Following Ed Balls webchat, thread for parents of summer born babies

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We said we'd start this thread, as so many of you expressed an opinion on the Ed Balls webchat thread about summer-born babies and starting school.

BTW, this is a recent thread in media requests on a linked topic.

Will nip over to webchat thread and link to this.

MNHQ

My DS1 was born August 16; he was very small for his age indeed, and very slow to learn basic fine motor skills etc.

He started school a few days after 4th birthday (no staggered intake here) and was fine. The teachers were sufficiently sensitive to his young age.

I am so pleased that all the way through his education he has, in effect, a year in hand -- that when he has done A levels he will (if he wants) be able to take a gap year and still be only just 19 when he starts university.

For us, his young age was never an issue, and I would certainly caution parents against assuming it will be a problem. I appreciate that for some children it is an issue. But there should be no blanket assumption of disadvantage.

I agree qith you Redworm - which is why it should be a choice. Not every parent in Scotland of the younger kids chooses to defer - because some are ready.

That's what the situation should be in England - if they really do think that "every child matters".

I agree with you Midnightexpress- I've never heard of anyone complaining about the Scottish system - or suggesting that it is "difficult to administrate".

Interestingly, ds, who technically, as a September birthday, should be right in the middle of his year's cohort, is actually at the young end of the year, with only a couple fo kids in hsi class who are younger than him.

Yes I agree too Redworm. I know about twenty concerned parents of August-borns in the Bradford LEA. Only two of us chose to defer. Very few people would take up the offer I think.

Looking at Rose's report has made me angry all over again. His brief (cited in the report) was to advise on increasing flexibility of starting dates. He moved instead to a monolithic starting date. He simply did not look at the evidence for year-deferment. He said that because the 4-year olds were in school anyway it was pointless to discuss what would happen if they weren't. He overlooked the fact that additional pre-school places would only be needed for 1% or 2% of children.

We must get him on mumsnet. He has not had to account for himself.

So prettybird, do you think that's just a fluke or because all the Sept-Mar birthdays have deferred? I'm very interested - I wonder what percentage of students from each month defer, on average. Does anyone have figures for Scotland for numbers of deferalls?

Lingle, I'm in the Bradford LEA and I would have applied for my son to enter reception at 5 had 1) I been absolutely sure that he wouldn't have had to rejoin his birth-year cohort at some point during his education thus skipping a year somewhere along the line; and crucially 2) he could have had a pre-school place for a further year at his pre-school. This was a killer for me because his pre-school did not have a place for him as they were already full for the following academic year. (The pre-school is independent of the school he now attends). I didn't want him to go from no pre-school (which he'd been attending for almost)18 months to nothing for a year and then on to school.

To answer my own question:

There were 3480 requests for deferral (ie students born between Sept and Feb requesting deferral) in 2007/08.

Total is 17,766 requests to go into p1 (Scottish equivalent of reception), from what I can gather from the tables. So if I'm right (and my hit rate with percentages is a little low ), that means approx 20% of potential p1 students are requesting to defer (this has actually dropped since 2003). Most of these seem to be granted. The figure is a little higher if you also include deferral requests for special schools, and doesn't include the private sector.

By comparison, 164 requests were for early entry, and only 23% of these were granted.

Data is here if you're interested.

lingle and fayrazzled i too am in that LEA

thanks midnight, that's interesting

notanotter, ah well we probably know each other then. Given taht you wish you had had flexibility to start in Sept, can you understand the rest of us a little better now?

Fayrazzled,are you the one I always think lives in Scotland or are you the one I introduced to my friend in the village in the valley?

hint as to whereabouts lingle??

Midngihtexpress - well, you found out the info for yourself! I am really surpirse that the number of deferrals for Glasgwo is so low - especially as it is by far the largest education authority. Contrast its numbers iwth Edinburgh's - the second largest . It also means that ds' primary (with between 26 and 50 P1 entrants each year, about half of which are placing requests) must have a disproportiantely high number of deferral requests, as I can think of at least 2 in each of the last few years. I wonder why - or is Glasgow just not reporting properly?

In ds' case, I think it is to do with the number of defferals and just chance. One of his friends' birthday is in December, so he [the friend] is nearly 9 months older thna him. TBH, I don't know the dates of all the kids in his class - only those to whose parties he gets invites , ubt I can only think of a couple wose birthdays are after him - and a few whose "deffered" birthdays (ie Jan - March birthdays, but a year older than ds).

not till you start agreeing with us notanotter!

ok i relent!!

Hurrah!

It's the place where you need clothing on your head. Don't say it on here though please.

Dd is a late Aug birthday and has just gone into year 1. The problem we have found with reception is the willingness of the teaching staff to say "oh - she's so young, of course she can't do it".

Dd is not greatly motivated to learn and will only do what is expected of her. She left reception unable to recognise the numbers 1-10 and yet her reception teacher had not identified any issues. She learned them within a week (plus 11-50) once it was clear that she had to.

The point I am getting to (slowly) is that if you are saying that children have to be in school then you have to have the expectation that they can do the work. At the moment, it seems that they have to be there but half of the teaching staff think they are too young and treat them as such.

Yes prettybird, the Glasgow/Edinburgh split is interesting isn't it? I guess in the end it may just come down to disposable income, since an extra year of preschool will often not be funded for Sept-Dec birthdays. I imagine this may be (ahem) less of an issue in Embru than Glasgow. Especially since lots of the wealthier parts of Glasgow will come under other authorities (East Ren, Dumbartonshire).

yes so better to go a year later and be expected to hit the ground running.

That's what I thought too ME. Except that most many of the well-heeled Embras will be probably be sending their kids to the (many) private schools over there.

I really feel annoyed that parents and teachers have not been listened to over flexible start dates to primary school.

I agree that Jim Rose should come onto MN to defend his decision making. The only arguement against deferred entry for summer borns is that the problem will simply move to disadvantaging spring born children.

However, this does not seem to be the case in Scotland. I rarely hear of Scottish parents feeling let down because their 5 year old children do not qualify for deferred entry. As lingle and others have said, not everyone will take up the option to defer.

Geraldinemumsnet, can you invite Jim Rose on here? His reports cover more than summer-born entry but I think a webchat devoted to that would get a good response.

He simply hasn't addressed the issue and jolly well ought to.

lingle do i live there too????????

I wonder if the Scottish system just shifts the problem elsewhere...

In Scotland the official cut-off is 1st March, so with no flexibility on entry the children born in Jan/Feb would be the youngest and therefore disadvantaged by being up to 12 months younger than their peers. However, because they are given the chance to defer with no penalty, this solves the problem for them (as long as their parents make the right choice), so the problem then might shift to the December borns. For them, they are still up to 12 months younger than the eldest in their year (more than 12 months actually, as a few Sep-Dec children have deferred too) and although there are some children up to two months younger than them, these have (in the main) been selected for 'school readiness' as they have chosen not to defer and so are unlikely to be in the struggling group.

I do wonder if anyone has studied the long term effects of December borns in the Scottish system? The other big losers in that system will of course be the Jan/Feb borns whose parents do not choose to defer, but who would have benefitted from it. Now for some children it is probably very apparent that deferral is a good idea, but I suspect that in other cases it isn't clear at all at the time when the choice has to be made. The children who end up not being deferred who then go on to experience problems have their troubles exacerbated by being up to 14 months (or more) younger than their peers and not just 12. It would be interesting to see some studies of educational outcomes for Jan/Feb borns in the scottish system and differences between the deferred & non-deferred subsets.

I actually think a better overall system would be to have 6 month cohorts instead of 12. All schools could have intakes every 6 months. Most A levels and GCSEs can be taken in January or June so the different cohorts could finish school at different times.

More popular degree courses could start every 6 months with less popular ones starting annually (but some of these in September and some in February/March). Gap years could flexibly become 6 months if desired - or a 6 month gap could even become standard to facilitate having results before you apply.

Small schools would have to teach mixed cohort groups, but these would be regrouped each 6 months as the new groups arrived, so no-one would be consistently the youngest.

Intersting different angle Snorkle. However, given the resistance shown south of the border to even the idea of some flexibility, I think they would have hairy cnaries at the thought of such a "flexible" system

I had a look to see if I could see any research as you suggest. However, the closest I could find, which was the BMJ study which was one of those that provided evidence of the dterminetla effect of being the youngest in a year (and that for an individual child, deferral may be the best option), specificially excluded those children in Scoltand that had been deferred.

However - at an anectodtal level, I would suggest that the very fact that there don't appear to be any Scottish parents angsting about when their child's birthday is and worrying about their young child's ability to cope with school is evidence that the flexibility does work.

"I actually think a better overall system would be to have 6 month cohorts instead of 12."

A brilliant idea that is still consistent with having larger schools so presumably not too costly.

Maybe we can suggest it to Jim Rose when we snare him.

lingle can you cat me?