August born school starters

[Ketryne]

My DS has a late August birthday, so will be starting school in September at only a few days over 4. He’s been in nursery since he was 9 months old and has been at the school nursery where he’ll be starting reception since January, so he’s used to a full day out of home, as well as being really comfortable at the actual place he’ll be starting school, so I’m hopeful that it won’t be a shock when he starts.

In many ways I think he’s confidently keeping up with the kids around him - even the older ones - but in some things (particularly pencil holding/mark-making and some physical dexterity stuff) I think he’s quite behind and he has said things that suggest he’s disheartened by this (‘I’m not as good as everyone else. They can do things I can’t do’). The nursery say he’s well within the range for school starters, but that he has a tendency to give up when he finds things hard and that I need to work on his can-do attitude.

I’m really conscious of trying to get him ready for school as best I can without him feeling too much pressure. I also don’t want to rob him of the last of his toddler-hood. I feel like the school nursery has forced him to grow up so fast and I have to keep reminding myself when he can’t do something that he’s actually only 3!

Has anyone with an August born experienced these worries but gone on the have positive school experiences? He’s a bright, engaged, funny chatterbox of a boy and I’d love some reassurance that his spirit isn’t going to be crushed!

It can also depend on the class- my late August born DS had thankfully a few other August born and July born children and wasn’t an outlier in that regard, I would say it affected his confidence though overall and also we identified a key learning gap where he clearly hadn’t been able to learn things when they did them in class, he wasn’t ready, but with some interventions we filled that gap and he is excelling at school. He is now waiting on his gcse results.. the other thing is sports. When you look at the sports teams at his secondary school, it’s clear the A team are predominantly autumn and winter born children, the B team many more spring and summer born. They manage and ultimately can do as well, but it’s clearly easier to navigate aspects of every stage at school if you are one of the older ones in your class.

I do worry a bit about sport. He is short for his age, which combined with being younger makes him a lot shorter than many others. Right now this holds him back a bit on play equipment as he can’t always reach the next rung of the ladder or stepping stone without help. I can imagine this will only become more of a barrier as he gets towards secondary school.

We’ve worked hard on his can-do attitude over the summer though, and he’s gained a lot of self-confidence from learning to ride a proper pedal bike. This would have seemed impossible 8 months ago when he hasn’t mastered a scooter or balance bike at all. I’m hopeful he’ll start back at school feeling a bit more able. He’s certainly desperate for the holidays to be over and to get into reception with all his pre-school friends.

My little one is August born and 1st percentile for height. She's not the only tiddler and does keep up quite well with the other children there's others her size in the class too which helps.
With sports I think her size rather than being August born is the thing that will hold her back with sports. We are looking for sports that match her physique. I can't imagine she will ever be any good at rugby or tennis but cricket and gymnastics /trampolining might be more in her skill set. She's currently doing swimming and squirrels (scouts for 4-6yo) and is doing well with both.

He will grow - mine is now really into sport and nearly 6ft tall! I wouldn’t have thought this going into reception when he was absolutely tiny!

They catch up much faster than you think! I have a late July boy who’s going into year 1 - he’s very advanced academically but for us it was the opposite issue (couldn’t cope with being away from home for 6 hours a day 5 days a week, struggled with social cues/behaviour) but by the end of reception he was like a different child.

Focus on things such as writing/reading names, filling up own water bottle, being able to get themselves dressed and undressed for PE, opening lunch boxes and zips etc as those are the skills they’ll need for reception - academics will all level out eventually :)

The government did a study on summerborns and found they never ever catch up, even at A Levels/ university and will always be outperformed by their autumn born peers.
In terms of sport the biggest issues come when they reach puberty and those going through it later are on the back foot.
The government has published guidelines to councils to essentially accept all requests to defer, this isn’t done accidentally it’s because summerborns are better off being deferred.
I wish more people were aware of the option and then everyone would do it as the study also found it’s mainly university educated, middle class families who defer so it is creating a larger gap. If you defer you’re doing what’s best for your child and the stats all back that!

I agree. We decided not to and thought Ds would be ok. The school then asked for a meeting and told us they believed he needed to repeat the reception year .

My DS was August born with speech delays. He's off to Cambridge with a string of A*s, competed internationally in his (niche) sport, and has two Grade 8 distinctions in music. I think that counts as a success story!

That’s great that your child did so well! There will always be outliers to the trends but the statistics are what they are

I have one September born and one August born so a foot in each camp. I would say August birthday is not ideal but it’s also child dependent. I had wondered if I should have deferred DD so while I know anecdote isn’t the singular of data, happy to share my experience- DD took a while to warm up at school ( is a bit dyslexic so could also be due to that) but is now doing extremely well ( year 9- top 50% of an academically selective school). She is also a bit short ( and late to puberty- this is partly genetic- I was nearly 15 when I got my period) but she’s not gonna be v tall anyway ( likely 5’4”) so even if she was September she’d likely not be as tall as some of the girls who would be younger than her ( some of her friends were taller than that in year 7). She’s a solid B team hero in sport and v good at a minority sport she plays out of school( possible county at U16). . Would being September born elevate her to the A’s at school? Maybe but honestly for netball prob not as doesn’t have the height regardless and the hockey team is mainly county/ club players which she was never interested in.

sports: yes there’s evidence that professional sport is skewed towards kids born Sep- Dec ( or whatever the first 3 months of the school year are where you live). However it’s likely that the kids in the school A team are also playing the sport out of school where the age will be applied regardless of school year for insurance and tournament rules so he’d still have that issue. There are also sports like swimming where the cut off is 31 Dec.

I think the problem with the data is that it seems that the disadvantage is being relatively the youngest rather than an absolute age IYSWIM. Given then that someone has to be the youngest, deferrals just shift the disadvantage- if all the July/ Aug kids defer, the June kids are then 12 months younger than the older kids. While I’m hating the game not the player I’m just not sure how helpful these deferrals are at population level.

He hadn’t managed full days (fell asleep every single afternoon) , hadn’t learnt to count or any phonics at all not even the initial sounds, couldn’t read at all, couldn’t recognise or write name amongst other things. We had actually had a talk a couple of weeks before as were worried despite trying so hard at home too he wasn’t managing anything so when this was suggested to us we accepted happily.

My daughter, who is now 10, started school two weeks after turning 4 and has done very well. She has thrived academically and is now above expectations in most subjects. I think most summer-born kids are fine, and any differences there are between the oldest and the youngest in the year soon become negligible.

Following this thread as my August born daughter is also starting this September. She's been at pre school 3 days a week so is used to the long days which I'm hoping will help.

But I share your fears about her becoming disheartened about what older children can do that she can't - she can just about write her name but she had some birthday cards written by some of the autumn borns that will be in her year where they had written the entire message out themselves! Which was a shock to me as I didn't realise the gap would be that large.

I'm trying to remind myself that it won't just be her vs a whole bunch of September babies though, there will also be spring borns and other summer babies so a range of abilities. I'm also planning to be honest with her that she's the youngest and might not be able to do some things just yet, but that's absolutely fine and she will get there eventually.

Sending lots of luck and well wishes to you and your boy.

It honestly baffles me when parents are given the option to defer summerborns that they opt not to. And I meant that with respect but I cannot think of one reason why to send a child who’s just turned 4 to school when you have the opportunity to send one year later. They’re still going to school just every part of their schooling will be done with one years more experience

We made the mistake of not deferring as we thought that school would be the best place for ds to thrive , we had been advised that he would be fine and to go for it by his portage worker so we did. The school however said he would have benefitted from deferring but as we hadn’t he was able to repeat reception. If I ever have more dc and they are summer born I’d defer

I guess one reason not to is crippling nursery fees (especially if the family has younger children at nursery). Even with nursery funding many women end up paying to work if they have more than one child at nursery.

We are currently considering deferring our summer born DD who has some development delays but with a second child starting nursery I would only be able to afford to work 3 days (taking advantage of the funded hours).

I am also wondering if my daughter will be bored at school in the longer term if held back although I have no way of knowing how academic she will be at this point (her delays are physical rather than cognitive)

So many MNers are baffled when other people make different life choices to them. It’s very odd.

Because the stats say that at population level a summer born children does worse, not that every summer born child does worse, and when you're parenting, you're making decisions for the child in front of you, not an average child. So many other things come into the decision - whether they were born at term, birth order (younger siblings likely to be used to having to hold their own with older children and so also hold their own socially at school), personality, size (my September born son would have been one of the tallest even if he had been born 2 weeks earlier and so been youngest in year above), how school ready they are, how socially adept they are, whether they're a girl or a boy, the school itself (DC's schools always age graded everything from the get go) and what the alternative provision is. I probably would have deferred my son if he'd been born 2 weeks earlier (so Aug not Sep) to benefit him academically but it wouldn't have been without drawbacks - for example he wouldn't have been allowed to play inter school rugby or cricket tournaments in his last year of prep school or in Year 13 as he'd have breached the age limits (not older than 13/18 on 31 Aug) which would have been a major gutter for him as they are his passions. At the same time I think I made the right decision not to defer my daughter.

My August 4 yo on started school not being able to write her name at all, it's 9 letter and most adults get it wrong so we didn't really give her a fighting chance!
By the end of September she was writing her name and has written all the birthday cards to her class mates this year. She's just had her birthday and I'd say her writing is on par or better than quite a few of them

On the flip side my mum has always said that she would have paid my October born sister to go to school a year early at 4 she was absolutely ready but had to wait a year during which time she had outgrown the preschool activities.
Once she did start school she had to be given extra work as she was bored and got through the work before the others and distracted them by playing. She's bright but regular level bright not some super genius.