summer-born children

[rubo001]

Children born in August, July or June, are nearly 1 year younger than autumn-born children in their class. There is evidence that they lag behind the older children not only academically, but also in sport, and are more likely to be diagnosed ADHD or to be excluded from school. Any parents of summer-born children who have encountered problems because of this? I believe that the authorities are not dealing with it at all.

Georgie
That is so relatable and I’m glad he is doing better. My son had a stammer in years Reception to 2. After the first term of year 1, I had a teacher meeting about the treatment plan for the stammer and the teacher hadn’t even noticed he had a speech impediment because she hadn’t heard him speak. Not once, in 12 weeks. 😥

My youngest is an August born. We did think about deferring and I can remember posting about it on here. I’m glad to say she’s now in Y6 and seems to have finally caught up. She enjoys sport but is possibly —a bit rubbish— less able but then I’m not very coordinated either. Just wanted to say for anyone reading that she has struggled, especially the first term, but she’s shown dogged determination and is now Head Girl. To defer or not to defer is a tough choice but our DD seems to have survived

@londonista that's quite incredible that the class teacher didn't know you child had a stammer because they hadn't heard them speak. I'd be upset if that was my child.

The scores are standardised so that 100 is the average.
So on the results you can see for the past 3 years and compare how they are doing so eg they were 120 (so above average) but this year 105 so that means either everyone else in thier birth month has caught up or your child has had an issue in that area etc
There’s several tests - literacy, maths reasoning and maths numeracy.

The only thing is I would also be interested in how my child was doing compared to thier whole year in wales just to see how well they were doing overall as essentially they will be competing with thier whole year group for uni places etc.
So DD is July born and on her tests was 120-135 across the tests which is very good compared to the average for other July born but it doesn’t show if she is above or below average for her year so could be that she is 80 overall and so below average, there’s no way to tell.

It goes the other way too. I have an autum born dd, she was easily ready for reception at 3yrs 11months and could have gone to secondary school this September (she is academically able and did literacy and maths with year 6 last year) But because of being born (late) after the school cut off. She feels she has effectively been "kept down" twice

Georgie yes I managed to swallow it in the meeting. She had heard him read twice but he didn’t stammer when he read directly from a text, only when he chose his own words.

Does your son have many friends?

The upsetting thing is that he never shuts up at home so we kind of realised at that moment that socially he was a bit excluded. Thank god he went to nursery so he was used to groups. We’ve tried to get him to play with kids from his own year group (gazillions of play dates, big bday parties etc) but he’s a bit of a fish out of water. He loves Angry Birds for instance and most of his peer group have moved on from it. He chose some school shoes that had lights in the sole, my husband thought I was mad but he really wanted them, and if he gets picked on for wearing them I’ll know because he will stop wearing them. I know it will work itself out in the end and I must stop trying to engineer his social life. He seems pretty resilient / oblivious to a lot of it, and is happy though.

It’s sounding very much like there could also be a difference in summer born girls and summer born boys.

BrieAndChilli The Welsh system doesn't sound that great to me if it can't tell you how well a child is doing compared to the whole year group. That's the main thing that I am interested as it's the thing that actually counts.

@londonista he had a big group of friends in foundation but got left behind a lot in year 1 when they grew up a bit and he didn't. For example they play football at break and he just doesn't 'get' competitive sport yet he still wants to play silly games

@londonista that's it as well I think DS is happy enough at school I project what I think he should be doing when really I should probably chill out a bit

Easier said than done isn’t it!

The flip side is he still wants to hold my hand on the walk to school. 😍

each child is an individual and subsequently some should either stay home a bit longer or have a bit more time in reception. honestly it should be a mutual decision between the parents and the school (teachers HT what ever team they wish to provide).
it boggles my mind a bit that the uk state system seems so firm on the issue.
i'm a late august born, only child (12 years apart from my younger brother) I was ready for school but I have a close friend who's son was the youngest and severely struggled with immaturity (silly comments, wiggly behavior) and was very much handicapped by his tiny stature.
my grandson is mid august born and the plan at this point is private and held back a year.
the universities and colleges i'm familiar with take young people regardless of their age...so some of this makes no sense to me.

Allowing defers at our school (Uk curric international school) means that almost third of my son's year 2 class should be a year ahead. One of the younger, non-deferred boys is a year and a half younger than the oldest in the class, and his immaturity is glaring.

Deferrals should be reserved for learning problems, rather than just kids who are summer born.

In Holland, where the formal education only starts at age 7, showed that children with autumn birthdays were more likely to go to university, while children with summer birthdays were more likely to get a technical education.

Standardisation (comparing within age bands rather than year bands) doesn't address the lack of confidence younger children develop as they struggle through learning targets that are easier for older children.

Thank you londonista, georgie262, and everyone else who has replied so far. It's clear that many summer-born children have suffered in one way or another, from nothing other than than being born late. I agree with all the people who say that there is no EASY solution, such as deferring, because it just shifts the problem to another group of children.

I do believe, however, that we need some facts in order to know exactly how serious the problem is, and this must come from schools themselves. If your child attends a selective school or an oversubscribed state school, you could ask the head for a simple breakdown of how many pupils in the school are August born, how many July born, and so on for each month. Even if you get a rebuff, that would be interesting to hear about - you could ask the school: What have you got to hide?

If there is anyone who would volunteer to do this, please share the result with me via mumsnet.

I was worried about this but DD is youngest in her class and also on top table for all subjects and doing really well so I feel less worried about it. The stats are scary though, summer babies do far worse in GCSEs etc.

Does anyone have a link to the statistics, at GCSE, say ?

Kirsty there's reports on GCSE results of summer borns but the raw data that is used doesn't seem to be published anywhere. The data at lower stage (eg KS1) is readily available.

I really don’t get how allowing people to hold their children back helps the situation. You are just making some other children the youngest in the year and passing on that disadvantage.

We have a different cut off in Scotland so the youngest age you can have a child starting school is 4.5 not 4 and a few days, and parents of the children who are the youngest in the year can defer them to the following year, so they become the oldest.

This is very common practice and it's not seen as "holding back". Parents are free to make the choice whether to send their child or not depending on the individual child. Some will do well at 4.5, others lack the emotional maturity and benefit from another year in pre-school. English/Welsh parents aren't free to make that choice really. I also think that there's some evidence that English summer born children perform, on average, more poorly up to GCSE stage.

Also as to the "someone has to be the youngest" argument, well of course someone does. But in Scotland it's the difference between the youngest starting school in August having turned 4 at the end of the previous February, or having turned 4 in the previous November/December. Those 2 or 3 months can make a lot of difference at such a young age and also later on when all of your peers are so much older and more mature sitting exams. I don't know of anyone here who has deferred their Jan/Feb child and regretted it, but plenty of parents who have sent them at 4.5 and wished they'd let them have another year in pre-school.

The statistics do show a disadvantage for the summer cohort but individuals may not be. Certainly my summer horns held their own academically but the two who were end of August were socially perhaps less confident on entry. That may have been about the move from small private nursery to class of 30 but may have been age.
I think the one who went straight in with whole class in September was better off than the one where the younger children started part time after Christmas and full time after Easter fared worse. Not only were they younger/physically smaller but they had to slot into an established group of older children who were already confident in that setting. In the slightly longer term it didn't cause any issues though and it balanced out.

In NI the cut off is the end of June, so even the very youngest starts at 4.2 instead of a day after their 4th birthday. At that age even 2 months can make a massive.diffdrence socially and emotionally.

I'm in England now and have a July child with a severe speech problem. I'm deferring her reception year start in the hope that she'll be able to talk a bit by the time she starts school.

DD1 has always been very academically able and was July born. It helped her with the 11+ as scores are weighted for age. She had just turned 10 when she took it.

There always has to be an age cut off, but there should also be some flexibility for individual needs. In DD1's case the younger ones automatically started in January at 4.5, but she was more than ready to go in the September!

I agree more with the scottish system of children starting at 4.5-5.5. My DS is july born and started reception in September. I wanted him to start next January but his pre-school advised against it so he is currently doing a 4 day week (at my request) and is under SEN due to a speech disorder. My eldest is a September born (Year 6) and could do so much more when he started school at nearly 5 (helped by 2 years pre-school rather than DS2's 1 year). He loves school, has been in top sets all the way through and just passed the 11 plus.

In quite a few sports the cut off is age as of 1 January so summer norms are at an advantage compared with autumn/winter age kids.

My summer born is physically quite advanced (from ASQs) as she's 2 and a pushy confident little beastie in groups with older kids despite being a very light build.

Andecdata alert - a large proportion of the 10+ A pupils at GCSE in my school were summer born - looking at my year's data alone you would conclude that jan-april was the worst time of year to be born for academic success!

poppy I think you are missing the point. This isn't about the age that children start school at nor is this an English problem (see previous comment about Holland). This is about Education being on a yearly basis and hence children that start together will be in terms of their development up to year apart. The impact of this year difference (on average) reduces as the children get older but does continues to have an impact right through until the age of 16 and beyond.

Deferring one child does not help, it just means another child is likely to be disadvantaged instead.

I wonder though if sometimes it actually isn't helped by teachers acknowledging summer born.
So a winter baby they'd say "she's struggling, so needs intervention" where they would say "he's a summer baby, he'll learn as he gets older" so don't intervene and so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.