Young DC in class playing catch up with writing

[monkeytree]

DD is in year 3. She is also one of the youngest in the class. She is above average for her reading level but I have discovered that she is in a lower group for writing. From what I can gather there is an awful lot of other children with July birthdays in this group (all the others are boys as it happens but one or two with October birthdays). A lot of the girls in dds class have September/October birthdays and seem to be in the next group up, whilst other dc's with July/August birthdays are receiving support in a lower group to dd. I am not overly concerned at this time just looking for a bit of reassurance I guess and wondering if writing is a developmental thing where age does make a difference. DD would dearly love to move up a group to sit amongst some other girls in her class. DD's teacher is aware of this and will monitor DD to see when she is ready to make this move.

I know it does not always follow and younger dcs will be in top groups whilst older dcs may require support but there seems to be a pattern in dcs class and I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing the same thing in their dcs class? I do feel for DD sometimes as outside of school children are able to move on ie from Beaver scouts to Cubs/rainbows to Brownies. DD finds herself left with more of the year group below her whilst her peers are able to move on even though she is in the same school year. I am in no rush for DD to move on in these groups as these children then have later bed times etc and the 10 month age difference between dd and some her class mates really seems to make a difference in some cases (whilst not in others).

Also to those with younger dcs in the class was your child in this situation and managed to catch up at some point?

In my DS's case his fine motor schools developed later than many of his peers so he was always playing catchup with writing (just because physically making the letters was behind many of the older children). I think this had mostly evened out by the end of Y2/beginning of Y3 though. I'm sure you'll see this happening soon.

In DD's year there is a large number of children with summer birthdays in the top groups so no correlation :)

it works the other way too though, my daughter was the first to start rainbows, she found it really hard until another child her sort of age from her class joined the next term. The older ones often get comments (IME) from other children as well as adults that they are older, they should set an example or they should be better at something because they are older.

I think that most age related things even out by Yr3 and it is probably coincidence in your daughter's class more than anything else.

In dd1's class the top groups were all bar one July and August birthdays by the middle of year 1, and stayed fairly consistant up primary.
In dd2's class, they are now in year 5 and the top groups are still mostly Autumn babies.
In ds (year 2) it's about 50/50.

It is going to depend on the year group.

I agree with periwinkle that sometimes the older ones (unintentially often) get pressure put on them because they were older.

When dd1 was in infants the head then used to finish any Christmas production/assembly by each year "well done, you must remember that some of these children are only 4! (or 5 in year 1, and 6 in year 2)

In year 2, I complimented dd1, who had quite a big part at the Christmas show. Her reply was "no I didn't do well, but A/B/C (summer birthdays) did well..." upon enquiry I found that she was taking the remark to mean "if you are 5 (or 6 in yera 1, 7 in year 2) you are doing as expected, but the younger ones are doing brilliantly to manage it".

ahh poor dd1 DeWe. It is hard. I know my DD1 has come home and said 'but I am supposed to be better at things because I am the oldest in the class' when questioned why she thought that it was because other children had said to her that they were doing better even though they were younger and that she was supposed to be top because she was older.

I always found the wording in the EYFS a bit off in some of the documentation where it referred to up to the age of 5 and so on when she was 5 as she started reception but was still going to have to sit through another year of EYFS.