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?

Defer, don't send him this year. I'm a teacher and also deferred 3 children of my own. You can tell the younger ones a mile off and they don't 'catch up'. They might cope but don't catch up. That's very young IMO and your concern around getting older and a social gap is real! For example at 18 groups of friends go to pub, yours can't go as no ID. The pressure to have sex, your DC will be alot younger and they will always feel behind socially. Bright or not makes no difference it's a good thing to defer. He will develop increased confidence, be sure of his decisions, social skills. Being good at reading etc does not correlate with social understanding, relationship skills etc.

It would have been nothing short of cruel to defer my bright girls who were chomping at the bit to go to school.
Your reasoning isn't good op, on the contrary, it's awful, amd extremely selfish to the kid 14 months years younger than him whose parents don't know the system, so I would be inclined to listen to your more sensible grounded husband here op. But as a poster upthread detailed, my experience of state primary school ls that all their extra resources have to be poured in to the struggling kids, the ones who are doing just fine or above get on with it themselves. So, I think deliberately making sure your son does well by widening the gap, and using the lowest kid to puff up your pfb, will backfire.

Honestly that is a terrible idea. Potty training, speech etc at that age is absolutely no indication of academic potential. Send him to school and let him enjoy it. Please don't make him think he's different and expect too much of him. He's 4! Why would you want him turning 16, 18 etc a year before his friends? Socially it will be a huge disadvantage, and to be honest I often think that is more important these days vs grades!

*than

The academic year in England runs 1 September until 31 August.

This means if you are born on the 15 August and so are still 3 now, you go to school in September this year when you are 4.

I have two friends who DDs are born in late August. One is already at school and the other is going to school in September. The one who is already in school is doing fine and no-one realises until they are told that she is August born. This is due to her intelligence, height and social skills.

There are some other children I know who are younger who are summer born. One I thought was older than he is and the other I thought was younger than she is. This is because of their social skills.

Am also laughing at the 'potty trained early so he must be bright' line. How absurd. I wonder if on the Oxford entrance exam you have to detail when that happened.

I wouldn't defer. My son is a June baby and we did not defer. I wondered for a long time if we made the right decision. I do not think he was ready academically at and then he suffered from some hearing problems which made the last 2 years quite difficult in terms of phonics and learning etc. (he's about to finish year 1). However, even though he's "behind", I think we made the right decision. I'm confident he'll catch up. And when I saw the nursery kids and how much he came on in Reception, I knew it wouldn't have been right for him to be in nursery still with a bunch of 3 year olds. It just wouldn't have been right from a social point of view.

Just because you are a teacher doesn't mean you know the capabilities of every single Summer born child.

While there are some children I've met who should be deferred there are others who clearly shouldn't.

There's no advantage.

I find it hard to believe you are a teacher if you genuinely believe all children who are summer born don't catch up, what a bizarre generalised statement.

I have a fairly bright and advanced 3 year old and I would absolutely not keep him in nursery for an extra year - they really have a sense of who is babyish and who is on their level by that point. If he knows he's going to school in September I think it would be hard for him to go to playgroup for another year. If he was immature though I'd definitely consider it.

I have an August baby who's older than the legislation, so I didn't have a choice - she would have gone straight into year 1. I might have deferred her if I had had the option - academically she was in the top few in her year group but I really felt emotionally and socially she would have benefitted from more time at preschool. She was really only just starting to play with other children and form friendships and the gap between her and the nearly 5 year olds was obvious.

I deferred my bright August born. He's doing very well (as I would expect, being a year older than some kids), but I think he fits in better and would have struggled to start a year earlier

My 31st August brother in law is a pilot. He turned 4 the day before starting school.

if your child is bright, knows they are starting school and is happy. Send them. Your husband is right. Why let them be behind peers, lose his friendship group, and have to change nursery.

he will be absolutely fine like all the other children. A line has to be drawn somewhere

It's too late to defer if he expects to start school. He will lose friends if he is going to a different nursery which could be hard so best to make one transition to school.

If he is ok social wise ( likely if he has been at nursery with no problems) height wise and skills wise he will be fine. Some bright four year olds can be bored at nursery and cause trouble.

Might get very tired so early bed and no after school clubs for a year which will save you money.

It's up to you, and your husband, but don't set yourself and your son up for a lifetime of expectation and possibly disappointment in believing he'll be advanced compared to his peers.

Here in Scotland all children are at least 4.5 before they start school, and those who turned 4 in the Jan/Feb before they start can defer to the following year. Sure it means they won't struggle to adjust, but I wouldn't say they are necessarily more advanced than their peers, especially as they get older. I say that as a parent of one of the oldest children in their year, who like yours was very capable and bright before starting school at 5.5, and still is.
I think so much depends on the child, and you know yours best.

How is he emotionally and socially? You say he is bright and able - I assume this is academically, is his emotional/social skills similar?

It can work - we have a very bright boy in one year group who was deferred, so is now the eldest. He started reception a year later. There are certainly some benefits from being the eldest in a year group.

However it can have some disadvantages which you need to consider too.

> team sports - he will have to play with his age group, not his year group in external competitions and outside clubs so may not be with his school friends if he does these
> if they've been with potential school friends at a nursery, who they'd go to the same school as, it can mean losing their known friends and having to start again. Even at 4y this shouldn't be ignored, friendships can still be important to children.
> if bright and social they may wonder and ask why their friends, the same age, are off to big school but he can't.
> this doesn't seem important now BUT when older, they will celebrate their 18th at least 2+ months before everyone else in his year group. This will mean delaying his 'adult' social like until his friends catch up possibly. As I say, not important now but may feel important to him when he's older.

My DC2 is a bright September born. She was very disappointed when her friends left for primary while she was left behind with the babies. Don't do that to your child. The PP who mentioned year 5/6 is correct too.

Nearly everyone is trying to give you the same advice, don't hold him back. But these seem not to be what you are looking for, as you don't seem to want to listen. You probably would only want to listen to anyone agrees with you.

For his sake, don't let your childhood shadow rule his future. There's no good to hold him back. He's not you.

Contrary to what you think, what would benefit him is intellectual stimulation. If he's really as bright as you described, school will provide what a playgroup or nursery can't and he will find a fanscinating intellectual world ahead of him to inspire him to learn.

He will be demented when he's in year six if he is bright and mature as the ones who are ready to move on to secondary are soooo ready to be out of there.

From what your describing it sounds like a deferral may be detrimental.
If he's bright, good speech and doing well.... why wouldn't you want to nurture that?? What do you think he would gain from being kept in nursery for a year?
I agree he would get bored, this happens for some who are September born as well.
I think your husband is right.

My daughter is the same age (she turns 4 next month) very bright, articulate, very keen to learn.
Reception is play based and uses the early years curriculum... she's wanting to learn words and her phonics etc so Reception is the best move for her.
If she was struggling that I would have deferred her.

I haven’t read all the posts but as a mother of an August boy I’ll tell you my experience.

When DS was starting school it wasn’t an option to defer in the way it is now. If I could have deferred him, I would have.

Being the youngest in his year has been really hard for him.
He’s bright, so has held his own academically. But in other ways it’s been a curse.

In reception he was teased for having a Thomas the Tank Engine swimming bag, when the other kids had moved on to Spider-Man.

He's not loud and confident by nature, and being the baby of every class he was in just made him even less confident.

As he got older, his peers did everything before him - got interested in girls, went through puberty, learned to drive, drank alcohol etc.

He’s just gone off on an all-inclusive lads holiday and he’ll have to have a kids wrist band at the hotel because he’s not 18 yet. His friends went clubbing after A levels but he couldn’t go (fake IDs are always recognised and confiscated these days).

Without doubt his life so far would have been easier if he’d been the oldest in the year below. He’d have been more mature, so would have achieved more academically I think, and would certainly have been more confident socially.

This thread is no doubt full of posters saying their summer-born kids (often girls) thrived, but it wasn’t my experience. You know your child, and I can categorically say that my DS 100% should have deferred. I’ll always be angry that it wasn’t an option for him.

Deferring school years can also play havoc with extra curricular activities re ages and year groups .

For example at 18 groups of friends go to pub, yours can't go as no ID. The pressure to have sex, your DC will be alot younger

I'm not against deferring, but these are silly reasons. You could just as absurdly say "if you defer, he'll have no one to go to the pub with when he turns 18, as all his friends will be too young".

And he won't be "a lot younger", he'll be 10 months younger than the oldest children, a few months younger than the middle-birthday children, and the same age/slightly older than the other late birthday children. You make it sound like the rest of his year group will all be 10 months older and its just him stuck out on his own.

Don’t underestimate the misery of not being able to go to the pub when one by one all your friends go. I’ve lived through this with DS for the past 9 months.