Pookey--sorry I forgot about the thread again.
We keep hearing over and over from teachers that, especially in boys, it is a good idea to keep them back a year if they are barely meeting the cutoff date. Colin makes it by 13 days, and Caitlin will make it by 4. There are a lot of teachers in DH's family, and most of them are in the lower grades, and they say they can see such a huge difference in the kids who have been kept back and those who haven't. DH was an early September baby, and they kept him back and he graduated 2nd in his class and was class president. You can't say that keeping him back caused that, but it didn't seem to hurt, either.
We also had an elementary school principal come and talk to his preschool about how the schools felt it was a good idea to think about keeping the summer birthday kids back a year. I guess there is a large group of teachers lobbying the state board of education to change the cutoff date from September 1st to June 1st, because they feel that would be more appropriate.
Like DH says, don't look at it from the standpoint of now, look at it down the road when he graduates. Do we want to be sending a late 17 year old-early 18 year old off to college by himself, or would we prefer to send someone a year older?
It might be different if he were more of a leader, but he is quite the follower. Most of the kids in his preschool turned 5 right after school started, and there are no other kids with birthdays after April of this year. Colin just seems so much quieter and younger than they do.
Anyway, sorry for the book, just kind of trying to describe our thought process. I know it probably seems ridiculous to you guys, since the UK starts them at 4, but that's what we came up with.