Parents of summer borns who deferred school entry! Any regrets?

[JL0]

My DC was born on 30 August 2020 and is due to start school in September 2024. My other half and I are on the fence about whether we should defer them to September 2025, but are leaning slightly towards deferral.

The impact of being summer born is well-documented through research (eg lower academic attainment, lower self-esteem). Based on these factors alone, the argument for deferral seems strong.

I'm less clear on the "cons" of deferral. I haven't found any research on this point. Anecdotally, I've heard stories about deferred children struggling emotionally and/or being socially isolated because they're older than their peer group.

Parents of deferred children - do you have any regrets? Have your children struggled emotionally or socially because they are older? Are there any other disadvantages to deferral?

For context, my DC is a pretty "normal" 3 year old. Meets their milestones. Is often shy in new settings. No SEN concerns. Attends preschool 4 days a week.

And yes, @Catleveltired , there have been suggestions that late Aug children should be deferred for that reason alone - you can see just a few posts up that someone said:

Your child is a mere two days short of the cut off so for that reason I’d do it in a heartbeat.

I think it's important to counter that sort of blanket advice, which I think could unnecessarily panic parents.

I'm glad you're happy with your decision.

IME people who choose to defer also have no regrets.

I don't go on to threads about school start and give arguments for deferring and justify myself, though. Because I'm genuinely happy with my decision for my child. And I'm ok that other people make a different decision.

I do try to debunk myths people use to justify their decision, though. That's all. I'm not het up- I'm not on threads evangelising for my choice when that isn't what OP asked about, and lashing out at others when they point that out.

Who is lashing out? Have you even read my posts? If the OP is happy with my contribution then what is the issue here, really?

No issue. I'm glad you're completely content with your choices, and no regrets at all.

Great. Well, thanks for pointlessly being catty about my posts. Derail over.

OP, you are honestly best off ignoring anecdote and opinion and just considering what's best for your child and family.

And maybe the evidence!

But you'll find EVERYONE has an opinion. I stopped listening to people when one of my acquaintances at the time started telling me what her mum thought! Never even met her mum!

No regrets for deferred dc. Only for the dc i didnt defer.
Dd1 in cohort. Very clever but only say top 5-10%. Issues at preschool and severe ones in reception moving up at 4. Had only done 12h a week at preschool and had been pretty ill there.
Academically school didnt acknowledge intelligence which didnt help behaviour.
Exceeded in SATs but older kids did better.
So going into 250+ secondary is in set 3/4 so only top 44% in year despite SATs results in top 9%.

Clubs - she missed getting into brownies with friends. So joined mar2020 and had 2 sessions. Whereas the oldest in year had moved up in sept.
Bit of bullying at secondary. Cant organise own homework
Started peripd at 11 so if had defferred would have been in primary

dc2
Deferred. No issues so far. Is friends with older kids in year. (Vs sibling with only 1friend)
Has been able to cope with more clubs. Im not sure will do better than sibling academically. But needs very little input frpm me on homework.

Bear in mind for the youngest in year when moving to secondary the oldest kids there are turning 18.

I’ll give you our experience to add to your thoughts. We deferred our May born eldest DD. I was very confident about the decision at the time. I did a lot of research on it, and the benefits academically long term, and she was also a bit behind emotionally and behaviour wise then. This worked well especially as she was in a mixed age class (her adopted year plus natural year), so she had the benefit of being with older children but not pushed academically/behaviour expectations.

We then moved areas mid year 3. Her new school were happy for her to stay in year 3 and assessed that academically she would either be at the top of year 3 and mid/bottom of year 4. Years were separate not mixed age. After half a term we realised we had to move her. She was taller and more mature than the girls in year 3 and she became miserable - she couldn’t connect with the ‘childish’ games and social stuff and found she was being picked on. So we took the difficult decision to move her up to year 4. There’s no doubt that academically it’s been a stretch for her to catch up - she is getting extra support as she has gaps in her knowledge - especially in Maths where progress is linear. But socially she has gone from being a 4 year old who was behind, to being quite mature and confident for her age, so this year group is a much better fit, and most importantly she is now really happy. This is a school she’ll be staying at til 18 all being well, so it was really important to get the year group right and we didn’t want to wait as she would only get more behind academically.

I am still slightly grieving the fact that I have probably lost a year of her life as she will probably go off to university a year earlier than she would have if she’d stayed a year down. And will be going to university (hopefully) a bit less mature than otherwise. And I worry that she won’t catch up on the academics or do quite as well as she could have, so I would say it was a last resort for us. Had she been a different personality- perhaps quieter, less confident and less physically grown up or younger in the year (say August instead of May) - or indeed a boy- I would not have moved her. But for my particular child in our particular situation it was the right decision. Good luck with your decision!

@Catleveltired, why are you on the defensive? The people with summer born children, who chose to send their child with their cohort, have just as much as a right to say we haven’t regretted that decision and it’s not academically (or otherwise) hindered our children, surely? It’s good for OP to know that most children, even the youngest, often thrive starting school without the need to be held back in order to help her weigh up the decision for her own child. I stick to my opinion that kids will be successful in their own right regardless of when their birthday is and by the end of primary school (but definitely much sooner) there is no way to tell summer and autumn born kids apart, speaking with my teacher’s hat on.

If you delayed your own child’s start to reception and didn’t regret it, good for you. But, as someone else on here pointed out, we don’t have crystal balls and can’t see if our children would have faired any differently had we made a different choice.

This is an important point. If you are not sure either way, you can move a child "up" later on.

There will never be another opportunity to hold them "down".

I’m not sure I would say I regret the decision to defer our early July DS, but we are considering moving him into his correct cohort.

It just happens to have worked out that his best friends are in the year above him (his correct year), and as we never changed his year group for sport all his wider social network is in the year above. He’s a very sporty kid and that looks likely to be a big part of his socialising. He still seems a lot older than many others in his adopted year group, and he’s very conscious of it. He’s currently in a Y3/4 year group, with younger Y4s, and he’s older than most of them which has attracted comment. My niece is out of cohort, currently in Y5, and it’s becoming a huge issue for her socially and for her self esteem so that’s definitely playing on my mind.

@Foreverraining if you can, read my earlier post on this thread. I'm on the other side of 2 late summer DDs who we didn't defer but who were academically closer to the bottom of the class in the early years - 15 and 20 years old now, both are excelling academically and oldest got into 2 of her 3 top universities and loves higher learning. Younger kids who don't have special needs and are well supported catch up in school - for us it was around ages 11/13. Socially it was always the best thing for them to not defer-especially at puberty!!

It's a postcode lottery. Some LAs (for community and some other schools) are very permissive, others such as Southampton and Lincolnshire are massively difficult. For Academies, it is the Academy Trust that are responsible. As with LAs, some are easy, others put up a massive brick wall. But as @catleveltired says, they must still follow the Schools Admissions Code and associated guidance.

It would be a total no-brainer for me. Premature birth placing a child in the 'wrong' school year is one of the strongest possible reasons for delaying Reception by a year. It's specifically mentioned in the Schools Admissions Code.

Your niece can get help from the Flexible Admissions for Summer Born Children Facebook group - there is someone there who is an educational advisor to Twins Trust who will be able to offer support.

I haven't noticed these threads before on MN, about deferring and have had a couple of enquiries at work (primary) about it. What's the reason for the sudden trend in wanting to defer kids?

I think it's just because the rules have changed in recent years, it's been in the news a bit, and so people now automatically bring it up when they hear you have a summer-born. "Oh, she'll be the youngest! You can defer them now though, can't you? Will you do that?" - just to make conversation as much as anything, but it puts it on your radar and makes you wonder if you should consider it.

I enquired at the local school when mine was born, and they said they were well used to dealing with summer borns and that they only allowed it in certain circumstances. That was the beginning and end of my enquiry (as it quickly became clear mine would be school ready), and probably is the beginning and end of many enquiries.

Someone won a court case a few years ago, establishing the principle that admissions authorities couldn't put a blanket ban on it, and everyone had the right to ask for it. The Admissions Code now requires policies to include clauses on it. Social media has raised awareness.

Many people (me included) just timed our conceptions so that it was never an issue. That's obviously not possible for many people, but I'd be curious to know whether there is a subtle drop in the birth rate in summer months that could be attributed to it. 😁

It’s because of the changes that mean there can’t be a blanket no, or a blanket “they can skip R but have to go straight into Y1”

It has always been much more common in Scotland for children close to the cut off to defer because the policy was always that they started the following year with the next class. No skipping years, just starting with the next cohort. Which obviously was much less detrimental to a child than being put into an established class.

As to why its discussed on Mumsnet...

Simply Mumsnet is a common place to come to when you haveca parenting question. If you don't have a question, you don't need to ask so Deferral appears over represented on Mumsnet

Its still a very rare choice.

Basically, a child doesn't legally react to attend school until the term after they turn 5, which means summer borns can start a year later. That's not up for discussion with school, it's an automatic legal right.

What the school need to decide is if in those circumstances the child starts in reception or y1.

They aren't allowed to have a blanket policy in this any more and they have to show why it's in the child's best interests to start in reception.

Given that saying it's in their best interests to start in Y1 would mean them saying reception is pretty much worthless, it's very difficult for them to argue this.

The upshot is that although there's no legal right to start in reception, it's hard for a school to argue against it, even though they often don't particularly like agreeing to it.

I think there were around 6-8 August birthdays in my son’s reception class, many years ago (out of a total class size of about 24)! I remember, when in labour with him (in August), that a lot of the London maternity units were full on certain days, and not accepting patients.. it was a really high birth rate in our borough that year.

Wow what a post attempting to be scary. But sadly so inaccurate.

Govt guidance is clear now (after 15+ years of dealing with summer borns) that no child should be skipping Reception (as you say it is essential).

I have a problem with your middle para. No child under 18 can just leave education. The old NEET (Gordon Brown) has been modified. It is all now education, work with training, etc. So no child can just theoretically end education at 15-16. Yes some do. After years of intervention. The OP's child hasn't yet started Primary education. So the law, the culture, the intervention might be very different then. In fact I can predict it will be different.

You have forgotten to tell OP, in your haste to disapprove summer born deferred entry, that compulsory school age is 5 in England not 4. So any parent who sends their child to Reception age 4 is sending their child to school too early. Primary schools do not cope with summer borns. The evidence shows that many are mis-diagnosed with SEN. That damages 2 groups. The SEN children who desperately need support so lose valuable intervention. and the summerborns who have merely been sent to school too early so perhaps cannot access the curriculum, but not SEN.

Way to hugely misinterpret what I said. I didn’t say they can leave EDUCATION. I said they can leave SCHOOL. And that is absolutely true (for reference, I work in the education service of an LA). SSA ends the last Friday in June of the academic year a child turns 16. After that date, there’s nothing anyone can legally do to keep them there if they don’t want to be there.

The problem is: then what? Colleges only offer GCSE resits in English and Maths. So you’re looking at a L1 course and that massively restricts options. And the myth of apprenticeships persists - you don’t get on an apprenticeship without GCSEs or equivalents.

The fact is that our entire education system is built around statutory school ages. You can opt to flex the system, but there are risks. The problem is it’s very hard to weigh up risks for a future 16 year old when you’re looking at the 4 year old in front of you.

There's nothing that can keep a school refusing child under school leaving age in school either. They're not prisons.

The only difference is the blame, and fining, of the parents, if a child declines to attend.

There's no school police that will come and hoik not-so-little Jimmy out to school at 15, bit won't come at 16.