Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Education

Join the discussion on our Education forum.

Original poster

Any one delayed their child starting school ?

36 replies

mummydear · 17/05/2006 21:55

DS2 will be 4 in August and then starts school September albeit half days until January.

Unlike his older brither who is a winter baby and started reception last year he is nowhere as ready.

DS2 is also at moment undergoing speech therapy which is not going very well, but thats another story.

MIL has suggested that we hold him back from school until Easter and let him contiue at his playgroup up until then. I feel that he will miss out on alot and not actaully benefit from this . I realise that he may be behind for a while but eveutally will catch up.

Anyone had experence of delaying the start of school , pros and cons please .

OP posts:
Original poster
mummydear · 18/05/2006 13:29

bump

OP posts:
nellie245 · 18/05/2006 13:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Angeliz · 18/05/2006 13:42

mummydear, this is something i've been contemplating lately as this baby is due late August.
I looked at a iste saying that they have to start School after their 5th Birthday so you could keep him till next September couldn't you?

Can't get my head around it. Have 2 February babies so am lost with this!

sobernow · 18/05/2006 13:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

vitomum · 18/05/2006 13:49

no direct experince of this but there was interesting research lately in scotland which suggested taht kids (esp boys) DO NOT catch up and that any disparity will continue to secondary school and beyond. the message was clearly taht strating too early CAN and often does have long term implications.

snorkle · 18/05/2006 14:08

I'd be careful about delaying the start unless the LEA will agree to him going into the younger year (not just at the start, but right the way through school, junior and senior). Most LEAs seem very reluctant to do this nowadays, but it's commonplace in Scotland.

sobernow - if the school has used the age standardised test results for SATs to do their analysis (don't see how else they could have done it), then that is just showing how the younger ones at your school are doing compared relative to the average of the other younger ones in the country. So if the country as a whole is failing the summer-borns, then your school is too (sorry).

Angeliz · 18/05/2006 14:16

According to \link{http://www.dfes.gov.uk/schoolattendance/faq/#faq9\this} though a child does not have to start legally till the School term AFTER their fifth Birthday. So does that mean Reception?
If that is the case then he could just start the next year right?

KateF · 18/05/2006 14:20

If my dds 2 and 3 (born May and July) started the term after they wewre 5 they would go into Yr 1 not Reception. Having had an utter nightmare with dd2 I am reluctant to send dd3 to school at 4 and 1 month. Even dd1 who is October born struggled to start with.

Gem13 · 18/05/2006 14:24

Angeliz - children don't have to start legally until after their fifth birthday but if they do they go straight into Year 1 and miss Reception.

Everyone seems to agree that Reception is designed to be a gentle introduction to school so it makes sense to go through Reception rather than straight into Year 1.

I have been pondering this myself as the mother of a July boy. He starts in September and I look at my 3 year old and think he is so young. But he will be on half days until Easter. Plus I can take him out for example on Friday mornings if I think 5 mornings are too much for him.

TwoToTango · 18/05/2006 14:34

Not quite the same situation but my ds (early Oct birthday) started at LEA nursery the Jan before his 4th birthday (so he was youngest for rest of that school year then oldest when he went back for new school year in Sept). It was a fantastic nursery but he found it quite hard to settle in as the other children had made friends, knew all the teachers, where everything was, the routine etc. Part of it is down his his personality but I think it is better when they start something at the beginning. He started in reception last year - his best friend is a July birthday and he is not finding it difficult to keep up.

Angeliz · 18/05/2006 15:08

AAH, so Reception isn't compulary then?

So, sorry for my thickness but you know when you just cannot fathom something?
So if my baby was born on Septmeber 1st it would just be the same?
(My due date was 7th Septmeber then they changed it to 31st August.

mummydear, sorry for the hijack but this has been on my mindSmile

foxinsocks · 18/05/2006 15:14

mummydear, the school will honestly be used to the younger ones. I know it's really hard but you have to try not to look at the differences between a child who is 5 in September and one who has just turned 4. Although it looks like there are major differences, the school should allow for this.

We had a few children who started late in reception and tbh, I don't think it did them any favours as everyone had their little friends already.

Piffle · 18/05/2006 15:20

My ds was a february baby and I held him bacj until he was 5 and he was doing above average for his age.
I may well hold dd back a yr even though she is an october baby as she is unlikely to be physcailly ready for it. She is 3.5 and still naps for 3 hrs a day.
You can keep them in pre school for another yr by the way, our nursery has kept many kids on for an extra yr and most of the kids got straight into the appropriate yr group and a re fine!

jessicaandrebeccasmummy · 18/05/2006 15:33

im still not sure what to do about this either.

Jess is an end of july baby, so would start school at just 4 and a few weeks..... if i sent her in the september, I don have a choice here though whether i start her in september, January, Easter or into yr 1 the following september.

I will see how much she is getting on my nerves before i decide! She is 2 this year.

Bagpuss30 · 18/05/2006 15:53

My dd is an August baby and will start school 2 weeks after her 4th birthday - this September. I am quite worried for her, although ds1 started last September and is currently in Reception. His birthday is October and so he was more than ready, and dd sees what he is up to at school now and is really looking forward to it too Smile.

A letter came from our school today about a parents evening for the new intake and it said that there was only one intake in September. I wasn't aware that you could actually defer until after they were 5. Our school make it seem like there isn't much choice in the matter.

Gem13 · 18/05/2006 16:36

Angeliz - if your child is born in August up until and including the 31st it will start school in the September just after it has turned 4.

If it is late and born in September it will start school a whole year later and either be 5 or just about to turn 5.

My DS (born mid July) will be starting school in September while his best friend (mid September) will be starting Sept. 2007. Different towns but I'm hoping that it won't affect their friendship too much.

Gem13 · 18/05/2006 16:37

Bagpuss - you can legally but the school don't have to hold the place for you.

They get paid per child so it makes financial sense for them to have the full quota of children.

KTeePee · 18/05/2006 16:44

One think to consider is whether they start to teach them to read etc in Reception at your school. At our school they follow the Jolly Phonics scheme and the Reception class starts to learn their phonemes in the first term (there is only one intake, with half-days for the younger ones) and they are all done by Christmas. If your ds2 was to delay going for a year and then went straight into Yr1, they may miss out on something similar... Also, as someone else said, Yr1 is a lot more structured than Reception with less "playing" so it might be a big change going straight from nursery to Yr1.

sobernow · 18/05/2006 16:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gem13 · 18/05/2006 17:01

sobernow - I used to work in educational research and in our project (don't want to say what it was on) the thing that made the most impact was not free school meal status, class size, english as a second language, etc. but if you were a summer born boy. They were the single category that performed poorly in relation to their peers.

As a mother of a summer born boy I am concerned about this. But... I will keep my eye on him and try not to get stressed about it. My main concern is that DS enjoys school and feels he is doing well regardless of SATs.

sobernow · 18/05/2006 17:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EmmyLou · 18/05/2006 17:16

I held my dd1 back in playgroup for a term and a bit (until school caught up with me!) as her b-day is in August. But, we had just moved to our village and she didn't really know anyone anyway so didn't feel I was holding her back from her friends.

Subsequent children are March and September (was adamant I didn't want another summer baby if possible!) but doubt I would make same decision again had they been summer children as 1) we are fully integrated into village life and all the playgroup children move up together 2) the reception class has changed beyond recognition in the past 6 years - they have 50% of curriculum taught out doors, frech windows have been added to classroom to allow children free access to their own garden, ride on toys etc etc
3)Class sizes are smaller - dd1 went into reception in late january of the school year and there were 36 of them. Legislation now stipulates that class sizes for this age should be below 30.

There are lots of factors to consider and a lot depends on how formal/informal class and school ethos is.

Gem13 · 18/05/2006 17:39

sobernow - As the mother of a girl too I can see why they were ok Wink.

There are 18 months between my 2 (DD is younger) but there is about 6 months between them intellectually.

Summer born boys catch up around age 8. I presume with other boys. Boys as a whole catch up with the girls at secondary school. Someone told me that in N Ireland they used to skew the 11+ in favour of boys (i.e. they didn't have to get such a good result to get into grammar school). It meant that if you were a girl you had to do really well to get in.

snorkle · 18/05/2006 18:22

sobernow, It's not a big effect. You can see how age affects key stage 2 results across the country by looking at the age standardisation tables \link{http://www.qca.org.uk/12422.html\here}. It's only a few marks difference in raw score for the tests across the year so I'm not surprised people don't notice it. As they don't produce the tables for ks3 perhaps it's evened out by then?

cat64 · 18/05/2006 19:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Swipe left for the next trending thread