Twins starting primary school, hold back a year? Advice very welcome.

[user1483967958]

Firstly, hello everyone and thank you for any advice you can give. I'm not a mother but a father of two twin boys who were premature by 8 weeks meaning that they were born on August the 13th and thus meaning they are due to start school a year earlier than they should be.

Me and my wife don't think this is the right option for them as they won't be at the same skill level as the other children and don't want them to feel like they are stupid compared to the other children.

So my question is: Has anyone had any experience with holding children back a year without them just going into the year above the following year, as that just seems counter productive to us?

Any advice and help would be very much appreciated.

Billy

Its strange isn't it that people buy into this assumption that summer born children will do less well.

At my DCs school, children were split into the 2 class intake by age. They are now year 7, and at the start of year 6 had to take very stretching entrance exams for the local grammar schools. More children in the "younger" class passed for the grammar schools than the "older" class. It really does depend on the children and as a parent of summer borns (all 3 of mine are late in the academic year) I would never buy into the "summer borns do less well" assumption - even if you don't ever communicate that to your children, it will come across subconsciously. It really does depend on the individual children.

Good luck OP, glad you have made a plan!

Anecdotally, some summer borns will do extremely well. But statistically, summer borns will do less well all the way up to GCSE. www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0710/07102503

I don't know where you are in the country, namechanged, but in Kent the 11+ is age adjusted. So this might just mean that the summer-borns have been placed on a level playing field.

Matilda - if you've ever been through the detail of what age adjusted means, then you'll know it makes no material difference to the scores - (age adjustment doesn't mean summer borns are given extra marks which is the usual misunderstanding). Here, the maximum adjustment for age is around 2 marks (the tests are out of 420) so no, the fact that there's standardisation doesn't explain in your reasoning why in my DCs year group so many more "young" children passed. They were just bright enough to pass.

But the report you linked to is based on data of children born in 1985 (to support findings for outcomes at 16 and 18) - so those children went through reception / Year 1 in 1989 or 1990!! And they'd have sat GCSEs in 2001 or thereabouts - still 15/16 years ago. That's what I meant when I said up thread that there are few reports around that look at current results or recent reports using recent data. And most importantly, the report you linked to is based predominantly of the gap between children who are almost a year apart - i.e. and I quote the major reason why August-born children perform significantly worse than September-born children in the Key Stage tests is simply that they are almost a year younger when they sit them.

But that's not how it works in a school. There are not 15 pupils who are all born in September, and 15 pupils that are born in August. So saying there is this huge gap is misleading. They haven't considered the difference between say a child born in March and a child born in July, or a child born in January and a child born in May. As I said above, in my DCs intake of 60 children was an equal proportion of Sept-Feb birthdays and March - Aug birthdays so there will be a range of birth dates in any year group. Yes some summer borns will struggle, but there'll be many who will be bright, emotionally ready, bored if they go into the year below. Equally there will be children who were born in September / October who can't cope.

Its like anything else isn't it - there is an average / norm. Yes, there is some evidence that an August child in a sample group, on average, may do less well in a test of a September born child in the same year group. But its just an average and that study was based on paper results - so the authors didn't look at other factors that may have affected the results.

But equating that to the generalisation that "summer borns will do less well" is what I object to (I realise I'm going off at a tangent now, sorry OP!). I suppose I just don't buy in to the assumption. As I said above, I think the month of birth is only one factor in the child's outcome.

I have a friend whose August-born triplets were due in November. They have deferred and started in Reception in the year in which they should have been, had they not been born three months early. And done so very successfully.

Good luck with your application!

Its strange isn't it that people buy into this assumption that summer born children will do less well.

Well statistically they do less well, academically, socially and in terms of their attitude to school. Of course there are exceptions (some people smoke and live to 95) but you can't deny the facts.

Its like anything else isn't it - there is an average / norm. Yes, there is some evidence that an August child in a sample group, on average, may do less well in a test of a September born child in the same year group. But its just an average and that study was based on paper results - so the authors didn't look at other factors that may have affected the results.

Yes they did, they adjusted for other social factors, your argument is a little ridiculous to be honest, we base everything on "averages". On average a smoker dies sooner, on average someone with a better education earns more. That's why we don't smoke and try to get a good education. All child developmental experts agree we start school too early, this has got worse since 1985 since more academic learning has been pushed on to 4-5 year olds, and summer borns are more at risk because they are the youngest when they start school.

The real issue is when children who are both summer born and a little behind developmentally aren't allowed the flexibility to start school a year later as they are in almost every other developed country in the world. This has also been illustrated to significantly reduce symptoms of ADHD particularly in young boys and has had no detrimental affects. Clear cut.

My DS ia Yr 3 now, and August born. We wanted to keep him back but weren't able to. By the end of Foundation, he was visibly behind a friend's child who was born 6 weeks later, so about to go into Foundation. In Yr 3 they're still not sure if he has LDs or is just young for his age.

If there are any LDs, they can't test until 7, meaning the September born kids in the class get tested the academic year before the August borns, giving them even more of a bloody advantage than they had just by being alive for 20% longer when they started. Keep your twins a year down if you can. (as a mother to this DS and as an August born twin who should have arrived in October - my sister and I could also have done with the option of staying back a year but it sure as hell wasn't an option in the early 80s.)

Good luck.

I have twins who have just started reception. They were 7 weeks prem, 2 weeks in SCBU and their birthday is at the very end of August.

I seriously considered holding them back a year but decided not to as they got into a lovely little school

They've settled in very well and seem very happy. At the moment there doesn't seem to be much difference to the others in their class. So Basically so far so good.

I would add that had I not got them into their lovely school I would have held them back and re applied as I didn't want to risk losing their place.

I had spoken to the council admissions team and found them very approachable and sympathetic and they said if I wanted to hold them back just let them know after the school places were awarded.

Good luck, its very stressful making the right choice

Hi,

Just reading this with great interest and have also put a separate thread out. I have twins and was thinking to hold them back however I'm impacted by having poor schools nearby. I'd definitely be on a waiting list for the better ones and was thinking whether to not defer, hopefully get a place mid year in one of the nice schools. Just seems a big risk to take .

Has anyone out there done the same?

My twins didn't go to school for reception, they started in year 1. They're May born (were 5 weeks early) so not late summer babies, but I felt they weren't ready for school in reception.

They're 12 now, doing really well in secondary and in the top sets for most subjects. I don't feel it has held them back in any way.

I'm not sure on any new rules on sending children into reception a year late though. I was happy that mine were ok starting in year 1.