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 completely disagree that all middle class parents of summer born children will defer entry to gain advantage for their children. What a load of competitive parenting rubbish.

I certainly won't, my dd is only 2 but I can already see that she will be ready to start pre-school next September and reception the year after. It is mainly learning through play after all!! I certainly wouldn't keep her at home for an extra year just to gain some paltry advantage in sats results or even GCSEs. For gods sake cut out the pressure parenting and let children be children.

I agree with flexibility to defer where children are not ready, but parents seeking to ensure their child is the eldest in the year for academic advantage should be laughed out of the school. IMHO.

Many children with September birthdays aren't ready despite being 5 just as many summer borns are ready.

I'm in Scotland and deferred entry for both my youngest-of-the-year children. So glad I did it, there's been nothing but positives. Both of mine were in the very lucky position of starting school at five and a half. Yes it cost more in childcare. Short-term pain though.

Tfoot if your DD goes to pre - school and you get to know the other mums, and every single summer born child was deferring, would you stick to your guns about not deferring? I know that's exaggerating the position but it could happen.

Tiggy can I pick your expert brain about this please as we have a grammar school local to us that will not take dc who are out of year group currently ie you can't apply for a place for Sept 2016 if you are 12 by 31st August 2016 however if this comes in to allow children to defer a year at primary will the grammar be forced to change their rules so summer born can move into year 7 a year later too?

Currently the law on testing is "a pupil should be assessed in the school year in which he or she reaches the age of 7" potentially this could mean testing deferred pupils in May of Y1?

I wish I wish I wish I could have started my DS18 at 5 instead of 4! He was so obviously less mature than all the others & in YR was not allowed to go to the gate to meet me at the end of school day until he'd done his coat up which he just couldn't do by himself at 4! His teacher would make him stand there & struggle.

He couldn't read or write as well & was marked down constantly. And - yes - he went to pre school too.

He just wasn't ready & when I asked for him to be delayed by a year the school said yes but he'll have to start in Y1, which would have ruined him completely.

At 18 he still struggles to keep up with peers & is finding college very tough.

Please let the younger ones start later if their parents want them to.

I feel that parents wishing to defer their child's start at school, should have to provide objective evidence as to why they believe it is necessary.

Exactly. There is another thread on MN at the moment talking about how a significant minority of parents just aren't that great at assessing what are age appropriate expectations for their children so the children simply don't get given the opportunity to practice basic life skills.

alltheworld I don't know about your ds's overall needs, but surely if he is non verbal then with such a significant developmental delay he would be able to delay entry anyway?

Currently the law on testing is "a pupil should be assessed in the school year in which he or she reaches the age of 7" potentially this could mean testing deferred pupils in May of Y1?

Apparently not:
"Children are assessed when they reach the end of each key stage, not when they reach a particular age. There are no age requirements as to when children must take their GCSEs or other assessments."
from
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389448/Summer_born_admissions_advice_Dec_2014.pdf

Sorry alltheworld, reading back I see that your ds is starting reception next week, so I guess you had already looked into delaying for a year (to go into Reception) - I hope your ds has some good support in place for starting school.

Just to add that where I live children never started reception in the September after their 5th birthday. I am 60 and went in the April before my August birthday. Reception was for children aged between 4 and 5. The ages of the children in YR has not changed any more than it has in Y6. Previously a child must be in school the term after their 5th birthday but in practice this was done by the child starting school during the term in which they were 5. If it was later than this the summer borns would have been in Year 1 from the start . I worked in school admissions and know this is how my LA worked.
Yes parents are pushy enough to do this. This is why only a few children should defer and the others stay at the same entry date which for some could be January but not a whole year later.

I think school funding and funding of YR teachers will be a problem too. Without lots of summer borns, the funding formula will cause nightmares regarding paying for staff. Less children in YR mean savings have to be made or redundancies/hours cut.

The universities do not appear to worry about 3 year A levels or children in the wrong year applying from independent schools. Maybe the small numbers do not bother them. If they need the best students, will they worry too much?

I think this depended on where you lived Millymollymama. In the 1950s DH and DB are both September birthdays and started in the September, so would have been 4 for a few days when they started but I have no idea which classes they were put into. I have a March birthday and also started in the September when I was 4 but needn't have done.

My children are December and January births and they both started after Christmas (in the 1980s) and did two terms in Reception. I suppose I could have pushed for the December one to have started in September, but it wasn't encouraged. So it is conceivable that someone who wasn't 5 until August and didn't start in the term they became 5 but waited until after would have gone straight into year 1.

I think unless all of the research is explained as Tggytape describes - variations in how children are schooled, rather than when, it doesn't support this generalisation that summer born children do badly.

I am 43 - born in April. My primary school had 2 intakes - September and February. So lots of the "older" children had an extra 6 months in reception that the "younger" children.

At my children's school (2 form intake) up until a few years ago, the 2 reception classes were divided by age. One class was Sept - Feb birthdays, the other class was March - August birthdays. New head scrapped that and says results are much better.

So my point is there are a several factors - perhaps starting with birthdate if education provision differs, which affects the outcome.

I assume that's why it was/is labelled Reception, rather than being the one which was labelled year 1, because it was a rather disjointed year with groups of children joining each term.

When was the original research done, tiggytape? Much has changed since the post war years. Some time during the 60s, Playgroups started and became the norm for 3 and 4 year olds, but prior to that in the 50s, with women not working, many children wouldn't have mixed with others at all, until they started school, and it might have been this lack of social contact as much as anything which held them back.

I am sure that is correct LaV. Summer born children were disadvantaged by sometimes only getting 1/2 a term in Reception. This is why September start date became the norm to overcome this disadvantage. Now some people don't want that either but to completely rearrange the school year to the detriment of others. As usual policy is formed by the government bowing to noisy pressure rather than thinking through how a policy will work and who else might be disadvantaged by this. No chsnge was necessary other than to spell out what difficulties a child should present in order to delay starting.

Yes, no change being necessary except spelling out the conditions for delayed start, and allowing the child to stay in that year throughout, if appropriate. Independent schools can do this, and I haven't heard of droves of Independent school children being held back for another year to give them an advantage over their independent school peers.

I do wonder what will happen when these children reach yr6/yr7 will they go up with the rest of the 'correct' year group, and if not how will high schools deal with age difference.

I have the opposite problem my dd2 birthday is the 7th September and she has just gone into year 3, but she spent most of year 2 being taught in a booster class by herself as she needed to be taught at a higher level then the rest of the class.

I feel she could do with being moved up a year, but the school won't do it. I just think that it's unfair for her not to be in class learning with every one else.

I'm not sure what this would achieve. I'm glad DD1 has gone into reception this year. She's born late march. Isn't the problem with age effect simply because someone has to be the youngest? And that the oldest in the class always have an advantage? I don't think, for example, the US starts school early. But they still have the relative age effect
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect

Here they referenced the statistics on footballers.

I'm not dismissing the issue where parents of summer borns are worried. I'm just glad that the choice is taken out of my hands for DD1. Otherwise I'd be unhappy she would be the youngest in her class being born on the last days of March! (So I totally understood the parents of late August borns).

I did my primary in Hong Kong where we don't start till 6. And I can tell you parents also want to delay start there. My cousin was an August born and his mum fight to be delayed one year. It has nothing to do with being too young at 6. It's just about wanting to be the oldest in the class. So he started at 7 instead.

DD2 is a early September born. So in effect she'll be in the middle of her class when she starts school.

I would definitely delay start my DC if she's born after April. Just because then she'll be the smartest in the class. I can afford to pay another year at nursery and I would do it happily.