Negative effects of deferral

[Babybrain26]

We're considering deferring our youngest this year as he would be due to start preschool in September. (He'll be 3 and 4 months). He did get into his first choice preschool but he does seem quite a young 3 still. Deferral is still a relatively new option here, so I was wondering has anyone experienced any negatives in deferring their child? Also have the child experienced any bullying due to being deferred and therefore being the eldest in the group? Has it effected their confidence negatively in future years being aware they've been held back as such? There's a possibility we could do a pre pre year if we deferred (funded by us) and then just do pre school next September.

Going to pre school is your choice

It's not a requirement

So do you what you want

Bump

I wouldn’t defer.
There’s a “Young child” in DD’s class- he’s the tallest, most confident, intelligent child. If he was in the year before he would be bored and considerably larger than other children!
I don’t know anyone that’s deferred, I just think interests and maturity level would be different. Might not matter now, but at some point definitely (I think).

This is a hard question to answer because the context doesn’t seem to be familiar - which country are you in? The preschools my DC have gone to are pretty flexible and you can start anytime, so deferral only really comes up in the context of entering reception? Could you not start DC in preschool and if it seems like they will not be ready for reception ask if they can do another year in preschool?
In terms of possible negatives, if you google “mumsnet defer” there are several useful threads. There are a few things that may be affected eg in England county level sports teams may not accept anyone out of the strict age brackets of the school year. We are deferring DS who was born end August 6 weeks premature, so should have been born mid October, to the year he would have been in had he not been so premature. However in England we have had to go private to be able to do this. If you specify the country you may have more helpful answers maybe?

Whereabouts are you from? As in the UK preschool isn't compulsory so you can do what you like really.

We're in NI. I would send him on to preschool, but if it turned out his teacher recommends deferral of p1. In the January, to be honest there are no options for a late deferral here (oversubscribed area) so thats why I'm having to make the decision now. If he attends even 1 day of preschool, he won't be given priority for a preschool space next year, so I can't really trial him there.

That’s really tricky isn’t it as children can change so much between 3 and 4. My daughter (end of june birthday) was a young seeming 3 but was completely ready for reception by the time she was 4. I remember reading a thread by someone else in NI while we were researching this for DS last year - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/parenting/4835856-school-deferral
Good luck with your decision.

My brother was deferred and it caused problems with the 11+. Overall it was good for him but it was stressful for my parents to get him into the right grammar as he was absolutely a grammar school kid and they needed to argue an appeal against his results being aged standardised.

ilikecatsandponies I think because it's relatively new here still that's one of my concerns as well.

Hi,

Just wondering what you ended up doing? In a similar situation,
Thanks

My friend was born on 31 August.
She was top of the class, became Head Girl, went on to study at college and is now a senior nurse.
Someone has to be the youngest.