"babies born in summer 20% less likely to attend university". Higher Ed Funding Council for England

[miljee]

I cannot remember whether it was here on 'education' or on 'primary' that I made the remark that I'd read somewhere months ago that something like 80% of Oxbridge Entrants are Sept-Dec born, thus supporting the idea that place in a school year DOES influence outcome. Someone (who didn't believe me!) asked for the long gone link but this is something I saw in the paper today. I admit it was The Sun but it goes on to say "The council says students who are very young for their school year tend not to catch up". The email is [email protected] if you want to verify this!

I'm not really banging a drum, here, just pointing out that my Oxbridge remark was probably quite accurate!

I would prefer it if we have a staggered entry as well, we have just one intake here and i agree that physically the Sept / Oct children (boys especially) are huge compared to the summer children.

Mind you the worst time of year to have your birthday in terms of academic success has to the beginning of June - how are you supposed to concentrate on all those exams when it's your birthday. I had an exam on my birthday every year from the ages of 11 - 21!

No wonder I only scraped my A level history when all i wanted to do was get down the pub and celebrate my 18th!

That's interesting Lucycat - I actually think staggered entry would have been detrimental to my summer children, as they would have been EVEN further behind - and found that lots of friendships were already established. And certainly for dd she needs school to challenge and stretch her - she has had enough of playgroup!

This article has some figures: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3765/is_200211/ai_n9100194/pg_1

Extract for those who don't want to read it all...

It is particularly concerning that the poorer attainment of summer-born children is not confined to the primary classroom but persists into secondary and tertiary education. At GCSE summer-born children attain 2-3 per cent fewer marks than their autumn-born contemporaries and fewer summer-born (12 per cent) as compared with autumn-born (17 per cent) continue into A-level courses (Sharp, 1995). Fewer summer-born children go on to university, but there is some evidence that by the time of graduation the youngest in the year group take up a position of advantage, tending to graduate with better degrees (Russell and Startup, 1986).

v. interesting, Snorkle, particularly the part about things could be helped if the register were called in order of birth, rather than alphabetical order, as this would cement in the teacher's mind who was oldest/youngest. I remember this was done when I was at pimary school (many years ago!) and when I think about it, I can still remember many of the children's birthdays!

would be interesting to see the scottish figs.

Cut off point is end of feb. Parents with children born i think dec to feb can automatically defer entry. So school starting age varies between 4.6 to 5.5.

I must admit i think 4 to start school is v early.

actually thinking about it if someone deffred entry with a dec birthday their child would be 5.8 when starting school.

dds are may and august so not really fussed.

'Now I am hyperventilating that ds is destined to go to Craptown University (founded 20 minutes ago) whilst his September friends swan off to Oxbridge.'

Oi, a new Uni is doing me very well thank yu, and some of the courses there are rated very highly! I chose mine above Bristol (russell group Uni) because of the whole quality of life attached to where we live, rather than in a city where we couldn't afford anywhere nice for the kids to live.

And here is another article on school starting age:

www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/other-publications/conference-papers/pdf_docs/PaperSSF.pdf

This shows at KS1 the
older (autumn-born) children, those with the full reception year did best. But for
younger (summer-born) children, those with the full reception year did not do as well
as those of the same age with one or two terms less time at school.

This article also reckons that the academic differences even out by age 12, so is not in agreement with the previous one.

That article looks really interesting, snorkle.

(btw isn't it fab that you can now copy-and-paste from a pdf??? )

The official starting age in NI is 4 - the official starting age in England & Wales is 5; but in NI, a child born after Jul 1st will start school at 5+, whereas in England & Wales that child would start at 4+.

Having trouble getting my head round that

It makes sense I suppose.

It always makes me grin on posts like these when people say 'well my Auntie's husband's, ex-wife's cleaner was a summer baby and he went to uni' .

Statistically it would seem likely that those starting ahead emtionally/physically etc get a huge boost of confidence from early success that the young ones don't (and two of ours are youngies).

Another interesting article:

www.consultingpupils.co.uk/Resources/Newsletter%2010.pdf

In the far more flexible arena of private ed in Queensland Australia the schools began to experience SO many parents insisting that their boys started a year late/were held down a year etc etc that they had to change the sports teams from Y6, Y7, Y8 etc to under 12, under 13, under 14 etc! It caused a bit of an outcry amongst parents who'd assumed 12 stone Bruce could carry on flattening boys upto (chronologically) 2 years younger than themselves on the rugby pitch and might have to size up boys of his own age!

I will also attempt to track down the source of my Oxbridge assertion which has caused so much controversy!

I was born in the middle of August and the youngest in my year at school, my best friend at that time was the oldest born in September - I got a first class honours at uni and didn't particularly do much at school - in fact I hardly went so I think as usual you have to take each child as an individual and nurture them accordingly.

Although I know that the statistics would seem to stack in favour of the Autumn babies, many of the most successful students I have taught 11-18 year olds) have been June and July birthdays and my sister's birthday is August 30th. She was the youngest in her year and she got straight A's. (I, on the other hand, as a March birthday, didn't! )

'This proved to me that teachers don't know/don't care/don't make allowances for age differences within the class.'

I wouldn't necessarily say this is true - I have had many conversations with my colleagues re: summer/winter born children. Especially as every single child in my lowest (Y1) group is a July/August boy and every single child in my highest group is an October girl. I think about this a lot!

Oooh, js, a KS1 teacher, the horse's mouth in fact!

We need to know, please, if what you are currently experiencing continues through KS2, or whether they level out by Y5/6?

Also whether you find that the younger ones get so demoralised that they stop trying? And does this extend to sports as well?

Well, not experienced in KS2 (yet) but I know from discussion with colleagues that it definitely can affect someone for the whole of their school career. For instance - take a summer born boy. In Y1 when he is beginning to get down to reading and writing - if he is immature, not inclined to sit down, finds concentration difficult, has not yet developed enough fine motor skills, not that interested in reading/writing anyway (and yes, you can have all of these things in one person) he will be slow to read and write, and it will be hard work because he won't feel that successful at it, and will thus be even less inclined. Meanwhile, many of his classmates are becoming more sucessful at it, and things are moving along with them. Yes, of course we differentiate, but as things become progressively more academic throughout the year (getting ready for Y2, which is even more hard hitting) it becomes more and more of a struggle. Sorry, I am explaining myself very well here.
So, yeah, it is easy for them to get demoralised. Of course it is the teachers job to prevent that, and help them to feel they can be successful and can keep moving forwards, but this can be difficult!
I have to say in PE, although some of my boys could be good - we still have issues with teaching skills because it comes down to a concentration thing (but that is also my particular class). Sorry, not totally sure how it pans out in sport as they go up the key stages.

In the last article I linked, the graph showing the likelyhood of being on school sports teams versus term of birth was VERY skewed to the autumn-borns - much more so than the academic stuff. Admittedly it was just one secondary school, but I've turned up lots of other articles on the sports bias too.

I don't know what the matter is with you all. Maybe this is your kids' problem...haven't you got anything better to do. You could be more helpful to your children if you spend a bit more time playing games with them and maybe in 15 years time you will be able to come back to this site and tell us all about your David Beckham, Johnny Wilkinson, Thierry Henry all born spring or summer. Please don't write them off before they've even started.

Say what?

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.

Okay the statistics may not actually lie but they are bloody useless, aren't they? What are we going to do with the Spring and Summer babies? Wail and gnash our teeth for the next 18 years?

Our children were born when they were born. In my case I was so pleased to see them at all that I couldn't give a toss when they were born.

Silly arse statistics.

Of course we aren't going to write them off, but we will flag them up for possible more support.

this thread has got me so wound up that dh is even more fed up with Mumsnet than he is normally. I vow not to visit the subject of youngest in the year again. Can anyone supply a decent put-down to use on those yucky mummies who act dismayed when I say ds and dd are August birthdays and then boast how they planned their children's conceptions to the last second, blah blah blah.

Thanks for your description of your experience, js - it sounds pretty much as I imagined it would be, and it does sound as if they are expected to catch up terribly quickly (I thought they'd at least have the whole of KS1 )

How do you think it would work if parents were allowed to hang on to their summer-born 4-yr-olds and send them into Reception 12 months later? Would there have to be an arbitrary cut-off date, eg only children born after 1st July? Would the increased age range make class organisation more difficult? (There was something about this in one of snorkle's links)