How to help a August born baby in primary school!

[Rickiaug]

Hello ppl
My son is a August baby, health and well, but he's behind his other class mates, who have 12 months development over him, I.e a September born baby.... Any tips and advice!! Anyone x

When you say he's behind, in what areas? Is he in reception? What is his attitude to learning? How are the school supporting him? You will get loads of helpful info on here, I'll come back later and post some ideas. But it will help if you can be more specific.

Is he actually behind or is he doing fine for his age? This is taken into consideration, especially at Reception age.

I will be interested to read other comments on this topic. My son is also an August baby and started Reception last September. He is struggling with writing, with sitting still, and his behaviour is deteriorating in class. I know he is a bright boy but he is starting to get upset about going to school.

If anyone has any advice about summer babies, boys in particular, and how to help them cope at school when all they want to do is play and run about, I'd love to hear it.

Have you spoken to the teacher? DD has a couple of August boys in her class and yes, some are a bit "behind" than the average but the teacher is taken that into account and they are perfect for their age.

I think you can't compare an August boy with a September boy, neither can you compare the girls. DD is July born and while bright you can see the difference to the September girl who is the oldest in the class.

Unless there are really issues I would work more on thinks like concentration span, taking turns, sitting still. That can be done by playing board games, doing jigsaws, listening to story tapes.

Fine motor skills can be "trained" by arts & craft or writing on a blackboard,

When DS1 moved from Reception to Y1, the school gave the parents a talk to show what the differences were in approach and they were trying to make the transistion easier for the children. One of the things that came out that I hadn't realised was that comparing the average girl to the average boy, the girls are able to form letters earlier as their fine motor skills were better, about 12 - 18 months (if I remember correctly) and that for that Reception class, all the boys preferred to be outside as far away from the teacher as possible, whilst the girls (again it is an average) preferred to be inside sitting and working with the teacher. I hadn't realised the difference was that stark. My DS loves to run about, the reception class accomodated this (for all children just not mine) so they could go in and out as they pleased and the majority of learning was based around play.

I mention it, just to say that they may be / are acting correctly for their age, have you asked the teacher about it? What are they doing and is there anything you can do. I think the important thing is that children, especially at this age, enjoy their time at school and lay good foundations, and they shouldn't be upset.

I'm interested in this, DS1 is a December baby, but the other two are late July, one a girl and one a boy.

I have an August baby and had concerns about the stereotypes of summer babies, which I discussed with a few teachers. Their opinion was that there are plenty of September born children who struggle and August born children who are top of the class, so don't focus on the date of birth!
If you're child is struggling then the teacher will have picked that up and should be adapting his work according to his ability.

Your teacher should be able to give you ideas of what he is struggling with and how to help him e.g we had a report at Christmas that said my boy needs to practice with his pencil grip so we spend most afternoons at the end of school sitting at the table cutting and writing and he loves that. We spend our journey to school talking about numbers and anything he tells me about what he's done at school I pick up on and talk about (he did ice last week so I made him tell me about frozen solid ice and runny water).

2 of my DCs are August. They are both doing really well now (age 10, 12) and in fact are probably in the top third of their year groups. DS1 was as you describe your DS and DS2 was an academic from the start but lacked confidence socially (he loved Buzz Lightyear's quote "I work alone"!). But it takes time for the "upto 1 yr" gap to close. So be patient.

I agree with Natural Baby - don't focus on their birthday - it is what it is - but support them where they are struggling. There are so many resources on the internet, local library etc....you can do so much to help (lego, puzzles, cutting stuff up, singing, talking, kick a ball - we focused on sport because my DH and I love it, and it really helped develop the social side of life, mixing with a non school crowd - develops motor skills too). They play musical instruments too - another avenue for developing skills and participating with other children in orchestras etc. I may sound like Tiger Mother, but I'm not, honest! Work with your teachers - explain what you are doing at home and ask them what they do at school to support your DS.

HTH

I feel the best would be to move away from England, as the system here is so inflexible and will only look at the date of birth and not the individual child.

In my view there is only so much you can 'practice' with a 4 year old. If they are not interested in reading and writing then it will just put them off. YR is meant to be play based, however there are expectations as well, e.g. phonics teaching, writing etc. Besides, how is your 4 yo dear boy going to feel if everyone can do stuff better than him. True, most will catch up eventually, in Y1 or Y2, but why put them through it.

If I had another go with my DS (now 7), I might home educate for a year or 2, or fight to get him deferred a year. DS is an April baby, so not the youngest, but in terms of maturity he may as well have been.

I wish they would change the system and decide on an individual basis whether a child is ready or whether it would benefit from staying in pre-school for another year. That would have made my DS's first school years a lot happier and it would have left him feel more confident. DS (Y3) is catching up now but is still struggling with confidence.

On the other hand, my DD (4 in October) is now at the same age my DS was when he started YR - what a difference!! Her listening skills are really good, we started reading chapter books, she loves drawing(with details), started writing her name, other words and is interested in reading. In pre-school she is one of the oldest and most able now, so that is great for her confidence. She will be fine when she starts R in September.

I second everything NaturalBaby said. Don't just acccept thhe stereotypes.

My DS was born on 30th Aug - youngest in his year (two form entry school).

He has always been fine academically. I find the difference is in maturity. He is a year younger than the eldest in the class and sometimes this showed early on. Time and patience are the only things that helped with this.

He had terrible handwriting for a time but this was again down to immaturity - he did not have the physical hand strength and fine motor skills necessary to grip a pen properly. Again, time and patience was the solution and few weeks of fine motor skills work at school and home (threading beads, little lego, sewing)

He's now y5 (working ahead of national expectations) and is a funny, mature boy with a great attitude to learning.

If you're worried about any areas of his schooling speak to the teacher. Keep it specific.

My Aug born dd2 struggled a bit in reception socially. There was a group of Sept/Oct born girls who dd was desperate to be friends with. They would sit quietly writing little notes to each other while dd was still enjoying hiding under tables and jumping out and shouting "boo" at them! The other girls treated her as a baby and a bit of an annoyance. They are now in Yr 1 and dd has matured hugely and now has lots of friends, including some of the older girls.

Academically she is in the top maths group and the second reading group, so being summer born is not holding her back in that respect. I do agree though that there should be more flexibility in the system. If I could have held her back a year to start reception the following year as one of the oldest, I definitely would have done so.

DS's birthday is last day of July. He is now in year 2.

He has always enjoyed school, but I certainly found that first term in Reception tough as he was exhausted. He had major meltdowns after school (although behaved impeccably at school). I was most concerned about the social side of his development as he seemed so much younger than some of his peers.

However, he developed a couple of close friendships fairly quickly, and academically is now actually ahead of where he needs to be (particularly in reading). He didn't really get to grips with written work until about halfway through year 1, it's something he found harder - lots to say but not the physical dexterity to write legibly and fast enough in the time given.

My son is a late, late august baby.
He was behind others in year R but hey ho, he'll catch up.
In fact by the middle of year 2 he had.
By year 6 he was at the top of his primary class
and now he's in year 8 he's top sets in a huge school.

Chillax. Honestly.
The less you worry and the more you support (not push) the sooner it will all even out.

I have two late July babies (girls) one in year 1 and one in school nursery. I've seen my elder daughter forge ahead academically just this term - suddenly started skipping through the book bands to catch up with others, and now her spelling and handwriting is catching up too. (I think - parents' evening next week though!)
She struggled before this- but my main worry was how this would affect her confidence going forward, if she saw herself as weaker or less able than her friends (especially as she had some hearing difficulties in Reception- now resolved).
Drama classes have helped her to speak out in class, while she also likes to identify herself through things she does out of school (she has chosen to play a - quite difficult- musical instrument, and her older friends are fascinated, it gives her some cachet). So something that they can excel at that is 'different' may stop them seeing themselves as behind.
Friendshipwise I can see how she is less mature than some girls in her class, and her sister in preschool is having similar issues - wants to play with the big girls but they are much too grown up for her. I can see the gap closing with dd1 which helps with dd2. To be honest I suspect as long as the confidence is kept up, the rest will follow.

I think one of the issues is what the school expects of them at this age - too much in my opinion.

I agree that a bit more flexibility in the system would help. My daughter is an October birthday, bright but with a personality that means she achieves just exactly what is expected of her. So she would have kept up fine as the youngest in a class and maybe not have been bored as she was at some points.

My son is a July birthday and yes it's the maturity issues that mainly come to the fore. He's now year 3 and I think we're well past the stage where age makes such a big difference. By chance his class seems quite skewed to younger ones, they've now got about 5 summer holiday birthdays out of 17 for example, and several May/June. Some of the others close to him in age seem a lot more mature ... And of course size plays a role - my son's 2nd tallest in his class, and the smallest boys include one with a late August and one with an early September birthday.

I did comment at parent-teacher meetings this week that my son seems to act either 12 or 3 at the moment - to which his teacher laughed and agreed.

I have an Oct born DS y4 and an Aug born DD y2. DS was way ahead of DD at the same school stage, but he has an excellent memory and is visual. DD is more auditory and most schools don't teach that way. I suspect if she'd been born in Sep she still wouldn't be top of the class in primary, but who knows what she will excel in in later years? I can see she thinks very differently to others.

She was behind in Maths last year so she has been doing THe Maths Factor since Sept and went up 4 sublevels in a term. I also read a lot with her. I ring fence time with her more than DS.

My August born ds (yr1) is in top set for each subject. The main issue is his concentration, which I'm willing to over look as he won't be 6 for another 8 months! Every child is different, don't look for non-existent issues!

Excellent points ladies, I also have children born in aug, it's all about keeping a balance. Every child is unique. I am also aware that, not all sept babies do as well as they should.

My DS (now yr 3) is 31st Aug born 2 weeks early.

He really struggled in reception and his reception teacher made me cry at his first parents eve by telling me all the things he could not do/was behind in and did not say one nice thing about him luckily I managed to get out of the school hall before I cried

However by the end of reception (probably helped by his horrid teacher being off sick for 4 months) he had caught up and was actually ahead of where he needed to be.

He is now in yr3 and has been on the top set/table for everything ever since despite being very quiet/shy.

I have an august born DD, 2nd youngest in the class. In R & Yr 1 she was "behind". She couldnt read until halfway through Y1 whereas some of her Sept / Oct born friends were reading at the end of R. She is now halfway through Y2 & is in the top group in the class for reading & maths.

Give it time & dont worry too much in R & Y1 (easier said than done I know!)