To defer a bright child

[Clairebear231]

My son has always been bright, potty trained early, good speech from a young age etc I have never had any concerns. He is due to start school this September at 4 years and 2 months. All professionals say he is capable and ready....but I've recently found out I can defer him starting until next year when he will 5 years and 2 months giving him a big advantage throughout his school career.
My DH is very against this and feels he will be fine in school but I don't want him to be just fine I'd like him to excel, I'm also worried he will struggle being one of the youngest both academically and socially.
What are your thoughts on this? Has anyone not deferred a bright child and then regretted it or vice versa?

Hi OP,

I deferred my summer born son and so he went into reception aged 5 years and 2 weeks.

I was never worried about him academically, but I was concerned that starting school just a few weeks after turning four was too much for him emotionally and socially.

There is so much research out there about the long-term damage starting school at just turned 4 can have on both a child’s academic successful and their mental health. It was for those reasons that me and DH kept our son behind.

He’s just about to finish Reception and he is thriving!

His teacher had said that although academically he’s performing at a high standard, she thinks we absolutely did the right thing by deferring him. She said that due to the nature of his personality, if we had started him at just turned four it was likely he would have drowned.

A lot of people seem to have this perception that deferred children are “a whole year older” than the rest of the class but there are four children in my son’s class who also turned 5 within a month of my child having had his fifth birthday. He’s only the oldest in the class by 3 weeks.

He’ll be starting Year 1 this August, a few weeks after his 6th birthday.

Me and DH have no regrets at all about our decision.

OP, I do get how hard it is to decide especially when you’ve told your child they’re starting and their peers are going. I was in the same boat; and won’t lie, I found the time the peers started was uncomfortable for me (more me than my son who didn’t seem to question it much). We had done some early prep about starting school but then we just said ‘when you’re summer born you can choose when to start and we’ve chosen to start you when you’re 5 so you get an extra year of fun!’ And he was delighted with that and thought nothing more of it. It helped that his peers were all going to different places and not to the school he is heading too anyway but it wouldn’t have been enough to change our mind. Kids change social groups so quickly and we decided the benefits outweighed the discomfort. It was vindicating when the mother of his friend who is also august born and considered delaying but went at 4 said recently that she hugely regretted the decision and wished she’d not been so pressured to crack on as her child is now falling behind but they agreed with the school it would be too damaging for his confidence to re do reception. My worry was that my child would be unfairly labelled as difficult or badly behaved because he struggled to sit still etc and the data on the number of summer borns who are labelled as special needs really stuck with me. Anyway, I just wanted to reassure you that I appreciate what a difficult decision it is and don’t think it will feel comfortable whatever you do tbh! If you send him at 4 you’ll feel it too because you’ll be worried you didn’t take the option and if they then have issues you’ll have to know you won’t feel guilty that you could have done something about it. Either way he sounds bright and supported so will be fine but I’d just start from the position of asking yourself why you wouldn’t take the option if it’s available to you?

For me, DS is an August baby going into year 7 in September and DD September baby going into year 4.
DS is so ready for secondary, he has outgrown primary. Academically he excels in maths (one of the top), he is very social. But he is also the type of kid that gets bored. He needs to be challenged and I think secondary can offer him that as they have an ample list of enrichment activities.
I don’t think either of them have it worse/better based on when they were born (besides having their birthdays in the holidays and just before they go back in September).

So you don't think children get board doing a year twice? Starting nursery for the second time with children who can't find their name or share toys?

This is illogical - What year are they doing twice? They’re doing exactly the same amount of early years education as autumn borns? The csa start is there to correct the fact that otherwise they’re essentially missing a year. Do you think September borns should skip a year and start reception early too? You do realise an august born is literally the same age as a September born by a matter of weeks? They are closer in age to that cohort than their original one. I’m sure there are some 3-4 year olds who can’t find their name or share toys but most of the ones in my son’s nursery are all also doing phonics, writing and reading their name and sharing. My 2 year old can find and write her name and share her toys, should she start school too? Yes the summer borns starting school shortly who are all still 3 do seem a lot younger than the 4/nearly 5 year olds but that would have been my son last year!!

our nursery follows a montessori approach which means children 2-5 are all in the same room- the idea is they all teach each other things and develop empathy and self control playing with different ages; they consolidate skills or learn new aspects if they cover the same topic twice, montessori doesn’t follow a linear educational process anyway, each child selects their work based on their interest and it is adapted based on observing where they are at so there’s no way they can ever get bored. Maybe we are fortunate that this is the set up but I think ‘boredom’ is an adult concept. Children don’t get ‘bored’, they play! If your children are getting bored and unable to play I’d be asking myself why….

Check with the school, as it is likely if you hold him back, he will go straight into year one and skip reception. Which means he will be joining the friends he is already with now who are the same age is him. All it means is he will miss all of the learning from reception

We're in Northern Ireland and the legislation just changed to allow deferral with two funded years of preschool. He would go into Primary 1 which is the equivalent of reception in England. Trust me if it wasn't I wouldn't consider him missing a year.

I was nearly held back when I changed schools as a child. I was SO bored I went nuts. Didn't focus at all. Almost a disaster. My Mum got it sorted and I went ahead. Went to Cambridge etc. Holding me back would have been a disaster. Don't hold back smart kids.

There’s a real mentality in the UK that all kids must go when they “should” to school. In reality kids develop at all different paces and rates. Some kids are ready just after 4, others would really really benefit being closer to 5. Considerations shouldn’t only be academic but also about social skills and maturity, emotional regulation and general readiness (energy levels, separation anxiety etc) One of my kids was ready (June born) and the other wasn’t (June born). I don’t regret sending one “on time” and deferring the other. The same decision wouldn’t have been right for both.

i recently read a similar discussion about deferral for Scottish children (we start school older at 4 years 6 months minimum, so this was about deferring children who were as old as 4 years 9 months so that they went to school at 5 years 9 months) the stories about deferral were very largely positive. My DH is January born and as the cut off here is 28 February was one of the youngest at school, he feels he struggled because of this and his mum wishes deferral was more commonly done back then. It seems pretty common and acceptable in Scotland just now. My DD is October born and could technically be deferred but I probably wouldn’t unless I thought her individual circumstances warranted it.

I think that a bright child is only as bright as the year they are in allows. My eldest 2 DDs are summer born and started school when just 4. Both were always at the top end of the class - both all A/A* GCSE and A level. If I had deferrred them, nothing would have changed. They were clever enough to understand what they were being taught in the years they were and deferring them wouldn’t have made them more capable. Probably being girls they were naturally more advanced socially but my experience is that most boys are less advanced socially and all muddle along happily together whilst they mature. Further, I don’t think my girls would have thanked me for deferring them. I think they’d have wanted to be in what they deemed the correct year.

As a nursery practitioner I can say that it definitely is down to your child’s ability and wether or not they’re ready for school rather than their age, I see children who are almost 5 who aren’t ready yet and children who have just turned 4 that are more than ready, heck we have children that aren’t even 4 yet who are ready but have to stay at nursery another year, if like you say your child is bright and more than ready for school then there is no reason to keep them behind, maybe it’s you that isn’t ready for this big transition to big school

Our local authority doesn’t usually approve these, the only reason they generally let you defer is for SEN so where I live it would be unlikely you would be allowed to defer anyway. (I think is because we already have a lot of issues with oversubscription and this is a way to manage it)

if your some will be 4 years 2 months I really wouldn’t worry. If it was a late August birthday I understand but there are plenty of children born in July that are absolutely fine when they go to school.

*son

This is such a strange English obsession to me. A pitying comment on the eventual school year was about the first comment my English mother in law made when I announced my first pregnancy, due August!

In the rest of the English speaking world (USA, Scotland, Australia, Canada), you can choose between two years when the child is around 5/6 which one they start in. The longer than 12 month age spans in these countries don't seem to impede education.

My husband is a teacher and he always used to make jokes about how he prays that we’d never had a summer baby!

It took us a long time to conceive our second baby and I got my positive pregnancy test mid-December and when I told my DH he was obviously really excited, and then he said, “Oh no, that means we’re going to have an August baby aren’t we!” 😂

I started looking into a deferred start when he was just over 3 years old, so a year before he should have started school.

Legally, children don’t have to be in school until they are 5 years old so no school can refuse a deferred start, but they do have the discretion to make the decision as to whether the child can start at reception, or whether they have to go into Year 1.

Thankfully it’s much more commonplace
now for children to be started in reception as it’s well known how vital a year this is.

I had three schools accept my soon as a deferred child and all three of them were happy for him to start in reception.

Someone has to be the youngest in the class

Well it shows your naivety if that’s why you think people defer.

It’s not about where they place in terms of oldest to youngest, it’s about the long term academic, social and emotional detrimental effects that come from young children starting school just after turning four years old.

I actually had to join to reply on this!

inwould say….if you are even thinking about deferring then it is likely to be the right thing to do.

I deferred my aug 17 daughter. She is oldest by 2 weeks now in reception. She would not have coped in recpetion a year ago, and more to the point, she would have really suffered in year 1 this year (the big leap is NOT nursery to reception it is reception to year 1). This wasn’t to gain an advantage over others or stop her just “being the youngest”, it was so she would thrive at school. Why would you not? Her extra year allowed her to go to preschool (hadn’t been an option during covid), gain some independence (although she’s still pretty dependent compared to her peers!) and build social/emotional skills in big groups (she’d never been with more than a couple of kids before that).

she is bright in many ways, knew all her letters aged 2.5, good speech and numeracy…but she’s certainly not a genius and quite honestly at this age academics are irrelevant. It’s all down to their emotional and social readiness. There are several young summer borns in the year that still cry at drop off, struggle with sitting still in class etc. of course there are some young ones that are just fine. Every child is individual and you know your child best.

if the school is supportive of a reception start at aged 5, that is brilliant!

and I strongly, strongly recommend joining the FB groups “flexible school admissions for summer borns” and “summer born children at school”. So much good advice, aupport, reassurance. From people who have and who haven’t deferred.

it is your choice. The school has to prove its in their best interests if they wanted to put them straight into year 1(it isn’t!) and equally any threats of skipping a year later on are irrelevant and can’t happen without it being in their best interests (which it never would be!).

genuinely the best decision we’ve made for our kid. I also think the reception teacher agrees - she would never have wanted our daughter as she was a year ago!!

good luck 😊

Glad to see some sensible people have posted to balance this out a bit: the first part of the thread was nuts with so much misinformation and almost wilful misunderstanding about why the option exists.

Hope you have joined those groups on fb and got some unbiased but informed info from there OP: as others have said there are people on there who both did and didn't defer but at least did so in an informed way having really understood the choice and implications.

I could understand deferring if the child was behind in certain areas of development...but the op concedes they're a bright child who is not struggling.

Not many kids do “struggle” in nursery do they? Kids can easily appear bright when it comes to nursery and reception play.

Parents aren’t necessarily concerned about the move from nursery to reception as reception is just mainly playing, it’s the thinking ahead to Year 1 when formal education really starts and some children just aren’t ready for that when they have barely turned 5 years old.

My friend and me had our children within a few days of each other and whereas I deferred my son, she sent hers to school when he “should” have gone just after his 4th birthday. She also said he was bright and more than ready for school and when he got to reception he was absolutely fine. However, when he made the move to Year 1 shortly after turning five there was a massive deterioration in him because he just didn’t have the skills to cope with the level of maturity that is required. He fell behind all his peers, he started having behavioural problems, wetting himself in class from the anxiety and crying every morning at drop-off.

Obviously this doesn’t happen to all summer-borns but it’s a very real possibility.

There is a lot of research on this matter in the public domain and if the Government didn’t recognise that the research was valid then the ability to defer wouldn’t be an option. The option is there because research proves the long term effects of starting school at just turned four years old.

Choosing to defer the child is a he’s decision to make because ultimately you are just taking a gamble and hoping you make the right choice. A summer-born starting at 4 years old will either thrive
or struggle and there is no way that can be predicted just because they seem bright and confident in a nursery setting.

My friend is desperately trying to get the school to agree to her son treating Year 1 as she can see now that things will most likely just get worked for him, but getting schools to agree to this can be very difficult.

It is for this reason I chose to defer my son because I didn’t want to risk him being one of the children who struggled instead of thrived. Deferred children can always be moved up a year and into the cohort they “should” have been in (if they really excel), but as my friend is finding out, asking a struggling summer-born child to repeat a year is not always possible.

I could understand deferring if the child was behind in certain areas of development...but the op concedes they're a bright child who is not struggling.

"Behind" what? They can be at a totally "normal" stage of development for a 4 year old - or even far exceeding it - and still starting school aged 4 not be developmentally appropriate, per all credible research on the topic. Not to mention that when a child is 3 and parents need to make this decision there is absolutely no reliable way to determine how they will be developing at 8, 11, 15, 18.

Yes if you ask nursery their idea of school ready tends to extend only to whether kids are potty trained and can dress and feed themselves. On that basis my 2 year old should start school in September too.