Summer babies do less well academically in part due to streaming.

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21699054

I read this article with great interest and much concern. My 4 yr old daughter, born at the end of August already shows some signs of a lack of confidence and poor concentration when compared to the older kids in her class. Not surprising as some of them are almost a whole year older.
It worries me that she could potentially always be behind and I often question if we made the right decision in starting her schooling at age 4.
I'd be interested in your thoughts and experiences of summer babies in this context. Any tips on confidence issues?

And does anyone have a view on the issue of streaming as mentioned in the article? Her school are about to sort the kids but have not yet decided how. Her teacher said they might do it by age, ability or random. I was keen on the former as it would mean she stays in a class of 20 as opposed to a class of 30.

Depressing reading for a soon-to-be mum of an August child!

Although I agree with those who are saying the research is obviously true, on average, (I did the research before conceiving, but my fertility did not pay attention), the anecdotal posts are the ones I am hanging onto.

I'm not sure that the research either pigeonholes children or is 'half-baked', particularly given that the point seems to be that school practices of setting (which are sometimes decided only on age in infants classes) do contribute to August born children underachieving relative to their peers. (They will have controlled for other factors). That doesn't deny the individuality of any child or assume children will do badly. Indeed, it criticises school practice which produces underachievement precisely because of assumptions about age and capability. So it would seem to be absolutely against pigeonholing.

DS is a late summer baby.

He went to a (London state) primary which had a teacher and 2 TAs all through KS1 and an additional room for children needing extra support. This meant that there was enough attention to mean that they did not need to be streamed or set. Certainly the children were not aware of any streaming or setting - but as SATS approached in Yr 5 and 6 they did do different work on different tables. And held booster clubs and enrichment clubs etc. So all in all, the children were given the support they needed, and not set in rigid permanent streams.

He was one of the later readers in the class, almost certainly due to age and developmental age.

He is now in a streamed comp, in the top stream, G&T for reading and some other subjects.

I would use this information to ask prospective schools questions such as how early do they differentiate children by ability? How do they support summer born children? How do their SATS reflect the ages of the children? Will they be taking this research into account?

Although I agree with those who are saying the research is obviously true, on average, ........ the anecdotal posts are the ones I am hanging onto.

LOL, you and many others, but most of them don't realise what they are doing!

"all children are individuals who do not need to be pigeon-holed by half-baked research in order to be understood."

Yes, children are individuals.

No, they should not be pigeon-holed. They should be treated as individuals.

No, the research is not half-baked. It is a well-documented effect, found in various studies.

"So what do we make of all of this?"

As a society, we recognise that ON AVERAGE summer-born children are at a disadvantage. We ensure that all children ARE treated as individuals, so that August-borns are not labelled as 'less able' because they don't have the same skills as a child a year older. We continue to research the effect and find out how to prevent it from occurring so that ALL children have the same advantages and opportunities.

How can your Aug born achieving X be proof that the research results are wrong - your Aug born could have achieved more - no one will ever know.

The other issue is that much of the research was done on children who started school after Easter purely because of their birthday, rather than the more common September start. It is logical that children who have missed two terms of school need a while to catch up.

Yes, postmanpatscat. I hope that now all children can start in September there will be less of a difference. I wouldn't be surprised if the difference still exists to some extent though- but that's why we need to continue doing the research.

Good work on this thread Pozzled

bunchofposy you have the right attitude. Be guided by your child and concentrate on your child and your child alone.

The alternative is judging your child and your expectations of him/her on the basis of research like this. Before you know it you'll have a self fulfilling prophecy on your hands and will be resigning yourself to the fact that it was a given that your child would underachieve/have difficultes at school based on their month of birth.

I just tried to have a baby and didn't care what month he/she might arrive in. I never gave stuff like this so much as a thought. In fact, when he arrived in August rather than September, which he could have done if he'd been a few days late, I was glad he'd have the chance to go to school early. When it came to it, he was more ready to go to school that some who were almost a full year older than him.

You never can tell what will happen so just go with the flow.

My first rule of summer-born threads is that those who say "Look at me, my birthday is 31st August and I got a 1st at University therefore there is no summer-born disadvantage" always got that 1st in a subject other than statistics.......

2nd rule: there are two separate issues. First: do we start academic study too young in England? Second: which if any children are the ones who really suffer as a result of starting school at 4.0 (to which the answer is those who are immature for their own birth month).

3rd rule: someone will always say "someone has to be the youngest" to which the answer is "yes, but it shouldn't be the child who is immature for their own August birth month because of prematurity or a developmental imbalance - those children should wait for everyone's sake".

4th rule - award self glass of wine for saving so much taxpayer money in relation to my own son. We were told by LEA to start him at 4.0 and apply for a statement of special needs. We and the head felt he might still "even up" and gave him an extra year instead, starting him in reception at 5.0. Just had parents' evening in Year 2 and the teacher "has no concerns at all" about him. That's what you call transforming someone's life-chances through early intervention and it's cheap cheapity cheap-ty cheap to do. You just need skilled professionals to help spot the candidate child.

Thanks Taffeta. I've spent the wekend ill on the sofa so have been far more drawn into MN than I normally would!

Great post reawakening. Totally agree.

Reawakening - that's great. How did you start him in reception at 5.0 though? I thought he would have to go into Y1?

It's been really interesting reading all the different views on this. My main concern remains on dd's confidence. It is far easier to teach knowledge than it is to build confidence, although I believe the two are intrinsically linked. I accept that her ability will vary on different subjects and will change over the years, and reading the posts I am even more determined to find ways to boost her confidence and can only see streaming on ability as an obstacle to this. Perhaps it would work in an ideal world where every teacher she will have was perfect and there was no chance of her being made to feel less than her peers, but unfortunately it isn't so.

My own experience of primary school was one that streamed. We had classes such as 4, 4p and 4x. The students took the p and x to represent pass and fail. I was only ever in a p class once but remember the disappointment I felt and the superiority that existed over those in an x class. Yes, some kids said very horrible things to/about those in the x class. I also remember that most of the kids in x stayed in that class throughout primary school. This was in part because the most experienced teachers got the best performing students. This was a long time ago but some of these problems will still exist.

In my 10 year olds class, it is the case that 30% of summer borns are in the top set along with 70% of September borns. It has been like this through most of his schooling years so far.

However, I want to point out that all the high achieving summer borns were book worms and read lots. I also think a supportive family background can make the biggest difference with both less able and high flyers regardless of age.

reawakening that is such an important point. Imagine the difference it would have made if he'd been statemented when all he needed was to start the following year. Was it a struggle to get your LEA to agree to defer for a year?

I also think a supportive family background can make the biggest difference with both less able and high flyers regardless of age.

I am 99% sure that's what all the research shows, too.

Also 99% sure the birthday-effect exists whether they start school at 4, 5 or 6, and whether they had September start or later in school year (look at the international studies, places where everyone starts at same time). Might even out by the time they are 10.

Someone once said that in Australia they construct classes completely by age for first few years, and everyone is close in age in same class & starts together (rolling starts thru the year), I wonder if their birthday effect is any smaller.

My ideas:

1. Allocate preschool funding on the basis of time to starting school, not on age. So everyone could get only one year of funded preschool sessions only starting 1 Sept. after 3rd birthday. This would put everyone on a more level footing. I am pretty sure that this is shown to have negligible effect, too, though.

2. Could have a policy of smaller class sizes for youngest reception group where school has enough classes, or dedicated TAs for the youngest. This hasn't been tried as a targetted policy, but won't happen,costs money!

It is likely the they'll have controlled for family background in this research. It's well known that family background (and particularly the mother's highest level of education) is associated with performance at school, so it would be ludicrous not to have controlled for it.

Youaresoright/racing, thanks for replies.

It's got harder thanks to Jim Rose's dropping of the ball in his report on the issue. But Rose himself agrees that he never meant there to be no exceptions to the rule.

Tiggytape has posted elsewhere with specific excepts from the school admissions code and the guidance issued to LEAs alongside the code (if you search her posts you will probably find it). The guidance is very negative (and misleading in my view) but it says there must be "cogent" reasons to place a child out of year.

BLISS (premie charity) are currently campaigning to change the tone of the issued guidance which would be a good step forward I feel. I think there is a chance of reaching a consensus that premature and "developmentally imbalanced" children are the ones we should look at first. It is their extreme experiences that contribute disproportionately to creating the distressing statistics.

I have two August dcs, both born prematurely.

Dd in particular was not ready to start school. The local school is over-subscribed so deferring till year 1 would have meant no place. I belligerently sent her part-time, mornings only - for the whole year. The school kept questioning it, but every day at 12 o'clock I turned up and collected dd. Her teacher privately told me I had done the right thing.

And I returned with her in a pushchair to collect ds, as we live a mile from the school. It's one thing doing a mile to school and back once a day when you're 4, but add another couple of miles on top and that pushchair is needed!

I started school at 5. I hated it and wet my pants on the first day as I had no idea where the loos were. As everyone started when they were five, new children were coming all the time so there was no going through procedures.

I guess if you're not a school person, you're not a school person, whatever age you start.

That's interesting reawakening as I had also thought that placing children out of year was out of the question. Changing the attitudes of schools/LEAs towards keeping children back from school until they are ready would be a great step imo.

Perriwinkle - I agree about self-fulfilling prophesies and going with the flow (my conclusion after I found myself worrying about getting my unborn child a tutor!). I had wondered about sending my DC1 summer born to school a bit later, but in fact I think she will be more than ready. It all depends on the child - and the policies should definitely allow for this.

This thread is very timely for me. I'm expecting my first Dc in late July/early August. As soon as I knew the due date, I knew that myself and DP would have to work hard with LO to get them ready for school at an early age. Barring other factors, I believe it is 100% achievable to bring our child up to feel confident and willing to learn (though I know it may not be as easy as that!).

I know many July/August babies who have had varying success at school. One DSis was late July and struggled from the word go - despite the same level of attention and word-game playing that I received before I went to school. But there was an added twist, she was a 'difficult' baby, who, it is now suspected with hindsight, was probably lactose intolerant and so cried constantly for years. As a result she was small (though now much taller than average), lacked confidence and rejected school to an extent. She is now, however very successful.

My DSS is a July baby and struggles with some elements of his school life because of what appears to be dyspraxia and some hyper-mobility. He is also very naive and seems young for his age, but is growing up quickly.

In both of these cases, there are/were other factors at play that differentiate them from average ability summer-borns - and we will never know whether their academic slowness is down to these factors or their age, alhtough I know that in my sister's case, her age was seen almost as an excuse and she wasn't pushed as much as older kids.

Sometimes, ability is slowed by age maturity. Sometimes it is slowed by other factors (eg preemies, those with early health/development issues). Sometimes both can be counteracted by lots of hard work by the parents and professionals.

There will always be a bias, but the bias will unwind eventually - the biggest focus should be on finding ways to positively encourage all children to work as hard as they can, and praise them for that rather than their 'abilities'. It has been shown (read Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman) that telling a child 'well done, you're really smart' is more damaging to self-esteem than encouraging a child for the effort put in.

And surely, bottom line here, summing up all the posts, is finding a way to raise academically confident children who believe in their own ability to try harder and achieve, whatever their current or perceived level.

lainiekazan v interesting that you sent your DD part-time. Good on you for sticking to your guns. This is what I mean about changing attitudes. I don't think the school should have kept questioning you on that. Another person might have felt pressure to go full-time too early.

Horrible The point you raise about class size is a very important one,

"2) Could have a policy of smaller class sizes for youngest reception group where school has enough classes, or dedicated TAs for the youngest. This hasn't been tried as a targetted policy, but won't happen,costs money!"

My dd's school had to put on an extra class this year to accommodate all the kids who didn't have placements. As a result she is in a class of 20, not 30. All classes have the same number of teachers and TAs, so all other things equal, she must be getting more help than a child in a class of 30.
The split was done by age and her birthday is 27th of August. For year 1, the children will be split up, but the school hasn't decided on what basis. However they will remain in that stream until they move to junior school. The class of 20 will remain at junior school but they have not had to worry about it yet as they have a couple more years before the kids reach them.

I really want the class of 20 going forward and do feel this would work greatly towards any knowledge issues and may help with her confidence. My greater concern would be if she is in the "middle ability" class of 30.

On the other hand will she be challenged enough or will expectations be lower?