Delaying Summer children by a year

[Faith7777]

Hi everyone,

What are the arguments for and against delaying a summer-born child starting reception by a year? So far, the few people I've spoken to who did this have admitted regretting it. Apparently, they eventually catch up in say year 2?

If you did not hold back your child, what extra curricular activities (if any) did you add to your routine?

Firstly, you only have the 'right to request' and not the 'right to defer', so, if you don't send them, you could end up sending them straight into Yr1, which is not a good plan - that, of course is even if there were a space, which there might well not be in a popular school.
Then - this is all very new - what do you do about secondary transfer? What if the secondary school you want, doesn't want 'out of year' children? Are you willing for them to jump Yr5 to Yr7, or Yr6 to Yr8? Or to accept a school you wouldn't otherwise have chosen?
I'm not in a grammar school area, but would they allow older children to compete for place in the year after (s)he would ordinarily be bidding for a place?
What about sports teams ? Should they allow an older player to compete against younger pupils ? What about things outside of school - they will be out of alignment with their school friends in terms of age groups.
What about when they turn 18, and some of their friends can't come out for a drink with them for even longer than a normal year group range?
Financially, you pay for childcare for a year longer - many families would find that a struggle.
Some Nurseries are now saying no to keeping Reception age children - it has too much of an impact on the little ones coming into their pre-school rooms.

Those are just personal to your child. there are a whole heap of arguments for it not being right for society as a whole, separate from this.

Does your child have any special needs? DC1 is a spring child so it isn’t the same. But the class isn’t going to be filled with autumn born children a year older than your child. If anything, DC1 class is filled with summer born children. She has a birthday party to go every week since May, and almost none for before that. Talking to another mum who had children at another school today and she said there are a lot of birthday parties at this time of the year too.

Thank you, thank you and thank you. You’ve posed questions that have not popped up at all. Good heavens. Did not even think about the impact on secondary school.

Articles like this www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15490760 have given me cause for worry (and there are others authors voicing similar opinions), ergo my concern.

You will also find evidence that parental income and maternal education has a huge impact on school outcome. I’d wager that the effect of parental income is much much higher than summer born. Recognise your child is young in his class and support them. DC1 was in the catch up set for maths and speech in YR but she is more than fine by year 2. She was young for her age and didn’t get 1-10 and can’t say all the sounds when she started school. I know there are some summer born still getting help, but that’s not universal. And there are older children in class struggling with the times tables too. I’d say on average a younger child will need more help, but it’s something you could do and help and support.

I chose to send my son part time for whole of reception and at end of reception it was only his handwriting that was deemed to be behind his peers. It still is now in yr 4 so think that it had nothing to do with part time

With my summer born children I’ve found the first couple of years at school and the last couple years had the most impact. The rest of the time it had no obvious impact.

My August born daughter has found it hard being a year behind learning to drive and was ‘young’ doing her GCSE’s - a few more months and she’s have been much more focused on them.