Deferring summer borns- your experiences please.

[JoeGargery]

Hello
I have had approval to defer my summer born almost 4 year old such that he starts reception at 5 and one month.
Those who have done this, have you found any downsides?
FWIW he’s very independent and bright. I don’t doubt he’ll cope. I’m just struggling to see any advantage to starting school so young if he can start later.
I’ve been told he can continue in the adopted year group throughout school and can have funding to stay in nursery another year.
WWYD?

@howwud As I read it, the summer born children in that article then started in year 1 in their “correct” year group, rather than starting reception as the oldest in their year. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that after one year of school they didn’t test well against those who had done two years.

It's a life advantage to be the youngest in your year.

I was in that situation and it has benefited me time and time again to professionally be the same level as others nearly a year older. It also gives you a greater flexibility later in life - you can have a gap year or a year sabbatical without dragging you away too far from your educational cohort.

Please don't defer your child - it's much better to be the youngest in the year than the oldest in the long run.

@BazaarMum @morepeasinapod

Not my experience of reception - all play until Christmas followed by a slow ramping up to year 1. It sounds like your schools have very poor reception classes. Parents should reject schools that do tables in year R it would send a message.

This thread is interesting in so many ways. Where I live there is a lot of flexibility in starting school. They need to start the year they turn 6 but 'may' start if they turn 5 by end of April (1/4 of the way into the school year).

All my children will finish school aged 18. The two born in summer holidays could both be in the year above but both are, in my view, best where they are. I'm incredibly relieved that we could make the choice.

Yes, there is a 16m gap between the eldest children and the youngest, but it tends to work out. And of course some children hit puberty much earlier or later than the majority of their peers. But it isn't always the oldest kids who mature first.

Why should DC who are good at maths and interested in numbers not do tables in YR? I know DC who could read paragraph books in YR and fully understand them! Yes, they were very bright but why should they have a dumbed down curriculum? They have needs too and their development, learning and stimulation is vital to them! Please don’t assume all YR children cannot be ahead of the curve. Bright DC have needs too! One is a need not to be bored!

@howwudyufeel

Actually it doesn't. As a PP has said, the children in that article went straight into Yr 1.

The DofE review of their cited aricles is astonishingly poor. The issue is complex and none of these complexities are adressed. The cited aritcles contain severe methodological flaws, acknowledged by their authors but not mentioned in the analysis, which make the DofE's conclusions invalid.

The Department's assertion that,' the evidence of the effect of deferring is mostly neutral or negative.' is purely subjective; and 'deferring is associated with significant costs' is conjecture. Only a small sample of the very large body of research on this topic has apparently been considered.

IMO this is a remarkably poor analysis of the issue, unworthy of a government department.

I dont understand the arguments about sports teams or puberty.

Puberty takes place in a wide window of ‘normal’, so just because my July son is 6 weeks older than the sept born child in his class it is by no means a given he will tower over them.

And can someone explain about sports teams? If they go on year group, the child stays with the year group, if they go on age then the year is split in half anyway isn’t it? Eg my June born daughter competes with children born in her year of birth, which excludes all those born in the autumn term of her school year...

We did it, no regrets. He was so much readier at 5 plus a week. He spent an extra year at an outdoor preschool having a lovely time. I can’t imagine him being in Y1. He struggles a bit socially - nothing diagnosed but it was right for him. There is no noticeable age difference between him and his friends.

Rumboogie If you are saying that a government report is flawed then fair enough. I would always assume that such things are researched properly but so be it.

As for puberty, there are huge differences but in my experience when you get a class of 12 years olds with one child who is nearly 14 the difference seems huge. I can honestly say that I have seen it become an issue for these teenagers at this stage as they become different to their classmates and self-conscious as a result. A lot of the kids who are summer born do seem to catch up by the time it comes to their GCSEs but yes, this is anecdotal.
As for teams there are strict rules about age groups so a boy who wants to join the same football team his friends play for on Saturdays wouldn’t be able to.

I have an August born child starting in reception at compulsory school age (ie at just turned 5 not 4).

Very glad we made that decision. She’s had an extra year to play, develop, learn in her own way and grow in confidence.

My main motivation for starting her at compulsory school age is that I feel children have too much pushed on them too soon. Eg there is some research to suggest that we should be teaching them to read older, not younger. Otherwise although they can recognise symbols and learn what words look like, their language part of their brain is not developed enough for interpretation.

For those saying it does them no harm to be the youngest, statistically it does. Autumn borns outperform summer borns throughout all of school (the gap narrows in later years but never disappears), that gap stays throughout their whole lives.

MrsCog when were your DC in Reception? It has changed a great deal, even in the last two years so much more structured. The school isn’t ‘poor’, it’s outstanding.

However I dearly wish they were not doing times tables etc. and were just playing.

If they are disadvantaged during primary school I can understand why parents worry, but one day these dc will be doing GCSE and A levels at which stage things even out and intelligence and hard work are more important.

For pp who asked about sport teams, it matters because they are usually based on the academic year rather than calendar year. For example, to play football for an under 9s team in the 2018/2019 season, you need to have been under 9 years old on 31 Aug 2018.

I see, about sports teams. It so happens that none of my children have been involved in sports where they used academic year cut offs. And TBH as we are at a mixed age primary school my kids are in classes of children age 5-7 for one, and 8-11 for the other, so we always know a mix of kids when we see them at extra curriculars.

14 yr olds in a class with 12 yr olds! - that's stretching it a bit!

My Dc if deferred would have started school, in reception, when aged just 6 (in mid Aug), joining children who would have their 6th birthdays in Sept and Oct ie just 2-4 weeks younger. They would have been in a class of their own cohort, many their own contemporaries almost exactly, some 6 or 7 months younger, at most a year, but none 2years younger!

It’s funny about puberty, as that was a reason my August born DH was keen to defer our son! He was a late developer & hated being the smallest squeaky voiced little boy at a macho sports focused boarding school. So the opposite experience really.

I agree. My DC is only a few weeks older than several close friends!

Swimming was always a calendar year when I did it - my sister had to swim for the age group above someone a few weeks younger. I guess it depends what sport you end up doing.

The fact is they all catch up academically in the end anyway.

Absolute rubbish. Do you have evidence for that?

As a secondary school teacher I have anecdata only but anecdata gathered over trees and years which seems to suggest that the younger the children start the poorer they perform. There are, of course, exceptions to this.

As for the example of boys towering over other boys and some being interested in Leno and others girls - that happens anyway. There is a hugely diverse spread across year groups physically, even amongst children with the same birth month. In terms of academic ability and confidence, if you have any concerns at all, I would defer.

Years and years ... there is no magic anecdata tree 🤷🏿‍♀️ 🤣

@Rumboogie in Ireland that is the norm in my dd’s Class the eldest turns 7 in feb and the youngest turns 6 in July so yes when they are in their final year of primary school. The eldest will be 13 finishing and the youngest will still be 11 when finishing. The average age for leaving primary here is 12.5

fAtandshattered it’s common sense that they catch up. Differences in age have less importance as we get older. Other factors such as intelligence and effort come into play. All 18 year olds are not cleverer than all 17 year olds.

I said nearly 14 year olds.

August boy

Awful reception
Ok year 1
Good year 4
Very good year 3
Exceptional year 4

Now has a full scholarship to an outstanding private prep for year 5 and 6 on the basis of his incredible maths and sport.

Many schools that are there own admissions authority, eg my most popular local (non selective school) and superselective grammars, still won’t admit DC out of their “correct” year group who started reception out of year group.

Tbh loopy i think that is interesting as they are then saying being older is cheating, because they will do better. And grammars do make mark adjustments to try to even out the SB disadvantage.
So in cohort although disadvantaged they have to put up with whatever calculation the grammar decide to give them which doesnt corrrect the compounded disadvantage as fewer SB still get in.
The disadvantage is still there at gcses and alevel because they get stuck in lower sets.
Little things like needing more sleep.