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

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

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

At this age a few months can make a huge difference so by 4.5yo they are probably comfortable the child can 'be school ready'. Afterall some Aug borns do achieve the eyfs targets when only 4.9yo.
I think what with childcare issues plus missing out on friendships learning etc many people are unlikely to take the option of CSA in reception for Sept born (jan). Some might do part time to continue other interests or tirdness etc. Good to have the option though.

Im interested to see the baseline results vs end of eyfs. Because sept are older than Aug are at the end. But i assume Aug will come out better at end than Sept do at the start.

At this age a few months can make a huge difference so by 4.5yo they are probably comfortable the child can 'be school ready'. Afterall some Aug borns do achieve the eyfs targets when only 4.9yo.
I think what with childcare issues plus missing out on friendships learning etc many people are unlikely to take the option of CSA in reception for Sept born (jan). Some might do part time to continue other interests or tirdness etc. Good to have the option though.

Im interested to see the baseline results vs end of eyfs. Because sept are older than Aug are at the end. But i assume Aug will come out better at end than Sept do at the start.

Yes, I’m aware of that.

“No, it is only the parents of summer born children who have the right to decide if their child is ready for school.” Everyone has the right to decide when their child starts school up until the term after their fifth birthday when it becomes mandatory. The right to start at csa is not just for summerborns.

I agree with your post livetodream and have made similar arguments on these threads regarding how we are supposed to know what ‘type’ of parent does this when it is not widely publicised and only accepted in a handful of authorities. Because of that also, how are we supposed to know the impact based on our system as it is now.

And I agree, lots of countries delay children from their normal cohort as a matter of course. In Germany for example, ‘siztenbleiben’ is just standard (where necessary). Only the UK could make such a song and dance about it.

how we are supposed to know what ‘type’ of parent does this
In countries where it is widely practised the children who start later are overwhelmingly from white middle class families, and are mostly boys.

The right to start at CSA is not just for summerborns
No, but summerborns are the only ones who won’t miss out on time at school because of delaying.

@Elisheva in response to your post where you completely ignored my questions to you (I am still interested in your thoughts on my case study if you would be so kind as to give it a read)

But there is substantial evidence of the benefit of a delayed start TO THAT CHILD
Where?

See above to my case study

The evidence shows that there might be benefits initially

Great-So you are already aware of the literature on benefits, great, saves me ploughing back through the research to provide links here

but that they disappear over time, and it may be detrimental in the long term.

Let us entertain that statement for one moment. Perhaps my daughter would have been better off being forced in at 4 and 2weeks and I may have caused her long term detriment in giving her the short term benefit of a delayed start. I don’t know maybe when she is 15 she might suddenly wish she had more emotional distress at 4?Interested in the link you never know I might be surprised and it might have some suggestions on how to avoid the long term detrimental impact since we have already delayed 😬

In countries where it is widely practised the children who start later are overwhelmingly from white middle class families, and are mostly boys.

IF the policy were more widely available, it could be pushed more by educational establishments to narrow the gap. I can think of several children in my children’s classes, who would have benefitted from someone saying “look, we have this policy, I think your child would benefit”. The 30 hours free childcare could be offered to those families without them having to demonstrate earnings, if the government were so keen on narrowing disadvantage. (I didn’t bother claiming mine, it was so complicated).

But that’s not happening at the moment - my son’s preschool, who would be in an ideal position to advocate it more widely, in a town full of disadvantaged children, didn’t even know you could do it.

And what about in Germany, which routinely makes children repeat a year (sitzenbleiben) regardless of class. Any research from there? They’ve been doing it for decades.

Except if you’re not one of the lucky ones and can’t get permission from the relevant school or education authority to do so due to the current confusing and inconsistent system. In which case your child doesn’t get to go to reception at all.

But there is substantial evidence of the benefit of a delayed start TO THAT CHILD.
See above to my case study.

You believe that your case study of one child constitutes substantial evidence?

I really think that while the numbers are so small, the April/may/june kids are going to stick out like a sore thumb. Probably not in reception or Year 1, but later on it's going to be blatently obvious that they are older than everyone else and I think thats going to be really hard for them as kids can be pretty awful to each other at times.

@Elisheva my n=1 is substantial evidence of the effect to THAT CHILD yes. It isn’t generalisable to all children but it most certainly should not be discounted. As I said ‘data’ is the sum of individual accounts. In your follow up sentence you accepted that the evidence shows benefits so I didn’t feel the need to provided a literature review for you we agree...and back to my questions to you please?

Lincove, J.A., & Painter, G (2006) Does the age that children start kindergarten matter? Evidence of long-term educational and social outcomes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 28(2), 153-179.

Schanzenbach, D. & Larson, S.H. (2017) ‘Redshirting may do more harm than good. Education Next 17(3), 18-24

Frey (2005) Retention, Social Promotion and Academic Redshirting. Remedial and Special Education 26(6) 332-364.

And can I point out that I have provided links to several published, peer-reviewed reports.
You have provided no evidence to back up any of your claims.
Your case study cannot really be considered as there is no evidence of the long term outcomes and there is no control.

Thinking it will be obvious is ridiculous.
Height is +- years not 17m or 5m from the eldest. And as teachers have said the 'ability' range is equally large. Anyway presuming average height about 2.5cm taller than the sept average, if they were say 25th percentile they may be exactly the height.
At secondary there are at least 200 kids here so 2 kids of 99th percentile and that would make them years ahead height wise.
And anyway with puberty also varying by years girls who start tall often stop growing sooner.

I know of a teacher delaying her dc, i would suggest if they have concerns that children can keep up in this system, when obviously they can help at home then that says something to me.

• that the issue is not necessarily academics
• that ecen teachers xannot ensure their own dc are school ready
• they are not worried the dc will stand out

Even though you can argue the techer is bright and mc they dont want to leave it to chance that their child will be abke to be 12m advanced academically in order to be towards the top. Also even with bright children there can be areas they are not so ahead in. they also already have a dc at school so know the requirements and can project from how that child did

Not obvious. The tallest kids in both my DCs classes are summer-born (not delayed). My (delayed) August child is tall for his age, but not the tallest in his class. There are so many examples of older-looking summer borns all around us that I quickly dropped the idea that it was an issue in any way.

I don't think it's about height at all. J think it's when there's so few children doing this, when the april/may/June borns are having their 9th birthday when loads of kids are still 7 it's going to be obvious, and maybe it'll be fine, but it's still going to be odd for everyone involved.

I can’t believe that height is even a factor in this debate to be honest. If kids are going to single out others for their height (being smal or being very tall) then the parents have done a poor job in bringing up their kids. I’m not being naive in thinking that this won’t ever happen but as a parent I’m pretty conscious of trying to bring my boys up to accept and embrace people who aren’t like them, whether that be in appearance, race, sex, disability...& I would be mortified and onto my kids like a tonne of bricks if I thought they were picking on someone because of their height or anything else.

@Elisheca
Thanks for the links I can’t get past the abstract can you link to full texts please? These would be really quite useful as I said so I can address the future detriment (or at least know what the detriment is?) that my child is going to be faced with as a result of her delay.

@Mambazo123
The plural of anecdote is not data. I understand that you feel passionately that your child benefited from this policy and I think it's totally possible that she did, but this doesn't mean that most/all delayed summer borns will be the same or indeed that the impact on all children isn't detrimental.

Think of the kind of proof you would need to convince you that the summer born policy wasn't a good idea and I imagine you would be pretty close to understanding the level of evidence to convince me that it is a good idea. Would you accept a few parents account of how the summer born policy had detrimented their child as proof the policy should be stopped?

@user1473949357
Everyone has the right to decide when their child starts school up until the term after their fifth birthday when it becomes mandatory. The right to start at csa is not just for summerborns
But this policy makes summer borns the exception in that they don't have to miss any of reception in order to enforce this right? Do you think the relatively low numbers of spring borns starting at CSA might be related to the fact that their parents don't want them to miss the vast majority of their reception year?

Summer borns are not a breed of their own. Something magical doesn't happen on 1st April that makes children less mature or less ready for school. There are many many factors that affect school readiness but yet this is the only thing that the summer born policy is concerned with.

Something that has really annoyed me reading this thread is some posters insistence that summer borns are all exactly or very close to 4.0 years old whilst spring borns are 4.5 years old in comparison and therefore so much more likely to be ready for school. As a parent of an April born this is laughable. My DD is literally a few weeks older than one of her best friends who is arguably less ready for school and totally ineligible under this policy. What a blunt, ill-thought out instrument!

@bumpitybump
I am considering all of the evidence and actually just read an account on how delay was perceived to disadvantage a child. The overwhelming conclusion is thatActually i didn’t say the pleural of anecdote is data did I? My point is you cannot have data without individuals?? You can’t!?! I didn’t claim my account to be generalisable to others (it isn’t ‘data’). It doesn’t make it any lless valid as a qualitative account of the impact of delay on a summerborn

Sorry phone/child error...probably should pay then some attention...will rephrase the aboce

@bunpitybump I’ll try again,
No you can’t convince me that delay for MY child was a bad thing (unless these unknown future detrimental impacts are significant 😬😬😬)
I am open to all accounts, all research, positive and negative in order to evaluate if the OPTION to delay summerborns should be available as per the summerborn policy. I have evaluated the literature and stand by my assertion that yes, the OPTION to delay summerborns is a good thing. That opinion might change....still reading :)

Thanks for the links I can’t get past the abstract can you link to full texts please?
You might need to pay to access them? I’m not sure, I used an institutional log on.

I would argue that this is simply an error in our education system and we’re starting kids in school too early. I fully sympathise with the child who you know who isn’t ready for school but doesn’t have the right to delay. I agree that in many ways the policy is unfair as it helps some families and not others. I do think there should be an overhaul in early years education and a later school start but in the absence of that I do believe this is the next best thing.

@Elisheva can you provide an overview of how they define and measure the long term ‘detriment’ for those without the funds/institutional log ins to access those? It sucks how information is a privilege and not freely available doesnt it!