, then you need three sets of public exams, for it is not then a case of choosing (for educational reasons) to sit one or more exam/module at an earlier opportunity; it would be in effect varying the length of available teaching time by two terms because of age. That would not be fair.

"bribing"! Not the concept I was aiming for on this one - "bringing"

I think this is how they work it in New Zealand? As far as I can gather children start school when they reach the appropriate age, not all as a big intake together.