Late summer born boys

[Oilyvoir]

Has anyone got one who went on to do well?

I parent my 5 year old grandson. He is in Y1 and will be 6 at the end of July making him practically the youngest in the year. I've always parented him and whilst he has some issues understanding his background with his mum whom he sees often, I don't feel he has major emotional issues. His behaviour is fine at school if a little wriggly on the carpet. He is in a class with ALOT of girls, many of whom are Autumn born and so almost a year older than him.

From being a tiny baby, he was always ahead on the development charts - saying his first word at 8 months (recorded and on FB so I know the exact date), combining words at 13 months and conversational by 20 months. At this time children's services were involved and we had a lot of health visitor contact and she mentioned how well he was doing in all her reports so not just me being a doting granny. Nursery also picked up on his advanced development and moved him to the toddler room and then the preschool room early. His final nursery assessments just before he went to a school based nursery class put him as being a year ahead in speech and language and the maths strands. At the end of his nursery year he was similarly exceeding expectations in speech and language and maths. He was also reading CVC words from the middle of his nursery year

I thought school would be a breeze but it has not been. He has struggled with writing which has shaped the schools view of him. It has been a constant struggle to get them to have high expectations of him. School have him on orange book band books which is average I guess for a Y1 child at this time of the year (he reads turquoise at home) but for a late summer born boy who is still only 5, this must be better than average. He is never given access to the more challenging maths work he is capable of because he is slow and never gets that far. I can see him loosing interest and the effort of keeping up is hard for him.

Yes I do have high hopes for him and am a teacher myself but I do not push him. I insist he reads everyday and I read to him and most days we do a few mental maths questions which he loves. He is a sporty kid and loves his trampoline, hoverboard and bike. Is mad into minecraft at the moment.

I guess I'm just wanting some reassurance from parents of late summer born boys that it does eventually come good and they can and do reach their early potential.

I have one. He is doing his A-levels now - I think it evens out as they got older - an almost year difference is huge when they are 4 but so much smaller when they are 16.

DH’s boss (who is younger than him!) and super intelligent and successful has an august birthday so that’s a good example of someone for whom a summer birthday clearly hasn’t held him back! My own DS has a summer birthday. He’s only in yr6 at the moment so I can’t give you a full perspective but academically his younger age hasn’t held him back in the slightest. I would say it has socially but that’s partly because as well as being a lot younger than most of the boys in his year, he’s a lot smaller so much less able to compete at physical endeavours. I think he’s quite threatened by the older boys and it has a knock on effect on his confidence.

Mine is only in year 8 but so far he’s doing brilliantly! He was definitely one of the weaker ones at writing and concentration for the first couple of years but beginning of year 2, so just 6, everything seemed to just click and he progressed hugely.

He’s been to a few different schools and has always settled well and coped, so far it’s not been a disadvantage at all to be one of the youngest.

DS2 mid July birthday. Always seemed bright intellectually, but perhaps not emotionally/socially. Primary KS1 and KS2 SATS good but not exceptional. Secondary school seemed not to recognise ability until after GCSE results. Went to large high achieving SFC, did not stand out.
Great A level results, got into med school at first attempt, now qualified doctor F2.
So yes it does come good, but I do think the family support and encouragement are a vital part of it.

That book band is great for year 1 with a term to go as the turquoise ones span year 1 and year 2. My sons reading is great but writing not so good, we actually got him a OT to help with the muscles in his hand and got him lots of games to help, has made a brilliant improvement in his writing. Motor skills in hands tend to be behind for boys and therefore it will make a difference to a summer born child.

If the school recognises that he is on orange books then I don’t think he is being defined just in his writing (clearly they are acknowledging he is a good reader). It might just be that they are chatting to you about the piece he needs to improve on.

Well done you also, sounds like it has been challenging but brilliant you are doing so well

My son was born on 31 Aug. He found writing hard but luckily we had a lovely reception teacher who didn't pressure him. He still finds things hard. Luckily he's always been pretty good at maths. He did really well in his sats and had standardized scores of 129 and he is now at a grammar. However every teacher he has ever had has always underestimated him all the way through primary. He was slow too but managed to pull it out of the bag for tests. But for most of the year they always thought he wasn't listening, though he was.

I mean end of year standardized scores, can't remember how they score the sats!

He still finds writing hard

My godson.
Aug 31st birthday. '
Top table' through primary.
Did well at secondary, played county rugby, acted and in the school orchesrtra.
Did medicine in London, came top in his years and now specialises in osteopathy, having asked for a skeleton forhis 7th birthday.
Also really lovely!

Yes. Late August birthday so started school a few days after he turned 4. He is at Cambridge now. It helped when he was at school that he has always been very mature socially and emotionally, and is very tall and sporty; teachers used to assume he was the oldest rather than the youngest in his year.

His handwriting has always been a problem (fist grip, very difficult to read, dreadful at organising his written work on the page, and far behind his other abilities) but fortunately school were great at GCSE and A-level with arranging for him to use a keyboard in exams.

DH was also a very late August baby and now has a PhD (and also has dreadful handwriting!) so I think that helped me not to worry about it too much.

My DS - August born.
Struggled throughout primary with reading/ writing and was emotionally quite sensitive and a bit immature, which was always put down to him being 'young'.

In senior school I had concerns that he wasn't 'catching up' and we had him tested and discovered he had dyslexia which he had been hiding with coping strategies well.
The extra support he got changed everything and he ended up with A*AA at A level

My jun dd was years ahead by tge endof year r easily reading lime books.
But was similar to your gc in development preschool which is why we sent her at 4.
Reception and yr 1 were very hard. As you say the lack of recognition that they are bright is hard. And behaviour expectations of a year older.
Yr r Writing was expected as was maths. And reading - despite clearly being exceptional...
By yr 1 it was exceeded for reading
Met for writing but not met for maths. As you say the speed. But also the maths is quite odd with so much focus on t and o.
By yr 2 it was exceeded for R, met for maths and writing. But a lot of help from me for maths. And passed all ks1 sats. But im convinced maths would have been much improved if not for being so young.
Yr 3 still met met exceed.
In yr 4 now and 2 years ahead of the eldest in the year for reading and top 1/4 for maths. Writing is good. But some of the year are absolutely exceptional.

I think generally clawing way up the class. But it has knocked confidence.
The maths genuinely is hard for an 8 year old. Improper fractions etc etc.

I think in a good area there will be a lot of kids in the class who talked early or read.
Plusecen if they were on time - average. An august would need to be 12m advanced to be average of a sept born.
My youngest delayed and is way behind where dc1 was. Somewhat it's lockdown where I focussed on dc1 and lack of any books. But also they struggle to retain the phonics and understand the story as well.
So overall imo a SB child is in a better position than a child with a worse memory or who doesnt get the maths.

My husband was put into school a whole year early. His mum was a teacher and I think had had enough of his smart Alec-ness at home and somehow managed to get him to start school early. And he was a sept birthday. Bizarre. It's a family joke now.
Anyway husband applied to Oxford at 16 (for entry at 17) because he went all the way through school being a year younger.
At interview he was told 'we want you but you need to mature emotionally. Please defer'. So he did. And got the highest first in his year, did a PhD and became a world expert in his geeky field.
So with. him, intellectually he was spot on but socially he was a bit out of whack until he went to Oxford at the eventual right age.
I'm also the mother of an intellectually bright boy (tho a January birthday). Went to Cambridge from crappy state school. And It sounds to me like you're doing all the right things. Reading is so so so important. We didn't hot house at all but made sure reading was loved and a priority.

Oh yes - son has awful scrawly hand writing. I pitied exam markers who got his papers!

Late-ish summer, i.e. end of June. Not a high flier at primary school but held his own. Very interested and engaged, and had an excellent vocabulary because I read to him every day (is and was less keen to read to himself). Middle set for some things when he started GCSE but now top set for everything and is doing brilliantly.

You've nothing to worry about - just keep doing what you're doing.

my eldest DC is late summer born, he has done ok at school academically (in Y3 now) but physically and socially he is definitely a lot younger than many of the boys in his year group, especially the ones who are autumn born (Sept-Oct).

Thankyou all for your lovely responses - so many heart warming stories, it really has helped!

I do think dgs has been discriminated against because of his late summer birthday resulting in wriggly behaviour and poor writing skills. I wrote on another thread about how after his first week in reception, his teacher caught me at the end of the day and said that he couldn't go into the read write group for his reading ability as he couldn't write and she refused all year to have him in the higher group even though he had been reading CVC words since the middle of his nursery year. This year he spent the whole Autumn term in the lowest ability group as the teacher didn't know what he was capable of because he was slow and reluctant to write.
Lockdown was great for him as he went to school on a keyworker place and in a smaller group with less of an emphasis on writing with a more senior member of staff teaching him, all of a sudden they've begun to notice what he is capable of and he has been catapulted to the second to top group.

Like a poster up thread said, I think it will be a case of clawing his way up the class over several years.

Hey - this is a really, really common issue that usually sorts itself out with maturity. I teach Year 1 - I am forever seeing kids whose reading ability is higher than their writing ability at this age. For young, wriggly kids in particular, writing is tedious. It requires a lot of sitting still, a lot of gross and fine motor coordination and time and patience. In my experience, children of 5 and 6 years old do not always have these things in spades...YET. It is frustrating for them. Writing is low and dull. Maths is black and white, right or wrong, faster, and often there is no need to write in order to show your ability. Same with reading - if you've got the early skills down, reading becomes enjoyable quite quickly.

He'll get there. It really does even out in the end.

I have a late summer born DS. His writing was behind when he was in Reception. The thing that really helped was the teacher giving him fat pencils to use (really quite thick) and making him play regularly with plasticine and play dough to get the muscles in his hands used to finer movements. He did brilliantly after this.

The above stories are all anecdotes. It’s been statistically shown that it’s not great to be a summer born (I’m one) in the uk education system.

Here’s my anecdote: life would have been a lot easier if I’d been born a month later, possibly more from a physical point of view. Things like when you develop physically - this matters when you are a child. Or looking younger as a teen (because you are!), this matters. How good you are at sport - depends on early confidence /application, that is the result of being older. Of course, you can be the youngest in the year and great at sport, develop early, be terribly mature, get the best grades... but statistics demonstrate the shortfalls (of course, because you are younger, as above!)

Having said all this, I excelled academically by the time I got to a levels, and erm, I’m not sure I look particularly young any more ;-), so I think it does even out. The main thing is that you are clearly an empathetic career who is aware of the potential issues (I didn’t have one of those). He’ll be ok, he’s got your support at home. This is probably the biggest thing for any child - arguably more than anything else, including age relative to others.

Jumpalicious I was just reading this & thinking the same - DH is August & it worked out fine (he’s a doctor so I guess that means it worked out fine?!) but he says it just would have been better throughout his schooling if he had been in the year below.

We held our wriggly July DS back a year, he could be in Y1 but he’s in Reception. Early days but don’t regret it at all. However I also have a June DD who is excelling at secondary school having really bloomed in junior school. Statistically not all summerborns catch up in the end, but plenty do.

I have a mid July boy who is in year 2, age 6. He does struggle with writing a bit, his concentration was poor in reception until the school sight test, turns out he is long sighted abs reading, writing and concentration improved since he got his glasses. Since coming back to school after the last lockdown a lot of things seem to have clicked for him, his writing is much better although he is still a bit wriggly on the carpet! Although our school are great and he has been in a TA led OT support group called funky fingers for a while now which has really helped. But none of his other work, maths, reading etc has been penalised for poor writing at all.

Reception and y1 to some extent are about evening up the skills, so a great reader will be expected to work on writing and no wouldnt be fair to put in higher group if cant write to that standard. Dont worry to much they usually even out by y3 if bright but young. He just needs to work on writing which is really common at this age and especially boys. Lots of fine motor skills- play dough, pegs etc will help.

@Jumpalicious

The above stories are all anecdotes. It’s been statistically shown that it’s not great to be a summer born (I’m one) in the uk education system.

Here’s my anecdote: life would have been a lot easier if I’d been born a month later, possibly more from a physical point of view. Things like when you develop physically - this matters when you are a child. Or looking younger as a teen (because you are!), this matters. How good you are at sport - depends on early confidence /application, that is the result of being older. Of course, you can be the youngest in the year and great at sport, develop early, be terribly mature, get the best grades... but statistics demonstrate the shortfalls (of course, because you are younger, as above!)

Having said all this, I excelled academically by the time I got to a levels, and erm, I’m not sure I look particularly young any more ;-), so I think it does even out. The main thing is that you are clearly an empathetic career who is aware of the potential issues (I didn’t have one of those). He’ll be ok, he’s got your support at home. This is probably the biggest thing for any child - arguably more than anything else, including age relative to others.

I think you have a point. It's lovely that there are so many good news stories here but they may well be outliers.

Another anecdote too - a very errrr focussed mum I knew when I lived in SW London had three boys. All born in October. She admitted she and her husband planned old-for-their-year children because she had read that being young wasn't good.

BIL is mid-August born, has a PhD and will probably get a MBE one day for his work in the public sector, so yes, he's done all right!