If the expectations were so low that every child met them then they would be meaningless. It's not a surprise that the youngest boys who aren't even 5 when they are 'graded' are more likely to not meet the expectations.
I disagree. The EYFS assessment is not a test to be passed or failed, to distinguish between the clever kids and the not-so-clever ones.
A child that does not meet 'expected' standards is said to not have a 'good level of development'. They are not where they are meant to be, developmentally, at their age. That indicates that there is a problem.
5 months fall between April and August, so 5 out of 12 children are summer-born - and over one in three of these do not meet the expected standards for writing.
Are all these tens of thousands of children 'behind', are they 'not where they ought to be', developmentally?
Or is it perhaps more likely that the majority of these children are exactly where they ought to be, according to their age, but they are being assessed against a standard applicable to older children?
Delaying all summer borns WOULD solve this issue. If you keep the 'expected' standards the same, but only assess children against the standard who have actually reached the age for it, you will have a lot fewer children not meeting the standard simply due to being too young.
Or you could put the standard down to what a normally developing 4.9 year old would be expected to achieve. That means about 95% of 4.9 year olds should achieve that.
Lots of children would obviously be able to achieve a lot more than what 95% of 4.9 year olds could achieve. For instance, most of the kids that are 5.9 at the time of assessment. And I gather that people worry that the more advanced/older children in a year group will be 'held back', 'restricted in their potential', if the teaching and assessment is structured to fit the younger and/or less mature (but still within the range of 'normal' in a statistical sense) children in the year group.
But look at it like this: What is worse:
Letting a September born child make mudpies and run around outside when they could be learning to read, write and add.
(If they want to do 'academic' stuff, the resources are there. When they start being taught in earnest, a year or two later, they will pick it up super quickly. Meanwhile they will have had a lot of fun and unmediated experiences to underpin their later learning.)
or
Making an August born child attempt again and again to do things they are not developmentally ready for, cheating them of the time/opportunity to be making mudpies and running around outside, and then telling them/their parents that they 'don't meet age related expectations' because they can't do the things that older kids can. Teaching the child that school is confusing and difficult, that reading is a chore, and writing hurts and 'is not for me'.
The range between statistically normal for a 5yo vs statistically normal for a 4 yo is huge. Unless you split the year group, you will always be either over-challenging the youngest, or not teaching the oldest as much as they would be capable of learning. I know which option I prefer, as being better for all children. People need to get away from the idea that if a child is capable of learning something (e.g. to read), they must learn that immediately or they are being let down. There is no harm whatsover in delaying the teaching for a year. (Which is not to say a child should be stopped/questions not answered etc). It might even be better, developmentally, for many children, to spend their time as a 5 year old doing different things than reading, writing and maths even when they are capable to do these things.