Summer Birthdays and Attainment?

[Kendodd]

What to do? DD2 is only in reception, she has an end of August birthday. Is lower attainment throughout her school career inevitable? Is anything being done to address this?

Interestingly her big sister is in Y2, they have different 'tables' for different ability levels. All the children, apart from one, on the top table are September birthdays.

[lucamom]

My August 29th boy is coming to the end of reception and is achieving well.

I did worry about him being just 4 and looked into keeping him back, but where we are he wouldn't join the following class for reception, he would go straight into yr1 and bd the youngest again (with children who've been there a year and made friendship groups etc).

After seeing my younger sister (Aug 8th) do better than myself & DB, I feel that position in the family has a strong influence on whether summer borns will suffer. If they have older siblings it deals with the self-confidence issue and means they naturally strive to achieve (in my very humble opinion)

[nothingnew]

I just clarify that my dc being shy has got nothing to do with which month she was born. No no one has care about my dc personality issue at all. But because someone made a comment about that no matter when she was born she would still be shy any why so I just responded to that comment. I am just tired about people go on and on about their adults? high level academic qualifications while the focus is supposed to on children.

[MaryKatharine]

DH is scottish and I don't understand why we can't move over to the Scottish system. The cut off is end of February so the youngest child starting school in aug is 4.5. Whereas in England, some children only turn 4 days before starting school. It would make a big difference IMO.

Having taught for 10yrs before having kids, I then planned autumn babies. Mine are sept, nov, oct and oct. of course I was lucky in terms of fertility and may have changed my mind if dc1 had been difficult to conceive but I certainly was well aware that I would hopefully be giving them a little advantage or rather making sure they were not disadvantaged.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

How many high achieving primary school summer born children do you need to hear about before you accept that each child is different and when you were born need not have any impact on how you do at school?

If I was basing my views on my own life, I'd be saying that kids born between September - December were destined to be the lower achieving ones in families, and kids born May - August were destined to be the academic stars. And that is no more true than any other generalist theory. Summer born children are now in many cases being forced into participating in self fulfilling prophecies by parents and educationalists and it's both shortsighted and wrongheaded, IMO.

[nothingnew]

Summer born children can level up with the rest with extra support/time or the ability gap gets narrower as the time goes. However in general the younger the children are the more obvious the gap is. It is a common sense. I am talking about in GENERAL not in specific cases.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

It's not common sense at all, it's what some people are invested in believing, because they are looking for some kind of 'excuse'. Being summer born is not some kind of handicap.

[nothingnew]

Say whatever! I gave up!

[FormaLurka]

My DCs have lots of cousins, some of whom are a few years older. So they have always been used to being around older kids, even before they started school.

We did numeracy and literacy with them at home prior to them starting school.

As far as we were concerned, there was no 'gap'.

[Boggler]

There is corroborated evidence that shows without a doubt that children born in the summer months ie June July and August have a harder time starting school and tend to have lower attainment than children born at other times of the year - fact.

That is not to say that there aren't clever August children or
September ones who struggle but on the whole the statistics are borne out in every school in Britain up to year 2. Schools even keep separate stats for summer children because the difference is so marked.

The problem is not that summer babes take longer to reach their potential (usually around 7 when the playing field levels out) but that in the intervening years their confidence is sapped and they see themselves as 'not clever' and stop trying as they can't catch those on the top table. In addition physically they are often less able than the older ones simply because they have had less time to perfect their walking, jumping skipping and their muscles etc are not as mature.

I think that it's astonishing that although we know that summer children have a harder time at school nothing is suggested to help them. Yes you can defer school until after 5th birthday but most schools insist that they then start in year 1 not reception so they are even further behind. Yet the older ones have a full extra 6 months of nursery so no wonder they do better.

Perhaps it's time for a mumsnet campaign to get Gove to allow children to start in reception if they defer a year.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

Boggler They are often treated differently. So it's no wonder. Many primary schools with dual form entry or split year classes put the younger ones all together possibly with kids from the year below. It's become a self fulfilling prophecy. They give them different work, they discourage them from reaching their potential. Plenty of older kids start slow too, nobody ever ascribes that to their age.

[Boggler]

Sorry russians I have to disagree, it's not a new finding teachers have aways known it. In ds's school summer children actually start before the older ones so they have a tiny advantage in the first weeks but it doesn't affect the overall attainment of the group.

It's common sense that hey will struggle a bit in a lot of cases there is almost a year between pupils, and a cohort with a higher than average number of summer children will not perform as well as one with a more balanced ratio of ages.

There will always be children that go against the statistics but generally on the whole summer children do not do as well. A friends mother is a returned headteacher and when she heard that dd was due on 31 August she begged me to hold on until September - as its makes such a huge difference. That's a headteacher of over 30 years teaching experience!

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

I went to primary school 40 years ago. and they were treating summer borns differently even then. It's a self fulfilling prophecy and always has been. an educationalist decided it was so and then set out to make it so. and did quite well, through dint of getting loads of parents on his side.

[Boggler]

And the evidence to back up up your view is where exactly Russians?

[alreadytaken]

It's not a self-fulfilling prophecy, quite the opposite. If children who do badly simply because they are less mature are told its nothing to do with their age they lose confidence. If told they will reach the same level as their older friends in a few months they keep their confidence.

[MaryKatharine]

Why on earth would anyone want summer born children to achieve less than autumn born children? They simply do, in the infants at least, because they are almost 1yr younger which is quite a lot at that age. My Dd1's birthday is sept 4th. There is a child in her class whose birthday is aug 30th. How could that child's be expected to be at the same level when dd1 was 5 the day she started school and the other child had just turned 4 the previous week?

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

already If bright children who are one or two years ahead of their peers are forced to do (much) lower level work than they are capable of, purely because of their date of birth, because some people have a bee in their bonnet about those children being behind even though they clearly aren't, then there is indeed a self fulfilling prophecy, and the younger children are held back all through their primary years. It shouldn't happen, but it does.

[RussiansOnTheSpree]

MaryKatharine My DD2's birthday is late August. She is rather above the level of all the September born children in her school year (and indeed most of the September born children in the year above). Lazy generalisations don't help anybody. Some August children do well, some do badly and it isn't anything to do with when they were born.

[Boggler]

Evidence please Russans not anecdotes, you have no evidence other than your own children which statically is worthless.

[MaryKatharine]

I agree with boggler!
You are simply using the data of your own child whereas I am basing it on 20yrs of teaching experience so no lazy generalisations. Yes indeed some aug born children will be top of the class; I have seen it myself. But that year less on this earth makes a huge difference to a great many esp in reception.

[Threewindmills]

On the bright side I am a summer birthday and I have been fairly successful academically. I am now a Director of the company I work for and earn >£100k

[MaryKatharine]

Oh and whilst we're deciding just to refer to our own children, my sept born dd1 is actually academically gifted so would have still been top of her class had she been born a week earlier. That doesn't change the fact that a great many aug born children are at a disadvantage.

A good teacher is aware if this an adjusts accordingly but the school system is still placing these children at a disadvantage.

[camptownraces]

Boggler - 100% agree with your statements.

It's a fact that these summer born children are 9, 10, or 11 months less mature than some others in their class. For some (not all) of these children there will steps to climb before they can achieve academically.

All the posters claiming sparkling performance from their own chn with August birthdays failed to understand the original point.

Achievement rates eventually tail off, until the difference in average achievment by birth month is virtually imperceptible at A- level.

[veryconfusedatthemoment]

Hi everyone, there are many parents who would like flexibility of start date for their summerborn children and for them to be able to start in reception after compulsory school starting age. There is a facebook and google campaign group. Do please join and support the campaign

www.facebook.com/groups/121613774658942/

I haven't had a chance to read all the posts on this thread but I have posted before about the emotional damage done to my family by my DS being forced to start school too young. This flexibility would help him and many other children like him. It would reduce resources being used to support these children and damages no other child. How can anyone continue to defend the inflexible start dates? I have no more words...

[CarpeVinum]

Hi everyone, there are many parents who would like flexibility of start date for their summerborn children and for them to be able to start in reception after compulsory school starting age. There is a facebook and google campaign group. Do please join and support the campaign

None of my family (DS included) are resident in the Uk, but my son attends a school based in Britain. Their flexibility in allowing my August born, "never been in the British system before", child to go into year 7 instead of year 8 is part of why we have had the best year ever in terms of education since he first started school.

If I count despite being all non resident I'll support the campaign. But won't stick my name down if there is the chance it will give rise to minimising its impact via claims that "forrins" are skewing the support figures.

[FormaLurka]

I think that most people accept that in Year R and Year 1 a summer born child might experience problems associated with being the youngest in the class but I'm very at suggestions that this do called summer born effect last to A levels.

Apologies for playing the 'if immigrants can do it' card but if an immigrant child can start school with no English and go on to a successful school life then surely a Brit child can make up being born 3-6 months later than some of the kids in the class?

My DD was fine but DD was a little behind the older kids so I did 'stuff' with her at home. At the start of Year 1 she had caught up. Are parents seriously saying that with an no academic primary school they can't support their DC so that the 3-6 month gap gets elimated?