Has anyone delayed their child starting school?

[MumOfAToddler26]

DS was born in May so when he starts school he will be 4 and 3 months.
Has anyone delayed starting their child at primary school because they were one of the younger ones in the year?
I wasn't planning on doing so but just wondered if anyone had and if it was beneficial or if there child was younger to start and got in just fine 🙂

With a May birthday, there is likely to be 7 or 8 children younger in the class (unless you are in Northern Ireland).

Oh that's good to know thank you. It's all new to me 🤣 And would there be even younger children than that?

Gosh I don't even count May as being young in the year. I have one born very late July and one very late August - they both started at the correct time, with no real issues with learning at all.

Check the FB group "Flexible School Admission for Summer Borns". I'm preparing my application based on the wealth of information in there. It really depends on the child though - plenty of people tell me "my child was fine" and I have no reasons not to believe them,
but mine is severely speech delayed because of bilingualism and far from independent, so I'm trusting my gut rather than an opposing NHS speech therapist who only sees him for half an hour online sessions every couple of months.

I turned 4 at the end of July and started in September. As a direct result of that, my ds has just started school aged 5 and a half (I'm now in Scotland). He could have gone last year and would have been the youngest in his small class by around 4 months, he's now the oldest by 3 weeks. It was absolutely the right decision for us. Our biggest factors were class size, the intake last year was tiny and ds's speech issues. He's grown up so much over the past 12 months. Will definitely vary on the child though. I had a academic issues in early/mid primary school but by secondary was in the top stream for everything so I caught up.

My son has just started year one and his best friend in his class turned 5 on 10th August! You wouldn't really know he was younger x

Delayed until January -

I used the part-time option for my son through reception. Then in year 1 had to move him so he did flexi schooling having Fridays off for years 1 and 2. It hasn't seemed to effect him academically being part-time, he has still done well, so I would recommend the part-time option for reception for summer borns.

I’m a huge advocate of starting at compulsory school age, the term after your child turns 5. We deferred our DD. She’s an April born and simply wasn’t emotionally ready and suffered crippling separation anxiety. SO SO pleased we did. For us there was a huge difference between 4 and 5 Most people seem very anti deferring because it isn’t ‘the norm’ but you know your child best.

There is a wonderful support group on Facebook and you’ll find a wealth of info on there and lots of people who are trying to defer or have deferred for lots of different reasons.