Scottish system January and February birthdays

[Chesticles]

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.

DS1 is in P1 and has end of Feb birthday. He is youngest in year.

We didn't defer, based on

• advice of nursery, who thought he was ready
• realistically, he was at a day nursery (3.5 long days/week) and had been roughly 'streamed' in to his P1 yeargroup since 2.5yo - way before we were thinking about school entry. If we had deferred him, it was a non-trivial question as to what he would do for the extra year. He would have had to repeat his pre-school year in the same (small) setting and think he would have been quite bored by end of it.
• no current reason to think he has any special need / challenging circumstance, and he is not physically small looking for his age

He has thrived at school. It is a challenge for him, but he enjoys the challenge. Teachers are very aware of age differences and individual differences, and are very supportive.

DS1 is not physically small, and you wouldn't pick him out from the class line up. You would pick out a couple of the old-for-the-year kids (ie deferred last year) as 'sticking out' as bigger than the rest.

Of others in his year, I'd say about a third of those who could defer did and the rest didn't?

FWIW, the 'posher' families definitely tend to defer more. (I say this as one of the 'posher' half at our school, which has a very mixed intake)

From other parents, I tend to hear strong opinions FOR deferral. From primary teachers that I know, the balance of opinion was that there was no need to think about deferring unless there was a specific problem (eg one example in current P1 of child with a late birthday AND hearing/speech difficulties).

I personally was oldest in my school year (6 hrs and I would have been year above). I always found school fairly easy academically and no problems socially. That experience probably did sway me to think DS would cope with being challenged more academically (though I think too early to tell how he will be academically yet).

My DH and his ex-wife put DSD into P1 last year at age 4.5 (Feb birthday). This was based on recommendation from her nursery (private, not part of her primary school) and the fact that several friends of hers were starting P1 the same year. She is one of the tallest children in her class and seems to be doing just fine socially - one of the popular kids as far as we can tell. But academically, we are worried about her. Last year, a lot of her homework just demanded too much of her - she was incapable of completing many assignments and the material just didn't sink in. This year, we are getting hints that even though she has made much more progress, what she seems to be doing is recovering P1 material (she is in a composite, so I think there's room to do this), rather than taking on and proving capable of work that the rest of the P2s can complete. Which is frustrating, because there is indeed progress. If you looked at her age alone, she's doing just fine - but there is the worry that despite this, she is behind.

DH says that looking back, he would have deferred her. To the point where he is adamant that any future Jan-Mar birthdays will be deferred to the following year. To be fair, there was a lot going on in DSD's life during P1, including her becoming my DSD. All adults involved might have been able to support her more if we'd all been distracted less.

Where I come from, kids don't start formal (play-based, just like here, but still formal) education until they are 5 going on 6, and it is normally accepted that most children aren't really ready for academic settings until that age.

That said, in our case, we could be over-anxious parents with a bad case of the guilties. You will know best if your kiddo is ready.

Wentworth - if you're still around, do you have a link for Standard grade results linked to age? I'd be very interested in this, thanks

It's immaterial, as Standard Grades will be phased out in two years time. Hopefully all children will be more mature by the time they take them and having two years to do them instead of the two terms mine have had to do them, will ensure they all get As!

However, that's another subject.

Hi, Sorry I am coming into this late, I have just found this thread and we are having a similar discussion. Our daughter will be 4 this week and I think, is ready for school. Our dilemma is the parents in our village all tend to defer so in a small village school that automatically weights the age of the class to older. The next youngest child to ours will be 5 in Sept so there will be 4 months difference. Is this important? I don't think we'd be having this dilemma if she was going to a larger school where the distribution of ages would be greater.
thanks!

Is she going to be staying at that school or will you move? Will the senior school be a bigger school?

I'm biased, but I'd send her now.

I would say that here about two thirds of jan/feb birthdays defer, one third don't. Seems more common to defer boys than girls. Also, first children are often deferred while those with older siblings slightly less so, not sure if this is because they have 'come on' with exposure to older childrens learning/social situations, or because parents defer the pfb then don't worry quite so much about the nsc

If you think that she is ready Janie then any decision to defer her based on the other children in the class is something that could change as time goes on, children could move to the village or leave. A set of triplets with Feb birthdays could come to the village next week and skew things entirely

Hi janie - I posted above about DS1 young in P1

What you ask about is quite a tricky subject - because I thought quite a bit about the 'even though he's ready, what if everyone else defers so that the average class age is 5.5 instead of 5.0'. Sometimes I feel a bit annoyed about the 'gaming' aspect of the impact of others deferring - probably ABU of me, but there you go.

I think if your gut feel is that she's ready, and if nursery agree, then I'd go for it.

FWIW, my DS1 does tend to play with the younger children a bit more than the nearly 6 yo's in his class. But I also hear about him playing with kids from older year groups too. Does your daughter know anyone else who is / will be at the school, or can you manufacture some meetings before she starts?

We have deferred DS1 (Dec birthday). No funding for the extra year of pre-school but def the right move for him. Totally depends on the child - you know your DD best and listen to advice from her nursery. One thing we hadn't thought of immediately was maturity in later secondary education ie exams etc and this swung it for us. He is v happy "repeating" a year much more settled so although financially not ideal, it was worthwhile. (you should get continued funding tho, applies for Jan/Feb referrals). HTH.

Thanks, it's just such a "game" brawhen. she's already at the school nursery with the children going into P1 and the other children, 2 of whom will be deferring as they are jan/feb birthdays!!
Arrggghh....it's trying to get it right for my daughter and I keep changing my mind but I think that's more to do with peer pressure than what I actually feel. The nursery are telling us that she is in the mid-upper range of skills and because she has been in private nursery since 6months has a lot of the skills and stamina already but she is little and the others are older. So not much help!! We're enrolling her into nursery and school - probably putting off the decision though! Thanks so much!

Ask your pre school teachers they have a good idea. My son who has a january birthday was bright but small and I thought about giving him another year at nursery, but his nursery teachers reassured me he would be just fine to start. Then he shot up in height and was ready and able to start school in the August and never looked back.

Depends on the school and size of classes, we are a lucky to be in a small school but my son is in a composite class from P1 to P4 and sometimes I feel the workload is a little heavy, but so do all the other p2 mothers!

janie I feel for you. It's such a difficult decision. We are in the situation that it is a very big school - about 450-500 pupils with 2.5 primary one classes (2xP1 and a composite 1/2). If she went in this Aug she would be young, but they split the class so that it is younger P1, older P1 and the oldest kids go into the composite class. Therefore if we defer her, she will probably go into the composite 1/2 as she will be oldest. Over Christmas I felt 80% sure I would put her to school this Aug as I wanted her to do with her peers, and wasn't into this faffing about with deferment - they didn't do it in my day. Having spoken to her nursery teacher, who is recommending another year in nursery, and thought about it a bit I am 80% sure she is being defered. So like you I have applied for both school and nursery.

DS school had 2 x classes of 18 in P1, the next year resulted in a small intake of only 14 kids. So in P2 they had a straight P2 and a composite 1/2. The youngest kids went into the composite from my DS class and they ended up in that class right through school. So after forging freindships in P1, they were put into a new class (only six of them being older) and felt cut off from their friends.

We deferred our DS (Jan birthday now 8) and had the reservations about him getting bored by another year of pre-school by changing his nursery in his deferred year. By doing this he had all the "leaving" celabrations that his mates did when they were going off to school and then he didn't have to go back to the same nursery and feel like he was repeating things for another year. We had developed some reservations about his current nursery and when he started the new nursery it was such a buzz for him and it was a far better nursery anyway. He was therefore challenged and stimulated in this extra pre-school year and it really prepared him for school.

I am one of those parents who believes that the real advantage of deferrring won't kick in until secondary. He's only just realised (after attending an 8th birthday party of someone in the year above that was a few weeks AFTER his own) that he's deferred - we explained why and he was very accepting and said he was glad that he was one of the eldest in his class.

I realise that I was lucky to have the option/availability of another nursery that served the same catchment area and others might not have that opportunity . From my own experience, it's about 50/50 for those who choose to send and those that choose to defer. Sometimes the choice is a childcare issue - as soon as their child is elligible to got to school they are sent because it better suits that family's arrangements.

Thanks Chesticles - apologies for hi-jacking your question but all the information is great!

Cartblanche - we have had those discussions too for the same reasons that we def feel our daughter will need new challenges next year but unfortunately due to our location and work commitments changing nursery or even school would be a logistical nightmare. Childcare is like gold dust around us!

I actually managed to speak to the nursery teacher out of school (tesco of all places!) and she spoke much more freely. She has pretty much said that our gut instict is right to send her. This is the same nursery teacher who pretty much put me in my place for even suggesting that my daughter might go at 41/2. So I guess we and the school have learned a lesson - treat every child as an individual and parents on the whole do know what they are talking about :)

Chesticles - I hope you manage to get to a decision you are happy with and wish you and your daughter all the very best!

I started a year early (Feb birthday), so was always the youngest and smallest!

It depends on the child I suppose.

So did I wahwahwah! Perhaps that's why I have had so much difficulty with this!! I don't think it did me, my sister or cousin any harm, we all went at 41/2 (jan/feb/March birthdays). My sister's birthday is March and she had psychology assessments and all sorts to allow my mum to send her. She's now a teacher!! We all went to Uni at 17 and qulified into good jobs at 21:-o

It does depend on the child. My sister has a January birthday and my Mum always regretted not deferring. She felt my sister took longer to read than the rest of the class and was always lagging behind somewhat. Although she has done well eventually, my Mum always felt it put her at a disadvantage.

You know your child so ignore what all the other children are doing and make the decision you feel best suits their individual needs.

Glad to find this thread as my DD's birthday is 28 Feb therefore right on the cut-off. We are overseas but probably moving back in next year to 18 months and I have no idea whether to put her into the higher/lower year group. If we move back to Scotland summer 2013 she will be 7. She is extremely confident and I would say quite emotionally mature however academically I really don't know how she would cope as although she has been in "school" since she was 3 it's been all different systems. She is in American system at the moment and just beginning to read at 6 (in a few weeks).

Dr Fish, I think the school you end up looking at for your daughter will probably help you there. My niece is a Feb birthday and my sister almost moved back up to Scotland and the school had a look at her work and also had a composite class she could go into and said that they would let her "float" and see where she settled and decide then what class to go into.

Dr Fish - If a composite class isn't available I'd ask whichever primary school you are looking at what percentage of their children in each year have January / February birthdays and are not deferred. My DS1 has a late November birthday and is the second youngest in his year of almost 60 kids. If I had a child with a late February birthday and was considering his school I'd probably defer as there would be kids more than a year older than your DD in her class. Other schools are quite different though and have a much lower deferral rate.