Deferring by an entire year - what were your experiences?

[xkr]

Hello,

Our son was born early July 2020 and is due to start reception in September this year. I've seen some info about how the month you were born can have a pretty significant impact on outcomes later in life. We're in the process of applying for primary schools and this was mentioned, and it's something we're giving some consideration to... as I can see it the main positives could be:

• he gets an extra year doing fun things as a child
• will likely find school much easier academically
• will likely find sports much easier
• likely higher chance of getting into grammar school if he wants to
• emotionally & physically will be more ready for school
• will potentially have an extra year of education by the time he does his GCSEs etc
• will be more mature and more ready to learn
• 1 year closer in school age to his one year old brother
• could help him socially

And the negatives could be:

• he gets one less year as an adult (one less year earning before retirement?)
• my friends think he might get teased/bullied
• we probably won't get any nursery funding this year, and possibly not even a place
• might feel awkward/out of place to be the oldest and deferred
• could hinder him socially

I don't think it's clear cut, and there are loads of things I've no doubt overlooked... was wondering if anyone had any thoughts please? Thank you :)

great to hear this! Do you mind me asking, What’s an ehcp / how do you obtain one and what is the interaction with delayed csa start?

The EHCP is an Education Health Care plan. He has it due to a disability and illness that we didn't know about when we delayed him at age five. We applied for it a few years ago with our senco as he needs quite a lot of support and will need even more at high school. It basically make it a legal requirement for the school to follow it and if the ignore his plan, will be acting illegally. It ensures he gets the support he needs. We were able to name the school most suitable for him and he has to be given a place. The did not, however, have to keep him in his year group, but we wrote last year to the high schools we felt would suit him asking if they'd be happy to keep him in his current year, without disclosing his needs at that point, as advised by admissions, and all were happy to. We could then go from there in ascertaining which would best suit him, as we knew we wouldn't have to fight for another delay and already had it" in the bag" as it were.

Apologies for the typos, faulty keyboard!

i might get lambasted for saying this but boys are different than girls. and yes an august girl might sail along and thrive but boys not so much, the last birthday boys are more likely to be diagnosed with adhd (i suspect because they are immature).
Kindergartners Born in August More Likely to Be Diagnosed with ADHD (additudemag.com)
of course all children are different but the negative impact of being the smallest boy, not picked for teams and struggling with certain skills can't be denied.
in my experience my bf son was the youngest of the young played the class clown and due to immaturity was somewhat outside of his class friendship group 6 months of the year. developed a dislike for school well into his adult years.
my grandson born in mid august began school during the first covid year, did not do well with online provision, or parental direction. prior to an adhd diagnosis, his parents held him back and had him repeat year 2 (private school no issue with this) he is striving and blossoming partially due to lots of PE sessions at his school and improved social skills.

I didn't do schooling in the UK, but my entry was deferred because of when my birthday was and some aptitude tests, my DM swears that it was the best thing for me, obviously I know no different. I quite enjoyed being the oldest in the year. DH on the other hand was schooled in the UK and has a July birthday, he often talks about how he wasn't developed enough (emotionally, mentally) to tackle the various milestones as he moved through school and wishes he'd have had the opportunity to be deferred.

My twins were born early in the month of June. ( due date was beginning of August)
They are now 20.
We deferred them.
There was also another boy in their year who deferred as he was born the end of August.

Mine were definitely not ready for school.
They were never bullied, it wasn’t ever a problem. Just things like sports competitions. You can’t compete in the under 15s with the rest of your year if you’re not. But this never bothered them they just jumped up a year for competitions.

Other than that, nothing. I should say I have no idea whether any schools have issues as mine went private.

If you feel your dc isn’t ready I’d go with your instincts.

Having a child who is youngest in his year at high school I wish we had had the option to defer. He’s always been fine throughout primary and academically it’s not a problem, but as preteen being youngest and smallest (he’s always been on the small side and being a year younger than some isn’t helping) is really knocking his confidence . He’s struggling with friendships and can’t deal with general level of nastiness and competition - best computer, branded clothes, girls etc - that’s suddenly all around him.

This is so non-sensical as to be absurd 😂 perhaps if you’d had that extra year of education you’d make more sense :)

Remember that the studies look at the population as a whole, but you are making a decision for your individual child. I would have loved to have my early october born child advanced, I think it might have set her up differently to have been challenged by school a bit sooner. July born DS was tall and there would have been difficulties from this had he been in the year below. Interestingly, he had two close friends, one late August and the other early September. It was the September born one, nearly a year older than the other two, who was the small one.

The points at which maturity seemed to have the most signficance for DS were year 1 (class clown for a bit), year 6/7 - applying for 13+ senior schools and not really being ready, and year 12/13 making university applications, again, not really being ready for the decision making involved. However this is a highly academic young man now at oxbridge. Supporting him through some of these challenges has probably been more successful than the alternative of coping with a bored child more than ready to move on might have been. And the height he was in year 7, he would have stuck out badly to have still been in year 6 at that point.

I would hope that some of the potential problems for deferring summer borns, eg post 16 education provision, will be sorted in the next few years as the cohort where deferral has become more common start to move through (I think the eldest of these are lower secondary right now). I would worry less about these if you are making deferral decisions now than I might have done say 6-8 years ago.

You are really basing your opinion on school readiness and the ability to deal with the disadvantages of being summer born throughout one’s school career on height!?!?

Sorry but do you realise you sound like a bit of a bully… children come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They don’t ‘stick out’ if they’re tall unless you’re an unpleasant person looking for something to focus on, or is it jealousy about yours or your child’s physical inadequacies!?

Not sure if I’ve read any studies about September and October borns getting bored at school; perhaps you should look into setting up a campaign to argue they should all skip a school year to avoid sticking out for being too tall!?! ridiculous.

Oh I'm sorry that wasn't at all where I was coming from!! I was a young-in-year and bored at school (not UK), also very tall so usually people thought I was about 3 years older than I actually was. I started school having just started to speak and with poor balance and gross motor skills, having had severe glue ear. Somehow I had also learned to read. I have always said I was good at all the wrong things, and hopeless at all the right things, at least for where I grew up. I was bullied beyond belief in primary for one thing and another, and remember classmates being gleeful in year 6 when some older girls passed my height - trivial, sure, but that was my experience.

Difficulties from being tall - sticking out, being a target, being expected to behave as if you were the age people guess rather than your real age. People always forgot my son was "only" 5 or "only" 6 when he could pass as 7 or 8 in some contexts and then his judgement or behaviour let him down by being age-appropriate! Later on - he was almost 6 foot when he was 12, as his father had also been.

Personally I am not a fan of strict lock-step age based schooling full stop. But that's a slightly different issue. If you have a bright child who is small they will be treated differently to one who is tall, and may encounter disadvantage when trying to access opportunities for extension. If you have a less capable child who is tall it may be difficult to get them accepted in a younger peer group if others worry they are "too big" to be playing with their friends. Lots of different factors to take into account when deciding on school start, and I only tried to illustrate our experience to give those whose summer-born children seem partly school-ready the confidence to decide for the child they actually have rather than "it's better for any child to defer".

My son was born in August 2 months earlier than expected as he was premature.

We didn’t defer.

We did move abroad when he was 3 so he had to learn a new language.

We moved back to the UK when he was 9.

He passed his driving test four months after turning 17.

He has just started a medical degree 3 weeks after he turned 18.

He would hate to have been kept behind a year.

There is another thread highlighting how a child who was kept behind was not going back to year 13 when they turned 18 as he felt so isolated being over a year older than all his classmates.

Each child is different but it’s not always positive to be a year behind your cohort.

Sorry didn’t mean to use the word bully if you yourself experienced horrible bullying - as a fellow tall person with tall kids I am just sensitive to people making comments about height as it feels like one physical trait that people seem to think is ok to comment on but wouldnt dream of calling a child short or fat etc.

We came at it from the other way to you; which was that we reasoned our kids will be head and shoulders taller than any class they’re going to be in (we really are a very tall family) and this is precisely why we didn’t want the summer born having unfair expectations of him based on height alone. It’s easy to assume taller kids can take it, especially boys and we wanted to equip him with the confidence to handle himself which we thought was more likely as the oldest than the very youngest where his exterior wouldn’t match his interior.

The problem with being ‘school ready’ is that my tall 2 year old would qualify; she can dress herself, feed herself, is potty trained, can write her name beautifully, can count to 20 etc etc but emotionally and socially she’s still only 2! No one would suggest we apply for her to skip 2 years and start now. The data suggests the disadvantage follows kids throughout their life so even if they can do those things (my eldest summer born could too), I still wouldn’t let that put me off from using the data to ultimately help me decide. But I do just think you have an instinct / you either know they would benefit from another year or you confidently know they’ll cope despite the disadvantage. So in that sense I do agree that it shouldn’t be a blanket thing

there’s always one who has an august born who is now a doctor/lawyer/Olympic athlete who would have HATED to be ‘held back’. There’s so much in your post that’s wrong; why would a summer born taking advantage of the scheme be ‘over a year older than everyone in the class’? Surely they’d be merely weeks, even days older than the oldest? As opposed to nearly a year younger? They’re a year older than the very youngest; but the stats show fewer kids are born in the summer so actually they’re closer in age to the kids closer in age to them anyway.

And your example of the random 18 year old who didn’t want to do sixth form…. They didn’t have summer born deferrals until recently so that 18 year old will have had their own unique set of circumstances if they were held back a year. The data is clear that the you’re less likely to get into a Russel group Uni and do well academically so if you ARE worried about your child dropping out of school and not being focused on getting the grades then all the more reason to let them start with the benefit of the extra year development that the majority of their peers will have had.

This.

I always find it strange people talk about their children's achievements so much in terms of academic/financial achievements.

I'm not disinterested in that but I'm far more interested in my children's emotional wellbeing, happiness, enjoyment of childhood etc.

The evidence is clear, summerborns are disadvantaged compared to their autumn born peers. Of course there are individual exceptions.

My six year old is the youngest in the year and doing great. I really thought about deferring and I am now glad we didn't.

I think if they are bright and you defer they can become lazy and bored at school because everything is too easy. Don't underestimate how important being challenged is for personality development - coming first all the time is not good for you when you get older!

So if they are bright I would say don't defer.

Hi,
I realise this is an old thread but just wondering what you ended up doing? Hold back a year or not?

I think you have to do what you feel is best for your child. No one can tell you what is best.

there wasn’t the option for me with my August born. If there would have been I would have deferred- he was tiny, not as physically or academically able and behind with speech. In wales (my county anyway) they begin school at 3 for half days. I felt like I was sending a baby to school although it’s play based until year 3 so not too bad.

son is now 13 and year 9. He’s the tallest boy in the year and plays football inside and outside of school with his classmates. He would have had to be on a different team if deferred and this group of friends is hugely important to him. Hes also in top sets and doing really well academically. I’m really glad I didn’t defer him and he always says he’s glad he wasn’t born 2 weeks later and in the year below. Obviously I’ll never know what it would have been like deferring him- maybe I’d be saying I’m so glad I did because either way it would have worked out well for him?

if you defer and years down the line regret it can your child move up to their chronological age group? This would maybe be easier than moving them down if you didn’t defer and wish you had