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?

Where can I find details if my local borough allow this?

Would my daughter then have any issues going into secondary school or being able to sit the 11+?

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.

Absolutely not common sense. Children are pigeonholed and set and streamed and judged in education from near enough the moment they walk through the door. Whether that is right or wrong that's what happens. These experiences create a path from which it is exceptionally difficult to deviate. What makes you think they catch up?

@BazaarMum 2 years ago and DC2 about to start. The school is the best performing i our county and has managed to implement the Gove curriculum whilst maintaining a wonderful relaxed ethos. Maybe we’re just super lucky. I do think the school should let others know their success!

With regards to 11+ testing, in Bucks then according to their website you will need additional reasons as to why they can be tested out of year other than just being young.

I would imagine this would include some sort of proof of educational or social need for the delay as opposed to you just wanted to so they have a competitive advantage.

I do absolutely agree with deferring for the right reasons and previous posters have shared some very good ones. However, OP says her child is bright and should cope with school. I doubt that would cut the mustard with Bucks council and the child would need to sit the 11+ in their normal year (so Y5). It is definitely important to look at options at 11 or 13 and ensure you are not creating further problems.

For anyone looking for more info about Reception start at compulsory school age (CSA), this Facebook group is invaluable:
www.facebook.com/groups/121613774658942/

Really interesting discussion - this topic has been on my mind as currently expecting DC2 at the very end of August, so will either be the very youngest (if born early / on time) or the very oldest (of overdue) in the class. Simultaneously looking at schools for 3 year old DS (who was born in early summer) so schools have been on my mind!

A few thoughts on some of the issues discussed:

It is probably worth investigating the policies within your own LA very carefully. In my LA, sports / inter-school extracurriculars are all by your "correct" academic year - so if you deferred you would have to do these with the year above rather than with your own school year. Similarly, if you move schools (and when you start secondary school), you are automatically put into the "correct" school year and have to make a special application to stay in the year in which you have been educated to date. Apparently this LA prefers to move people into their "correct" year when possible, so you would risk having a child who had to go straight from Year 5 into secondary (or straight from Year 6 into Year 8). Remember as well that these policies could well change during the time that your child is at school (and may obviously be very different if you move LA).

For those who have commented that in other countries children start school much later - this is certainly true (neither DH nor I are originally from the UK, and both of us started school at around 6) but it is important to remember that the nature of the first year of school is different as well. In my home country, where most children are 6 when they start school, in the first year you go straight into sitting in rows at desks doing academic subjects pretty much all day - very, very different to what I have seen of Reception in the schools that I have visited for DC1, which seems to be mostly play-based.

Overall, from my research and the situation within my particular LA, I don't think that I would defer a child who seemed ready for school, because it would cause a lot of administrative issues and possible skipping of a year later on in their school career. Individual circumstances matter - but you have to consider not just the circumstances of you and your child but those of your LA as well.

Imo im not too concerned with the threat to skip a year as i think
If schools do this they will quickly face legal action

• it is obviously not in a child's best interest to miss a year
• the gov acknowledge that SB children are disadvantaged and that is without missing a year
• it is not a child's fault that their parent has made this decision but missing a year will impact them
• the intention when making these changes isnt for them to catch up later.

The documents do say the kids could be moved up later but only if it is their best interests so assume that means if they arent being stretched. However i do feel not all summer borns need to delay and it would be quite annoying for a teacher if the parent then complained the kid was always bored

I deferred my son for one year and have not regretted it for a second. He was absolutely not ready to start at just 4. He is happy and popular with friends throughout his class and also in the year above. Academically he’s where he should be. Feel free to dm me.

Thanks, everyone.
Had an interesting discussion with a friend today who suggested I shouldn’t do this as it was exercising my middle class privilege in knowing about the choice and implementing it. He also said if everyone did it, we would then transfer the disadvantage to spring borns... I was lost by the end.

I’m not in a grammar area. I have no idea if he will be sporty. But I must admit I do worry about the possibility of enforced year skipping as it’s apparent that this does happen, unfair as it sounds.

I don’t agree about transferring disadvantages to springborns. To my mind the issue isn’t about being the youngest as much as it’s about being so young ie just turned 4 at school start where a spring baby would be 4.5 - that we just start school too early for many kids.

I wouldn’t do it for a child who is bright and able - we have two summer born boys and I’m an October baby. I’d consider it if there were concerns about speech and communication. We are finishing year R on a high - I’m not going to lie that it’s all been roses, there have been some difficult bits around friendship and I’ve had to work closely with school to make it better. Academically though he has soared, I am so proud of him. He has some emotional development to do, and has had support with this through school and ELSA but that’s something he wouldn’t have got at Nursery. His autumn born peers are just in a holding pen at nursery at the moment - I see them daily when taking my 3yo in. They’ve all been ready for school for months now.

Now on to me - I was pretty much the top of my year for my entire school career. I was so so bored, and at times put in with the year above in primary. It was hard to relate intellectually to my peers until secondary when we got the bright kids from all the local schools and my friendship pool became wider.

I agree with your friend actually. The line has to be drawn somewhere. At the moment we have the option to delay, but not really to fast forward the September babies. Children should just go in their year group unless there are mitigating circumstances beyond their birth month (prematurity, SN, speech delay etc).

My boss is a July baby and he is one of the most successful people I’ve ever met. He’s influential, famous in our field, a real high flyer. A grammar school and oxbridge graduate - birth month isn’t everything

I wonder how many posters on here have actually read any papers from the large number of studies into this?

My advice is do your own research and go from there based on your child.

There is lots of quality data out there and reading this will give you a better picture all together.

One paper I found very i interesting was this one. ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-gse-research-finds-strong-evidence-mental-health-benefits-delaying-kindergarten

Children should just go in their year group unless there are mitigating circumstances beyond their birth month (prematurity, SN, speech delay etc).

With regards to the SN bit of that statement. One thing people often forget (or are simply unaware of), is that SN are often undiagnosed before school age.

My August born DC has ASD, but this wasn’t diagnosed until about 5.5 years. The initial referral wasn’t made until after their 4th birthday, when they’d have been in Reception already if we hadn’t delayed them a year.
At the time we delayed Reception, we knew that our DC was emotionally immature, we knew they were unready for school, but we didn’t know that there was a SEN contributing to their unreadiness.

It’s really not unusual for SEN in a child to be still undiagnosed at the age of 4 or 5.

Everything these days is perceived as exercising middle class advantage. It’s not the MC’s fault that this is a postcode lottery mess that hardly anyone knows is even an option!

My view is that in our neighbouring countries summerborns have had choice of which year group to go into for years and it just isn’t a big drama.

Sure, there are always anecdotes of high flying summerborns. Good for them.

I took my YR into school this week for a parent morning and he was tearful at the change in routine, and all the extra people in the room. And he is the oldest. I again felt glad I had delayed him starting school as long as I could.

Oh and in our LA, you stay in the same year group throughout - I have a letter stating this. I appreciate this may not be the case everywhere because of the aforementioned postcode lottery (which I do not agree with).

For me it does make a huge difference that statistically they do worse. Education unfortunately is a competition against peers but also later for jobs etc. With potentially a global economy of workers. If you cant afford private school and you r state school isnt that great. I would prefer them to learn the basics when taught. How much can you remember from 4yo.?
They get into bad habits too.
I think the system needs to change so we can assess how bright/able they genuinely are. Rather than lazily label the eldest most able.
Once you get stuck in a low set or get behind you do have to put in extra effort and make greater progress but then you arent being taught the work.

The sept can apply to move up a year too.
Im torn as to whether kids should be tested every year and only move up to the next year if they passed. But can see that some kids just wouldnt pass and get stuck. Though not sure carrying on but years behind helps anyone either.

@morepeasinapod ok I take your point about SN diagnoses not being available under 4. We have a bit of that going on, but academically he seems to need the stimulation that school provides

Our June burn started reception last September aged 5yrs3months. Absolutely the best decision we've ever made! He was just too young the year before and needed that extra year at preschool to mature at his own pace rather than being pushed to do things he wasn't ready for in preparation for school. His preschool backed us 100% and our first school were in complete agreement with us that we wanted him to go in and thrive not just survive and constantly play catch up. We've just had his first school report and he's at the expected level of a reception child so not exceeding purely because he's the eldest. He's done brilliantly socially and has coped really well which I think would have been a totally different story if he'd started at 4. Statistically more summerborns, especially boys, are diagnosed with behaviour issues and disorders and get labelled as disruptive and behind, when in fact it's just that too much us being expected of them before some are ready. This can stay with them forever and taint their whole school life. Every child is different and our education system is very much one size fits all, which just doesnt work. Im so pleased there is now the option of delaying a child's start if it's right for that child. The being made to skip a year doesn't concern me at all as I don't believe for one minute that in these times where targets and test scores are more important than anything else to a school they would want a child to skip a year and possibly bring down their scores. When the DFE says 'every single day matters' how could a school say it was in a child's best interest to skip a whole year of education? They couldn't.

@JoeGargery
Hi Op, I deferred my summer born child (who is now at the end of Y1) and it was a decision I do not regret for one second. My reasons were many. I am a primary teacher myself and as sad as it is to say I know this was a factor in my decision. I know the pressures of school, even for the very youngest pupils and I did not want that for my child at such a young age. It still bothers me now how the education system is (endless testing, narrow prescriptive curriculum, I could go on....) but sticking to the subject in hand... It was a great decision and my child loves school, loves his classmates and isn’t bothered by being slightly older. As far as I’m concerned he’ll stay in the same year group all the way through primary and will go to secondary at 12. Life’s too short to worry about that. As long as they are happy. And he is.

You should go with your gut feeling. I did. What is your gut telling you?

^^June born

We start children too young anyway in this country. Most other countries around the world start formal schooling at 6/7. Its crazy here. It’s like childhood is a race. Even a nearly 5 year old is too young for the pressures in my opinion. Even if they are bright, let them learn through play for a bit longer!

I'm deferring my summer born. She will start next year at Compulsory school age and we couldn't be happier. She will be 5 and 3 weeks when she starts. I am very much looking forward to another year at home with her. Playing together, growing more emotionally. It's not holding a child back, far from it. Look at school age for most countries and you will fine we start ours at the youngest. My child's happiness is my biggest concern - anything else is a bonus.

We deferred ds(15) as he was only 10 days off the cutoff date. He is now starting S4, exam year for his Nat5s (Scottish equivalent of GCSE) and it feels like exactly the right time for him as he is mature enough and more willing to study this year than before. We hope it will be the same when he goes onto Highers and then FE.

Way back in 2008 nursery said he was more than ready to start school, we didn't overthink and, partly due to my experience being the youngest, went with our gut and gave him another year. My main reasons were based around secondary school.

Ds(15) has had a fantastic school experience the last 10 years and I have never regretted it, he knows he was deferred and he is also happy with the outcome of that decision. His friends know this too, it's common in Scotland so has never been an issue.

I know a few mums from his 2004 footie team who have dc in the same year or year above, no one else with Jan/Feb birthdays deferred and most (post exams) now wish they had.

Ds was one of the youngest in his year- already reading and writing in sentences when he started school. By year 6 was one of the tallest boys.

A friend at school was born on September 1st, if she had been born a couple of hours earlier she would have been the youngest. Out of 4 sets, with 1 being top, she was in 3 for everything.

A boy at ds’s primary started school a year later, was a lot bigger than the other children in reception and made a big deal about being ‘the oldest, and the biggest’, it all back fired when children started calling him names, things like thick, (and other names that made me think it was the parents this was coming from) because he was in a class below where he should be.

Someone has mentioned sport:- A girl that started later in a relatives primary school, was upset that she was unable to play in the same football team as the rest of the girls in her class because she was a year older, and couldn’t understand why. It was a new team, so all the girls wanted to do it, and she was the odd one out.

I have heard from teacher friends of 3 children who had to skip year 7, and go straight to year 8, as the LEA/School wouldn’t allow it (I don’t know if this is the norm?) and they had to go into their correct year group. It really messed them up, as they had missed a year of work that others had done. They all ended up in low sets, and the best GCSE grades was from one child with 1 C, 5 D’s. My friend said, if they had completed that year, they could have done well. They just couldn’t do the school work whilst trying to do what they missed. Languages,Maths, Science and English were the ones they struggled with the most, as they went from year 6 to year 8.

These are the only few examples I’ve heard since I left teaching, and I knew of none that had done it then, I do believe though that it can be very beneficial for some children. I’ve taught reception class where I’ve had a few children who struggled to go to the toilet alone (couldn’t wipe themselves, do their clothes up after, or would wee/poo over their skirt, dress or trousers), would fall asleep in the afternoon during carpet time, struggled with holding a pencil, very short attention span, struggled with speaking clearly (no speech problems just because they were young), and struggled greatly with reading, writing, and numeracy. So 🤷🏻‍♀️You do what you think will benefit your child the most. All I would say is think long and hard, if there is a possibility they will have to skip a year.

@stillworkingitout if the 4 year olds really are 'just in a holding pen at nursery' then I would strongly suggest finding your child a new nursery that actually engages and stimulates its children. The almost-5 and 5 year olds at DD's preschool are engaged and challenged. Bear in mind that Reception is mostly play based, clearly a 5 year old can be stimulated if their environment and carer are the right ones.

Arghhhh I’m really struggling to decide.

I know anecdata are just that.

I would be regarded as a summer-born high-flier. I know he would cope. He may even do exceptionally well. But is it the best thing for him?

I know no one here can answer this for me; I’m just musing.