Scottish system January and February birthdays

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My DD is currently will be 4 next week and is due to start school in August when she will be 4 1/2 years old. As the catchment runs until 28th Feb she will be one of the youngest in the class. From my antenatal group who I still meet up with sporadically (dec-feb birthdays) about half the children are being deferred so that they won't start primary school this August, but next August instead. Therefore becoming some of the oldest in the class.

I was wondering in your childs primary school class in Scotland what proportion of the Jan and Feb birthdays were youngest and what proportion were oldest. ie how many children had been deferred?

I know it is entirely dependent on the child and their individual maturity and development, but I was surprised that so many of my DD's peers were choosing/advised to defer.

There are 4 primary one classes in ds's school.

He is in the Dec/jan/feb birthdays class - ie the youngest class. There are 22 in his class and 20ish in every other class and no-one in the oldest class has birthdays before March so no-one deferred iyswim.

HTH.

In both my dc's groups that went into p1 from nursery there was one in dd's class and none from ds' class that had December onward birthdays.
Dd is am October birthday so I could have deferred and tbh wish I had. Academically she was ready emotionally she was still very young. She is p4 now and I can still see the difference.
If she had been any later a birthday I would definitely have deferred because there were dc in her class almost a whole year older than het and at that age I think the difference is big.

My DS1 is in a year group of 60. As far as I am aware he is the second youngest in his class (birthday is late November). I don't think there are any kids with January or February birthdays that were not deferred.

In my DDs school I think its about 50% deferral of childrn with jan and feb birthdays, less for dec .

I deferred DS, there were 3 in his nursery that deferred. He has come on so much in the last year that I'm glad we deferred him and feel he is more ready to go to school now.

Ds in a class of 24, I can think of 7 who are deferred, dd's class has slightly fewer deferred kids. I think some areas/schools seem to have higher proportions of deferred kids than others, and some nursery heads encourage deferrals more than others. I think that we are lucky to have the choice.

Thanks for all the replies. I was planning on putting her to school in Aug, but having chatted to the nursery teacher who thought she would benefit from another year in nursery, I'm now thinking of deferring her. At the moment am filling in the school form, but will withdraw her if I don't feel she is ready come summer (I know the teachers/schools will hate me foe messing with their numbers!)

That first sentence in the OP is a strange mixture of DD is currently 3/will be 4 next week. Sorry!

Remember to re register her at the nursery. My friend decided to defer her son last year but registered him for school "just in case". She forgot to reregister him for nursery and there were no places left so she has had to send him to school. He is really struggling.

there are a few Jan/Feb birthdays in both dd (8) class and ds (5) class and I dont think any of them have deferred

I did a lot of reading on this and got lots of advice and in the end it seemed to be better to defer than send too soon. I would really listen to the nursery staff as well. They do know what they are talking about.

I spoke to 4 head teachers before deferring DS and they all said defer without a doubt.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I moved from England where the cut off is August and couldn't understand this obsession with deferring children. My youngest is a February birthday and he took to school like a duck to water.

His elder brother is a year ahead of himself up here, having done Reception in England and being a late Spring birthday, was expected to go into Primary One till I asked them to test him. He was put into Primary Two and has thrived.

It depends on the individual children, I believe there have been studies that show that in general being the youngest in the class disadvantages them all the way through school. There are obviously going to children that thrive whatever is thrown at them. At least with the Scottish system there is more allowance for the needs of the individual child.

With the new Curriculum for Excellence and the push towards learning through play I do wonder if it's really as necessary though.

I do understand that some children aren't ready, but there does seem to be a lot of children (especially boys) deferred just because of the date of their birth.

There are other elements too such as being the last to learn to drive and being unable to drink with all your mates at Uni.

I think having to essentially decide on your future career aged 15/16 is young enough never mind being a year younger.

Trixy - I agree, younger children may settle well and take to school well in primary. But what concerns me as much, if not more, is what happens when they get to secondary, and they're taking S grades and making career decisions when they're effectively a year younger than many in their class.

It does depend on where you are though as well. Where I live, lots of people defer, and that in turn, probably encourages more deferment.

Exactly, I'm positive DS would have been fine at primary, but we have no possible way of telling how mature he would be relative to the others in his year group in 4th/5th year of secondary. I was of the opinion that if there were ever going to be any regrets about our decision then it would be that we had disadvantaged DS by not deferring rather than regretting deferring.

Ime most of the boys defer and most of the girls don't.

My ds' birthday is January 1st (just turned 5) and we didnt defer. Lots of reasons:-

1. advice of Nursery teacher
2. A very small group of children this academic year meant he would definately get into school of our choice
3. If he'd been born 3 hours earlier we wouldn't have had the choice anyway!

But I'd say in his school its about half and half with deferrals - some do some don't and I really think its not a one size fits all thing - its great that in Scotland you get some choice and leeway and thank Gordon my ds2 who will be 4 in August gets another year at Nursery as he's nowhere near ready for school!

Most have deferred here - we are teachers so did a lot of research before deferring our January boy. There is a difference in
Standard grade results - much better for deferred children as you would expect as they have such an advantage!

Jan bday DD here. Didn't defer, she was ready and has thrived at school.
However in her school a lot seem to have deferred, so there are kids over a year older than her.
Also if the leaving age continues to be 16, deferred kids can legally leave school before Standard grades........unimaginable but possible.....

We deferred our DD (december birthday) on the strong advice of pre school teacher at our school. I did a whole pros and cons list and the pros definitely came out top! Our school asks parents to defer quite a bit and out of everyone I spoke with, not one said they regretted the decision.

You should consider whether you'd get funding from the local authority for another nursery year though- our local authority is dead set against deferrals and in most cases won't fund the extra nursery year any more...

DD2 late January birthday didn't defer, more than half her class have November birthdays and beyond I think there's 6 with Jan/Feb birthdays so she's not the youngest at all. Her 2 Bfs were starting and it would be cruel to hold her back, plus she is a DD2 and at 4 1/2 coped better with school than DD1 did at 5.