Great news for summer borns...

[satinpillowcase]

www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/08/parents-of-summer-born-children-get-right-to-delay-start-of-school

I have no experience of the Scottish system, I'm afraid.

The thing is, being youngest is not necessarily an issue once you get to a baseline level where the children are generally ready for school. It doesn't mean that all children who can defer, do. If those who need to defer do so, then the younger ones who don't are often quite able to hold their own, certainly with the middle-range of ones who don't defer. I suspect in many places, it does even out, and number of years of schooling then becomes a bigger factor for test scores etc. Where I'm from, that extra flexibility is more likely to be seen as a sensible way of preventing those children who really aren't that ready to start at 4.5 from ending up falling behind, being turned off the whole idea of school, losing confidence, etc. It doesn't necessarily bestow huge advantages to those who don't need to defer - indeed, it might make them worse off, feeling ready to move up and being held back instead. So it seems to be used judiciously, as needed.

The competitive nature of schools here does complicate things, I agree. But many of the arguments to me flag up bigger problems with the school system, rather than being compelling reasons why slight flexibility to the starting age shouldn't happen. I am not saying that there aren't practical problems, however; I do understand those arguments, and some of the underlying problems can't be solved overnight.

The competitive nature of schools here does complicate things
Much of the country does not have competition.
Grammars and all the angst and stress and heartache that go with them are very unusual.

Comprehensive areas have much more transparent admission systems.

Yes somebody will always be the youngest, but somebody doesn't have to be both youngest and massively lacking in maturity for their actual age. I would be delighted to have DD as youngest in her year as she would more than hold her own. (As it happens she's bang in the middle.)

But it does seem a shame if institutional/practical concerns end up being why a policy that could be helpful to some of the younger children can't be put in place.

But the policy proposed is apparently based on parental assessment only, which is in contrast to that of other countries. The policy would allow little Hugo with an April birthday to be held back just so that he has a better chance of getting into a superselective later, but might force little James with an August birthday to be sent to school with kids up to 17 months older because his single parent can't afford to pay childcare.

I would object far less if parents could defer only with the assessment and support of nurseries/schools, as the latter can distinguish more easily between children who are within the norm and children who could really benefit from starting later. But even in this system the problem is that children change a lot between 3 and 6: they could end up holding back a child who a few months later matured a lot and could easily be in with their age peers.

In the most extreme circumstance the proposed policy will end up just moving the cutoff from September to April, although I agree it seems unlikely everyone eligible would try to defer. More likely it will have the most effect in the (few) areas of the country that have selective secondary schools (which includes London). In those areas people who have July/August born DC could effectively be forced to defer our children just because everyone else does - who would want to put a child in a class where loads of children were 12+ months older?

Kent does have superselectives e.g Tonbridge which cream off the children who score highest in the Kent test.

Even leaving aside the issue of selective secondaries, some parents might hold back just to try to ensure their child was "top" academically: already somebody on this thread said this (mistakenly believing that oldest necessarily equals smartest/top). Given the amount of playground competition about reading levels etc by some parents, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of parents don't opt for deferring on these grounds.

Frankly I think everyone would defer if at all possible. It wouldn't necessarily be to get an advantage, but to prevent one's dcs being at a disadvantage . My dcs have August birthdays, and were both premature. If I thought that there would be dcs in their classes 17 months older than them you bet I would defer too. In fact I would class myself as a bad mother if I didn't.

In some areas you'd get everyone deferring and then there would be hand-wringing about underachievement of children in areas where it was not the norm or not the understanding that you could do this.

Granted, the 11+ is not widespread but it would be chaos and would cause a lot of anger if the deferring April birthday pupils were disproportionately gaining grammar school places compared with those 16/17 months younger. They would have to be given heaps of extra marks in the tests.

I think that by GCSEs the effect of age is almost zero as I posted in statistics upthread. By that age your month of birth is much less of a factor than number of years in schooling, but there may still be a small effect at age 11. I agree that some people are getting carried away that oldest automatically = cleverest when it is not true at all. My statistics showed that child born in August is 0.025% less likely to attend RG university than September born child, which is no difference at all on an individual child basis.

The thing is whatever system is put in place there will always be winners and losers, you can't make things fairir every single child, you have to cater for the average child really on a mass scale and then make adjustments for the extreme ends of the scale

Look at admission criteria
Some places have sibling priority and people campaign to get catchment priority and other places have catchment priority and people campaign to get sibling priority- obviously neither option is better as there is always people unhappy.

The government do not have the money, resources and school places to have a complicated system. They have To look at the overall picture and work out what suits the most amount of people. It should maybe be that August children can defer just on parental want but any earlier born children need to be backed up with testimony from nursery workers etc.

Rhonda I would not have deferred my youngest (and smallest) in year DD. As it is she spent the last 2 years at primary school marking time. No way would I want to increase that to 3 years of stagnation. She didn't enjoy being the smallest in the year but she is smaller than most of the kids in the year below too. She would have been better being put up a year, intellectually, for a while at primary school until they changed the system of teaching to ability to teaching to age she was taught with kids one or two years above her. And while she didn't enjoy it socially, she at least wasn't born in class or singled out as being the 'swot' as she was being taught with kids at the same level as she was. I understand that people who want to defer actually want this for their kids - to be taught with kids at the same level as them - but they seem incapable of accepting that their kids' performance at school is nothing to do with the month they were born, and that there are plenty of young in year kids who don't struggle. They seem determined to drag everyone down to mask the fact that their own kids have issues. That's bad on many levels. I would no more want my August born DD deferred than I would want my April born and less academic DS accelerated on the basis that he is quite tall.

Everybody on less than average incomes (ie 62% of the population)
will not defer because school is free and childcare costs.

My very late august DS struggled in KS1 but I would not have deferred him because it would have been bad for his education.

In Scotland I don't know of anybody who didn't defer because of financial reasons, people base the decision on a child's readiness. If the state nursery does not think a child is ready for school, they will try and ensure another year of state nursery which is free.

Double
In Scotland I don't know of anybody who didn't defer because of financial reasons
Do you have lots of friends in NMW Zero Hour jobs : just that MN posters are not representative of the population.

Most deferrals I know of in Scotland are for the very youngest children with January and February birthdays. These continue to receive early years funding for the deferral year. September to December born children do not get the extra funding.

This is of interest in relation to childcare costs - 30 hours a week possible for some (I haven't read in detail but posting as here as may be of interest)
30 hours childcare

www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/01/childcare-free-nurseries-challenge-david-cameron-pledge-double

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1153603/school-nurseries-warn-30-hours-will-force-them-to-take-fewer-children

But it's not so clear that the 30 hours a week is really going to go ahead: the government want to pay for 1,140 hours per year (equivalent to 30 hours per week in term-time) at the rate of £5000. The hourly rate is then below what is needed to cover the costs.

Currently providers of the free 15 hours per week per 3/4 year old cover the costs by charging extra for additional hours or subsidising from other budgets. It's not clear that most providers can afford to be paid at the rate of £5000 for as many as 1,140 hours. In daycares probably the only way they could manage to do it would be to increase the rates for 1 and 2 year olds further and charge extra hours at a high rate.

BTW I don't think it has been said on this thread but currently if you do decide not to send your child to Reception you can still use the free 15 hours per week of childcare in a Nursery or Childminder setting until the term in which they turn 5.

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-world/news/1153362/ministers-reaffirm-30-hour-childcare-pledge-but-funding-crisis-looms

I'm surprised that more isn't being made of the Scottish and NI cut off dates. Here in NI the cut off is end of June instead of end of Aug, therefore the youngest in the school is going to be a minimum of 4 years and 2 months.

Changing the cut off date seems much more sensible than having an age spread of 17 months in one class.

If summer born children can be held back a year, then why not allow children born in September to start a year earlier if their parents want them to?

It would be an interesting campaign

Gruffalo, my feeling is it doesn't make much difference where the cutoffs are as long as there's some flexibility - whether it's April-August or June-October children who get the option. I think as we generally start school younger than other countries it makes sense to do the blurring of the line in the starting older rather than the starting younger direction.

Tiggy: What about babies born prematurely at the end of March who were due in July? They may be more likely to be delayed for their age yet could quite easily end up being the youngest child in a class under this system with no option to demand a deferral.
I think it very unlikely that a March born would be the youngest in the year even under a system of pure parent choice. Though my personal preference would be a system with preschool input. And even if they were youngest, statistically speaking they'd be 5 months more ready for school than an August born who was due in November.

I'm not saying I know the magical solution, but having a less absolute cut-off makes much more sense to me in terms of the wide range of maturity and readiness that does exist at that very young age.

September to December born children do not get the extra funding.

I think that must depend on which part of the country you are in. I don't know of any September to December born children who didn't get extra funding.