Summer-born children starting school. Latest parliamentary research briefings.

[Gruach]

I have no personal interest in this - not even an informed opinion.

But this research briefing just appeared in my email inbox so I thought I'd share it.

Apologies if it's been done to death already.

Pipbin You have inspired me to dream up a brilliant new scheme. (As I have no negative memories of staggered entry.)

Wouldn't it be better to maintain two or three age groups all the way through at least primary school? So instead of yr 1/2/3 etc we could have a September to December cohort, a January to April and a May to August; who would progress through school as three separate groups.

I admit the details would be a bit tricky to work out - and the transition panic inducing. But surely it would be no worse than what we have?

Grauch how would you do that in a small school?
Mine is a single form entry and last year I had one child with a summer birthday (end of August and incidentally the most able) 3 children with birthdays January to April and the rest September to December ... It's not workable!

At my DD's school, which is 3 form intake state primary, they did put children into classes according to age , I.e, sept-dec, jan to April and May to aug. All classes started in September, although parents had right to defer as usual. The classes stayed like that for reception and year one and then all the classes were mixed up when they went into year 2 to ensure a balance of age, ability, gender, special needs, EAL, address friendship issues etc etc. As a mother of a May born child, I was actually nervous that they wouldn't cover as much in the first two years and so she might be disadvantaged going forward but the teachers were extremely capable of differentiating and it wasn't an issue at all. I think it is quite a neat solution for those who worry about their summer born children in with children almost 11months older. (Although I do agree that this is almost never the case...your DC might be 11months younger than one or two children only)

I don't have the data at my fingertips, but I do recall seeing articles and studies showing that red shirting children does not advantage them, and that there are advantages to be one of the younger in a class. There was not just one study, but several, including a large retrospective one.

Goodness - I had no idea it was a real thing. I was just being mischievous.

For the whole of my teaching career (20+tears) children here started school in September so not that recent.

I remember doing that in my current school and I have been there for 7 years, so fairly recently.

I have an August born DD and really glad I am in Scotland. She will be 5 rather than 4 when she starts school. Her nursery has just moved from taking DC the term after turning 3 to the month they turn 3. At this age range the average lowering of the group age has had a noticeable impact on the class age and thus behaviour and educational content.

I think the deferral provisions in Scotland generally work well. IME it is not as straightforward as wealthy defer and poor do not. The type of work the mother does, the type of childcare available and other siblings are more relevant. However most make a personal decision around what they feel is best for each DC given their individual circumstances.

Also deferral in Scotland is permanently being a year behind not delaying joining the appropriate year group.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-13453240

www.stirling.gov.uk/__documents/education-and-skills/schools-admissions-exclusions/enrolment/deferred-entry/deferredentryresearch-1.pdf

This is interesting
"It's also apparent that some research found a higher rate of social and behavioural difficulties at secondary level amongst children who had their school entry delayed."
But correlation does not imply causation - it seems that children with educational and behavioural difficulties at 4 are both more likely to be held back and more likely to still be displaying those difficulties at secondary.

The 2012 report Growing Up In Scotland put the percentage of parents choosing to defer at 13%

13% of jan/feb born or of the bigger group from is it November?

Apparently only 5% of the 13% were advised to

13% of the whole year

Around me it's about half of jan/fen borns defer. Not sure how many of the pre-Xmas birthdays but very few.
Jan/feb borns are probably around 16% of all children.
So half of them is 8%. I guess the other 5% are pre-Xmas birthdays.

I still think the principle of flexibility is correct. But attention needs to be paid to how the decisions are being made and why.

I would much rather my very bright child, born in August, was taught with very bright children born in September. I liked the idea that she was given the chance to do well in Reception, Y1 and Y2 and that no grouping was done because of her age. The 11 plus is taken where I live and 5 summer borns got full marks in her cohort. Why would they be separated out because they were young? The teacher would still have the same range of abilities to teach, so what is the advantage of age streaming? My DD was taught in groups based on progress and achievement - thank goodness. Other children were taught according to their needs and abilities, regardless of age.

Summer borns do not need to defer but a tiny minority do. Who is going to pay for all summer borns to be assessed for suitability for school, or not? Do our doctors, health visitors, teachers and pre school staff all have time for this evaluation?

I think school admission should stay as it is and summer born children just have to accept being the youngest, but that does not mean they cannot be the brightest, most socially adept and articulate.

Personally I don't think it's just long term outcomes that matter.
I think the happiness of the 4/5/6yr old counts too. Whether they do better overall at 16 and above or not, their short-term feelings and ability to cope in the early years matters too (eg the child with poor fine motor control who cries at age 5 cause they can't master writing will eventually learn to write and may well go on to higher education so that year of pain could easily be ignored in studies of long term outcomes).

What about the 5 year old September born with poor fine motor skills who struggles with writing? No matter month of birth no child should be crying but they should be accessing appropriate activities to develop any areas they find a struggle.

I think it's an exaggeration to say they are supported to learn at their own pace. The pace is set by the syllabus. They're supported to keep up as well as they can. DS with poor fine motor control wasn't allowed to learn to hold a pencil and draw first, he was straight in trying to write from day 1. So of course it was a massive battle, which he's still struggling with at the end of year 1. Not saying we'd necessarily have deferred given a choice, but it would have been something to think about.

It seems unnecessary to make the child's, the teacher's and the parents' lives harder for the sake of a child being as little as a few days out of the next cohort and a little more immature than average. If they're September born all the factors people are talking about with having too wide a range of ages, hitting puberty earlier than classmates, time out of workplace etc come into play; but for the sake of a few days or weeks? It makes sense to me to blur the line a little.

There could be ways round the other objections. For example don't just let parents choose, let nurseries have an input. If nursery places become more full time as the government were also proposing then childcare issues become less of an issue for families in poverty. (Full time nursery places are already offered in certain targetted areas.)

Is that really fair to judge need on age rather than actual difficulty?