DID I hear right? That parents of 4 rising 5s can now DEFER school entry in England??

[Tansie]

HAS England joined the 21st century?

I am delighted if this is the case but also rather angry that my May born DSs have struggled throughout school, and will forever struggle whilst in academia to be measured against DC who are nearly 10 months older than themselves?

At 17 you may say: What does that matter now? to which I'd say 'because my DSs were, at 7, 'only just 'good enough' (2s at KS1 SATS); at 10-11, just 'OK (level 4s with the odd 5 at KS2 SATS) then streamed and 'set' ever onwards.

I believe there is a statistic that shows that 70%-odd of Oxbridge entrants are Autumn born, thus I rest my case.

I look now at DS2; 13 years and 2 weeks, school prize for application, contribustion, effort, 'joining in' etc etc- but academically just 'OK' and think : IF he were at the end of Y7, not 8, he'd be in the top sets for most things. He'd be feeling bloody good about himself, his achievements etc etc. He'd be 'aiming high' as his results would demonstrate that he 'was capable'... however, he knows he's 'struggling' academically as he just doesn't have the maturity to absorb some of what's being taught.

Which wouldn't of course be useful for the boys in their 'correct' school year with non-tiger parents barely keeping up with a much higher 'best' to aim at, I guess..

Same here burdened- my DS is November born, I deferred him too. Again I had no thoughts of the rugby team, he just wasn't ready emotionally.

A shy slim child, you would not know that the had been deferred.

"are doing it so that they will be the oldest/strongest/biggest child in the class" I don't believe that to be the case.

Maryz you say there has to be a "cut off"- there is a cut off- even with deferement. It just has some flexibility.

Deep, then how would you explain Maryz's evidence from Ireland?

I would have deferred my Ds1 for such an advantage, if I had the free choice to do so.

It's bad enough at age 10! Some of dd's classmates are 11 going on 15 and it's a constant battle to keep dd from aping the precocious girls.

I thought for the first ten years of DS's schooling that he would have been better off deferring. Aged around 15 he seemed to adapt to school a bit better, and starting having friends roughly the same age as him, (his previous best ones through were almost exactly a year younger than himself). He still never really caught up emotionally however and I'd say that he's only just now catching up with his peers, aged nearly 21. He is however about to graduate, so only just in time (and even that's not a given tbh). He's planning on staying on for an MSc. Maybe his mojo will find him in the next year... We can but hope. In retrospect I kind of wish it had been possible to defer him- it would have saved so many of the very real problems he had right from the start at school.

DD2 on the other hand had pretty much caught up by age 13. It was very touch and go at times before that. She hit puberty a bit earlier than her older siblings and was therefore not absolutely the smallest in her year any more (all three of them were almost invariably smallest or second to smallest throughout primary school).

...and now I'm doing it all all over again with DD3.

Maryz- in France by year 11 you can almost expect to find up to 3 years age difference (sometimes 4!) within the same class, due to redoublement (staying down a year) and some children jumping classes. Doesn't seem to cause anything like as many problems as it does here. Don't know why.

dsis was teaching in a school and she swore that some of the year 11s who had recently come from abroad were certainly not 15 or 16. She tried to make an official complaint about some of the boys' behaviour towards the girls but as far as their ages were concerned there was no proof one way or t'other.

As far as I have witnessed, the problem is usually the other way around: big mature girls making mincemeat of weedy baby-faced boys (er, that would be ds...).