do you think summer born children are really disadvantaged??

[6031769]

just thinking wholly from the point of view of my ds (selfish i know). He is May born, i only work part time 3 days a week so my mum provided childcare as she is retired. When he was 2 i sent him a local playschool a couple of mornings a week but he couldn't go to the preschool attached to the school he will be going to until he got his funding term after he was 3, then he went there for the three terms. Anyway best decision i ever made to send him there, amazing preschool but if he had been born in autumn term he would have got 5 terms at his preschool instead of only 3.

DS didn't get on too well at his first playschool (won't go into details) but loved his 2nd preschool and has come on in leaps and bounds, i just wish he'd been allowed to stay for extra two terms so he'd got 5 terms same as autumn born children, school there is going to be so many more children

[mrz]

some of the measures are far from perfect

[ACheesePuff]

I don't think there is any doubt that summer borns achieve less on a national scale, yes, on an individual level there are variables to be considered, but overall they are are at a disadvantage simply by month of age.

We can't discount all statistics just because a control can't be established, otherwise we wouldn't be able to draw any conclusions from any education statistics.

[wheresthebeach]

I agree its a disadvantage. My DD is summer born and it was obvious both physically and emotionally how much younger she was than the Sept born girls. It affects their confidence. Every once and a while an article appears about it in the news - there is a clear trend. The question is - how to fix? Someone's always going to be the youngest.

[Sparklingbrook]

Taking it a bit further and a bit off topic summer born DS1 (15) will have to wait until next summer when he is 16 to get a job whereas his Autumn born friends will be able to get one this year. Learning to drive and first pint at the pub will all have to wait just those few months more.

Not a disadvantage as such-just a bit of a downer I suppose.

[mum9876]

I have a September born dd. Had she been born 2 weeks earlier she would not have been at all ready to go to school. The disadvantages though were that she had nearly 2 years of pre-school during which time their only aim was to count to ten and write their name. So she spent a lot of time being incredibly bored. At our school they didn't teach any writing at all until year 1 when she was six. In hindsight they didn't really cater for her needs. She was ready to learn writing at around 4 and it was a further 2 years before any emphasis was given to it at school. Whilst I am grateful I didn't have to send her to school barely potty trained and socially very inept, there are disadvantages to being the eldest too. She hated school and had to be dragged there for the first year and a half.

[headisreallyaching]

yes of course they are they are almost a year younger

[TalkinPeace]

SOMEBODY has to be the youngest in every class.

THe data about outcomes looks at kids leaving university now
so they went through year R 17 years ago

since that time, the understanding of learning outcomes has come along in leaps and bounds
so the data will change over time

[Pico2]

While somebody does have to be the youngest, some discretion/flexibility might be useful. My DD misses out on school by a few days this year, but is clearly more ready than some of her summer born peers. I would definitely consider sending her this year as she would cope well with being the youngest. Similarly, but probably more importantly you find children who would benefit from deferring entry to reception by a year.

[PiqueABoo]

"the data will change over time"
--
I bet it doesn't: see all those contemporaneous anecdotes above.

Age adjusting end-KS2 SATs for school accountability would probably make a significant difference. If teachers told all the children about the reasons for doing that it would likely help too.

We don't have problems with narrow academic SATs which were good, but "summer-born" is behind some of my DD's frustrating, irrational deference to her older peers. Although it's better now, the initial pecking order from when she was one of the worst at everything and bossed around quite a bit by older children stuck and it's not gone yet. She's about to start secondary, so I'm hoping the fresh start with new children and relationships will help lay that to rest.

[Mashabell]

Depends very much on the child, and parents too, i think.

Mine (now in their 40s) were born in July and August, but both ended up in Oxbridge via the local primary, middle and comprehensive.

Had we been rich and posh and sent them to private schools, they would probably be running the country instead of opting for caring professions.

[Mashabell]

I have had another thought regarding how the same circumstances can affect different individuals very differently.

Growing up in the old Soviet Union left me passionately anti religion and anti inequality. Yet many others growing up there too became passionately religious or greedy (e.g Chechen rebels and Russian oligarchs).

So i don't buy simplistic answers very easily.

[Eastpoint]

I think small young children suffer more - they are pushed around and suffer from having weaker fine & gross motor skills. One of my DCs has just reached average size having always been the smallest in the year and the increase in her self confidence is remarkable. I'm looking forward to my other two exceeding the 10th percentile in due course.

[ACheesePuff]

My dd is an August baby and there is a large number of Sept/Oct born babies in her class (this is the busiest time of year for births as many parents plan their births to coincide with the school year in order to give their child this advantage).

Agree with Piqueaboo. The social and emotional aspects of being the youngest are by far the biggest problem in my experience, and they don't just 'disappear' as the class gets further up the school.

Every year my dd waits to reach the next milestone birthday like the rest of her class, but just like this year, as she was excited to finally turn 9 like the rest of her school friends, before she had even had her 9th party she was receiving invites for her classmates' 10th parties. It doesn't sound a big deal, but it always seems to just take the shine off somehow.

There are lots of little things like this, eg She wasn't allowed to join Rainbows until she was in year 1, while the rest joined in Reception, and it seemed no sooner had she joined than the other girls left her behind as they went up to Brownies, she was the the only one left in her class, the others were all in the academic year below her. It leads to teasing at school.

Being the youngest and smallest in Reception is a hard thing to shake off, children begin to form an identity from the way they see themselves and how others treat them from the outset at school. I am afraid it becomes a self fulfilling thing for many summerborn children. There is strong evidence for this. The sports world eg professional football, is dominated by autumn born children.

[MrsHathaway]

(this is the busiest time of year for births as many parents plan their births to coincide with the school year in order to give their child this advantage)

It's also nine months since Christmas

On a related note, my midwife shared this on FB yesterday:

[Eastpoint]

ACheesePuff. I wholeheartedly agree with your eloquent post. Dc3 was conceived after some of her classmates were born.

[mrz]

"the data will change over time"
--
I bet it doesn't:

It will be interesting to see how/if three full terms in reception impact in 10 years time.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Both of mine are summer born as am I. Interestingly both of mine (now going into Yr7 and Yr3) started school in the Sept after their 4th birthday (1week after his 4th birthday for DS1) because their prep school only had one entry point. I think they probably were a bit behind academically but they definately benefited socially and emotionally from starting school at the same time as the rest of the class.

I think for summer borns deferring entry until the last term of YrR made the whole YrR virtually pointless. They had 12 weeks to settle in, try to break in to established friendship patterns, understand the whole "going to school process" before they were back on a long holiday. They were clearly going to be at a disadvantage to the children who had a full 3 terms.

[PiqueABoo]

@ACheesePuff "She wasn't allowed to join Rainbows"
--

It stopped when she joined Scouts, but that specific aspect caused a series of problems where older friends from the school class got to do X but she didn't and they're big issues for a child. Perhaps it causes other difficulties, but I find it odd that they don't see the problem and at at least sync with the school year.

Because DD has just finished primary I've spent plenty of time reflecting on her childhood to date and although it has been quite good, it also feels like we have had a near constant battle with that summer-born 'identity' problem and the many little things that reinforce it.

[PiqueABoo]

@mrz "It will be interesting to see how/if three full terms in reception impact in 10 years time."
--

I don't think that will be a cure, but I suspect it will help a little. DD had a split start and the consequence of that was two little tribes of children and their parents. That divide softened but you could still see it at the end of Y6.

I remember when she used to come home from Reception class and tell us how the older children on the other tables were doing something different (inevitably 'better') because they'd already done this and that.

[mrz]

I didn't say it would be a cure but it is one less variable removed from the data. It seems fairly obvious that having up to 6 months less time in school means younger children are playing catchup from the first day they set foot in school.

[ACheesePuff]

Yes agree, my dd did start reception with the rest of the class and I am grateful for that, it would be even worse if they were not only the youngest, but also had less time in YR.

We are having the similar problems now, in that dd is thinking about doing the 11+, yet she will have only just turned 10 when she sits it. It seems madness to call it the 11+, although not that many will be actually 11 as the stst is in Sept.

[Eastpoint]

ACheese we had this with dd2, she was younger starting year 7 than some of the girls were when they sat the entry exams (in Jan for us). Some of the schools wanted her date of birth on the front of the exam booklet, I was optimistic with those that they weighted by age. She did a full year of pre-school before starting school and could read at 3 ½ so the academic side of starting school was not an issue. However being the youngest & also 5th percentile made her stand out. Luckily I could buy second hand uniform and someone in the past had adapted a blazer & tunic so she did have uniform that fitted. She is one of 10% in her school born in the last 6 months of the school year - I was given this number by a member of the SMT. She is around the average in the year and I expect her to go up as she continues to catch up with the chronologically old for the year.

[Pico2]

The "old style" of deferring entry by a term or two seems unlikely to benefit many children at all. Having the flexibility to defer the whole year and start in September as one of the oldest makes much more sense and I think that is an option in Scotland.

[ChocolateWombat]

As has already been said and cannot be disputed really, on a national,statistical scale, summer born children perform less well academically. It is charted at every stage of measuring academic progress from Reception to A Level. Referencing the cleverest child in your child's class as born on 31 August does not alter these statistics.
However these statistics are based on thousands of children and very many summer burns will go onto do well and better than many autumn borns. The end outcome is due to a variety of factors and whilst many summer borns are likely to be less emotionally developed and find early work in reception more difficult, levels of natural intelligence and the support of parents can have a much bigger influence.

So if you have a summer born child, don't despair. Prepare them for school and support their education throughout. You cannot influence their age, once they are conceived, but you can influence the support they receive. Parents of autumn borns need to do exactly the same of course, as being old in use year does not guarantee success, but parental input will be more significant.
And I agree that it is never good to use being summer born as an excuse for anything with your child. They themselves should not hear you refer to them as the youngest and therefore disadvantaged, and you yourself need to get out of this mindset. Each child has potential and our job is to give them chances to reach it by supporting them. Perhaps summer borns need a little bit more parental input before starting school about sitting and listening, doing activities which require a bit of concentration....all new reception children need these skills and parents can help with them. I would never advocate saying that just because a child is summer born, they are not ready for those things and so as parents we are going to avoid working on them. And I don't like it when I hear parents of 13 year olds still telling everyone that little Jonny is a July baby, as an explanation for everything in his life. How damaging for him to hear his potential is limited by his birth month. It smacks of a parents looking for an excuse for everything, rather than being willing to help overcome the difficulties which children born at any time of year can face.

[TalkinPeace]

As has already been said and cannot be disputed really, on a national,statistical scale, summer born children perform less well academically

I utterly dispute it because the data is on children who started primary school 17 years ago so are not representative of what is going on in schools now.

Some summer babies struggle but I laugh when I see April defined as summer as do some September babies

There has to be a cutoff in any schooling system
somebody has to be the youngest
it used to be on the calendar year
then it moved to 31 August
in other countries its a different date

mrz is right : increased integration of younger kids, and much better awareness of the pedagogy may well make a difference in a statisticaly significant number of cases.