Guest post: “A later start can be the best thing for many children.”

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My summer-born daughter Olivia is the oldest child in her school year.

Nearly four years ago I told Mumsnet all about our ‘fight’ to start her in reception at age five.

Olivia is now in Year 3 and enjoying school.

But other parents up and down the country are still fighting for the same right, with their children being made to start at age 4 or enter Year 1 at age 5.

This is despite assurances from the Schools Minister Nick Gibb in 2015, that ‘summer-born children can be admitted to the reception class at the age of five if it is in line with their parents’ wishes’, and the promise ‘to ensure that those children are able to remain with that cohort as they progress through school, including through to secondary school.’

A later start can be the best thing for many children. Olivia enjoyed her reception year, but the jump to Year 1 was a bit of a shock and she found some of Year 2 hard. I’m so glad she had that extra year of development behind her to face those challenges.

No one could pick Olivia out in a crowd; she fits in perfectly well with her class cohort and is thriving in Year 3.

Despite all the warnings that she’d be ‘on the wrong register’, be ‘the odd one out’ or ‘have to take her SATs a year early’, we haven’t encountered any problems along the way (although she did receive a birthday card with the wrong age on one year, but that’s about as tricky as it’s got!).

Olivia even thanks me for what I did.

I have always talked about it openly (and proudly) and explained my reasons to her. She tells me that she couldn’t imagine being in Year 4 right now. ‘I’m right where I belong, mummy,’ she says.

The truth is, Olivia knows more about the law than some staff who work in admission departments, and even some school heads. She often corrects adults who tell her she ‘should’ be in Year 4, saying, ‘I could be in Year 4, not should.’

Of course, every child is different. That’s why choice and flexibility is so important (but only if it’s fair for all). Some summer-born children will enjoy school from age four and do very well, while others won’t. Whatever choice parents make should be without judgement.

Every time I read about the summer-born issue it ends in confused debate, so I wanted to finish by debunking a few myths and ensuring everyone knows the facts.

What is the law? Do you know your rights?

The School Admissions Code requires councils to provide schooling for all children in the September following their fourth birthday, but a child does not reach compulsory school age until the term following their fifth birthday.

So, for a summer-born child (defined as born April 1st - August 31st), that’s a whole year later than when they could first enter school.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Summer-born children are still the only group of children who don’t have automatic right of access to reception at that point (compulsory school age); parents can only request that their child starts in reception.

Some admission authorities have a policy of automatically agreeing all requests while others will only consider requests if parents present very strong evidence of special educational needs or developmental delay.

It’s important to know that it’s your decision when your child starts school, whether prior to compulsory school age or at compulsory school age.

The admission authority for the school has to make a year group decision based on the best interests of your child at that point (i.e. compulsory school age). The discussion should not be about ‘school readiness’ or how they can meet your child’s needs at age four.

The question an admission authority must answer is: ‘What is in this child’s best interests at compulsory school age, reception or Year 1?’ It must then clearly explain the reasons for its decision.

Incredibly, it has been nearly four years since Nick Gibb’s assurances and promises, and in that time many children have been forced to miss reception or start school before their parents wanted them to.

There needs to be a consistent approach across the country, and soon.

For further information regarding the admission of summer-born children, please see the Summer Born Campaign website and join its Facebook group.

Rosie will be returning to the post on Wednesday 22nd May to answer some user questions

And anyway, where is your evidence? I have done my best to back up all my assertions with research but you are making all sorts of claims from “having an older child in the class has no impact on the rest of the children” to “it has a positive impact on the rest of the class” but I don’t believe you have cited a single piece of research to back up your claims?

@Elisheva the research you have presented does not back up your ‘assertions’. You have not ‘proven’ a detrimental impact of CSA starts for summerborns to themselves or their peers as you so confidently asserted. I could post some equally intangible research to back up my ‘hypothesis’ that summerborns benefit significantly from CSA starts, and my hypothesis that there could be a benefit to both themselves and their peers. But the fact is that more research is required. 2014 is a long enough time for some data that is actually relevant to the questions proposed to have actually been collected, perhaps it just hasn’t been published yet. Happy to providedata on a real human and her cohort that backs up my hypothesis. Unfortunately my sample is only n=1 so although conclusions based on that are entirely correct for her circumstance it couldn’t be extrapolated to all situations. However as Rosie has said the campaign group has thousands of members that could provide similar accounts. The sum of which would provide the ‘data’ you are so desperately seeking. After all data is simply the sum of individual accounts.

Have you even read the evidence I’ve linked to?

Here’s some more:
Strong evidence of negative effects on maths achievement for students in a class with older peers.
www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin_Foureaux_Koppensteiner/publication/301790045_Relative_Age_Class_Assignment_and_Academic_Performance_Evidence_from_Brazilian_Primary_Schools/links/5bb47d5d299bf13e605d16a8/Relative-Age-Class-Assignment-and-Academic-Performance-Evidence-from-Brazilian-Primary-Schools.pdf?origin=publication_detail

“Increases in the age of legal school entry intensify socioeconomic differences in educational attainment”
and
“Little evidence supports the perception that children who have been allowed to mature for another year will benefit more from their schooling.”
Deming, D. & Dynarski, S. (2008)
"The lengthening of childhood,"
New England Public Policy Center Working Paper 08-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

“first grade students who were young for their year showed more progress in reading and math than kindergartners who were too old for their grade”
Wang, Sam, and Sandra Aamodt. "Delay Kindergarten at Your Child’s Peril." The NewYork Times, 24 Sept. 2011. Web.

Again, where is your evidence to back up your claims?

But you see all I get from all this research is perception, likelihood, possibly etc it’s not categorically proving anything. And as it’s not based on our education system in this country it’s still only an inkling as to what may or may not have an effect. As others have said, knowing how our system works, it would seem other children would benefit from there being less well equipped children that need lots of extra help throughout the day as the teacher and TAs wouldn’t be so tied up with them, as is often the case or even worse they get left to flounder while they concentrate on the children that are more capable. 2 teaching staff to 30 children is hard work, trying to cater for each and every child’s individual needs is pretty impossible so the more able the children the easier that job would be.

Whilst I wholeheartedly support the parental choice of simmerborns to defer til september, I cannot accept them being admitted into the wrong cohort for their age.
It reduces places for children in the correct year group in oversubscribed schools
Somebody has to be the youngest! If they were in the correct cohort they would be with children max 12 m older. Being admitted to the younger cohort puts them 17m older than others!
How is a child who is immature going to be helped gain maturity by being put in a younger cohort?
What happens about 11+?

all I get from all this research is perception, likelihood, possibly etc it’s not categorically proving anything
But this works both ways. There is no conclusive evidence to show that delayed entry is definitely a positive thing. And there is no evidence to show that it does not impact other children.

Whilst no study seems to give a definitive answer, I think the weight of evidence towards this kind of policy having a detrimental effect on other children seems quite compelling. Surely the emphasis should be on those who want the policy to be used more widely to prove that this isn't the case? Arguing that the available evidence is inconclusive is hardly a massive endorsement.

It doesn’t reduce places for other children. At some point summerborns will be going to school unless home educated. If they don’t go in their ‘usual’ cohort that in fact opens up a place for another child. They simply apply the following year out of cohort and are assigned a school place based on the exact same criteria as any other child.

As others have stated there isn’t sufficiently relevant research yet to back up either case. What there is, however, is a law stating that children do not have to start school until the term after they turn 5 years old. Summerborns as others have stated are the only age group who miss out on time spent in reception if they exercise this right.

Dana28 there would only be a 17 month gap between a child born on April 1st and one born August 31st is that's certainly not going to happen very often.
I have all the evidence I need as my June born son is nearing the end of reception, turning 6 next month, and his preschool teachers all said it was absolutely the right decision, as did his HV and speech therapist and his reception teacher and head teacher have both made a point of telling us it was the right decision and he’s right where he needs to be. He’s not the most mature, not the cleverest and not the top of sport but smack bang average for a reception child. Just because our education system thinks he should have been like this a year ago doesn’t mean it’s right. He’s been able to flourish and thrive at his own pace rather than be pushed to meet all the set targets when he wasn’t ready and that’s all we wanted for him. Having that summer born legislation has allowed that to happen.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies recommend against the policy of allowing summer born children to delay for a year.
The National Foundation for Educational Research recommends against the policy.
The Government’s own think tank recommends against the policy.
As Bumpitybumper says, the weight of evidence is quite compelling.

Summerborns as others have stated are the only age group who miss out on time spent in reception if they exercise this right.
Except for winter borns who would miss one term of time spent in reception, and spring borns who would miss two terms.

@elisheva yes I have read those links, see previous comments. As for ‘my evidence’ see previous comments.
I agree I haven’t seen any conclusive data regarding the impact of delayed starts on OTHER children (those not delayed). But there is substantial evidence of the benefit of a delayed start TO THAT CHILD. In addition to that, in the absence of recent research (I’ll see if I can secure some funding to do some shall I?) There are many personal accounts (the sum of which make data) to suggests that the benefits for all outweigh the potential disadvantages for a few.
Bunpity bump I would argue that it is the responsibility of those that support the policy to prove that it has benefits. The research that you are asking for (evidence of no harm to others) would be near impossible to measure....I’ll have a go...

Os Elisheva and bumpitybump, in designing a research report on the impact of a CSA start how would you measure the academic social and emotional impact of a delayed summerborn on ‘THE OTHERS’ (whether the overall impact was positive or negative). I guess the study would need to look at the cohort that the summer born ‘should’ be in, and how they are affected by the summerborns absence, and then the impact on the adopted cohort then a cost benefit approach used to identify least harms/greatest benefits? It would be very difficult to prove that it was only my child’s absence or presence that was reponsible for any difference wouldn’t it?..starting with a case study
Because my child didn’t go to school at 4 the cohort that she ‘should’ have been in was only 20 instead of 21 (I imagine there is some research to suggest that smaller cohorts do better) so that cohort benefits from her absence. If she was forced to enter that cohort she would have had to on a part time basis (insert research on the detriment of missing any reception). Chances are she would have been considered for SEN (insert research on impacts of children in class with SEN-teacher time resources etc.). If it went as badly as her autumn term did at preschool we probably would have been forced to withdraw her (inadequate teacher to child ratio in school compared to preschool) and apply for delay at a different school or home school (insert research on effects of forced homeschooling/ emotional trauma of starting school early etc). Instead she stayed part time at preschool (insert research on benefits of preschool). So far ONLY benefits to what ‘should’ have been her school cohort in her being absent and to the child in question of CSA start. Now what about her adopted cohort. Do the potential disadvantages to those in her adopted cohort OUTWEIGH all of those benefits stated above? According to your extrapolations from research her adopted cohort will be implicitly disadvantaged because my daughter will be 5 and 2weeks at the start, the relative age effect etc etc. That actual impact remains to be seen on this cohort and it is very difficult to evaluate if child x who is the youngest in the class will be significantly disadvantaged due to the presence of my daughter. Given that they are already in preschool together I have an idea of who these children are. This cohort by chance is small there will probably be 15 in the class (granted the cohort would have been 14 without my daughter so perhaps that cancels out the size effect benefit to the other group)My daughter still may be assessed for SEN but chances are much more slim now so that potential detriment will not apply to this cohort. She fits pretty much socially in the middle of this group. I have no idea where she fits academically but I know that some others in the group can already read and write (my daughter can’t). So I hypothesise that if you were to order them (I know you like an order effect) she would fit somewhere in the middle/bottom). Obviously if ordered by age she will be the oldest. But is it the age of older children in the class that CAUSES the younger ones to do worse, or is that just a correlation (not causation). If my daughters age is what CAUSES the younger ones in her adopted cohort to do worse then (as already discussed) does that negate all benefits of delay? Or could look at why and consider how to rectify that so that there are benefits for all? (I imagine age adjusted scores as already discussed would go some way towards addressing that but you probably know more on that then I do?). Does the potential negative impact on the adopted cohort outweigh the known impact on the individual and cohort that she didn’t join in this case? I (and her preschools trachers if you want professional input) would argue not.

But there is substantial evidence of the benefit of a delayed start TO THAT CHILD
Where? The evidence shows that there might be benefits initially but that they disappear over time, and it may be detrimental in the long term.

@user1473949357
Summerborns as others have stated are the only age group who miss out on time spent in reception if they exercise this right
Ok, I fear I might be being completely stupid here, but how is this so? My understanding is that no child is of CSA at the start of the school year and they reach CSA at 1st Dec, 1st April and 1st September depending what term they were born. So if the parents of the winter and spring born wanted to exercise this right then their child too would miss out at best of a term of reception and worse two thirds of the academic year. Ok, it's not the whole year but a spring born having just 13 weeks of reception is hardly the game changer that you imply?

Yes but they would still get a minimum of one term vs none.

@user1473949357
Yes but they would still get a minimum of one term vs none
Ok so if one term makes a huge difference, the winter borns all would get a term more than the Spring borns so how is that fair? The policy actually means that the only children that will have the right to access a full year of reception after they turn CSA are summer borns. What would stop parents of winter and spring borns demanding the same?

There seems to be a presumption here that it is only the children of middle class, sharp elbowed parents who are delayed. That may have been the case the first couple of years but that was linked massively to the fact that schools didn't understand the amendment to the School Admissions Code, and had no idea how it could be used (a large number still don't. if posts on the very helpful Facebook group are anything to go by- this is also my personal experience).

I live in an area controlled by a very anti 'delay for the sake of it' Local Authority. Yet they grant requests every year, initiated by schools and not parents, to delay summer born children who their nursery teachers feel are not ready for school. Last year they allowed 8 requests and I personally know what 4 of them involved. All 4 were regarding children who were in their local school's preschool and had teachers who thought they would benefit from an extra year in the preschool setting.
One child is one of twins whose sibling went into reception before him.

Now this is obviously a small pool (and yes, I have read the report based on limited evidence from the first year or 2 after the legislation was introduced) , but why wouldn't sensible school heads and teachers initiate this more and more as it becomes more understood? Is anyone seriously going to argue that children identified by teachers as not yet ready for school do worse by having another year in a play based environment supported by more teachers per child? Of course they're not, and nor are teachers, who want the best for all of their children.

Certainly, even the school I know of whose head is rabidly against summerborns delaying for the sake of it, is delaying children that it doesn't deem to be school ready.

It is far from unusual, globally, to delay children based on school readiness, it happens easily in a number of states of the US, Australia and Switzerland to name but a few. We have the lowest school starting age in the world. If children started school at aged 7 here, the 'summer born effect' would be far less strong. The government is concerned about the financial implications of making summer born delay automatic.

I couldn't care less what my child's phonics results are relative to her classmates, nor her maths. But I do care about giving her the best possible chance to build her confidence and resilience while she's young.
All of you focusing on the supposed (but unevidenced) disadvantages to other children by summerborns delaying just wondering if you're posting as passionately on private school posts? Grammar school posts? The school system is full of much worse unfairness than the delaying of summerborns.

I don't need any research evidence to tell me my daughter will be much happier and less tired, require much less 1 on 1 support, and be a much more mature and helpful friend when she starts school a year 'late' but still - in my opinion - ridiculously young at just turned 5. The teaching staff will have more time to spend on the children who do need additional support.

There will always be children who are the youngest in the year, unfortunately, and there will always be unfairness attached to that (and not just unfairness, significant effects on their academic performance and mental health that last throughout their lives if research evidence is to be believed).

A later school starting age would reduce the unfairness of that massively, as would as long as possible for children in proper child-led nursery environments - where they get to play and be creative and be outdoors and don't need or even get the chance to compare their achievements to anyone else. Instead, in too many nurseries, children are pressurised to be school ready from aged 3 and to do things like sit and listen and try to write when it is not age appropriate (especially for the youngest in the cohort). These are the things we should be fighting for. These are the things that enable all children to do best academically once they are older, as well as benefit their mental health. Surely that's what we all want?

Except that most parents of autumn/winter & spring born children don’t exercise their right to start their child at CSA. That is their choice. Presumably they feel they are ready for school at the start of the year as they are closer to 4.5 or older when they start school. Whereas lots of parents of summerborns can see their child will not do well starting school (often days after they have turned 4 years old).

Except that most parents of autumn/winter & spring born children don’t exercise their right to start their child at CSA
Because that would be detrimental to the child.
No, it is only the parents of summer born children who have the right to decide if their child is ready for school.

I don’t understand. Every parent has the right to start their child at CSA. Many choose to send them before they turn 5 but the choice is there. Also all parents have the right to send their child part time before they turn 5 also, this is universal.

An autumn born child who starts at CSA will miss one term of Reception, a winter born will miss two.

I think it's brcause all terms are not equal.
Probably any parents new to education presume

• it will be similar to nursery as the curriculum seems the same
• if Aug borns can cope then their up to Mar would
• it would be gentle and it would build up to sitting/writing
• may not realise they could carry on 15/30 funding