Summer Born Deferred Children Excluded From Team Sports

[David88]

We are currently looking at deferring our daughter as she is a summer born child. She was born in late August putting her just days older than the year group more suited to her educational and emotional needs. Whilst this is being supported we are being told she will be “excluded from all team sports throughout her life” by admissions. Despite her being just 11 days older than the September year group cut off, the ‘U8’, ‘U9’ etc code will apparently exclude her from taking part in all team sports away from school or when her school plays another etc. Does anyone have experience on what pathways there are to allow her to be included with her peers. I understand the FA have a system for football but after speaking to the local council who don’t offer any guidance or help on the subject there seems to be no avenues on this subject. Would anyone have any advice please?

Playing up is the choice of the individual player though. You are choosing to play against people bigger/older/stronger. It's a different thing.

Playing down is what the op wants to do. It would be taking the choice away from everyone else whether they play against someone older or not.

I've already said that for rugby it's not allowed as RFU rules require a formal exemption that is barely ever given. The other sports are all non-contact and this is country prep school sport - it's really not serious, and furthermore, they're often small schools where the spread of ability within a team will likely be more important (and more of a risk) than one kid being 1 month too old, especially when that kid is neither large or talented.

I agree that for tournaments there needs to be a cut off or you get creep but for weekly friendlies, the school has to balance it against the logistics of having one kid who potentially has to be on a different schedule to the rest of their year, and the timetabling issues that implies.

It might have changed, but when my kids were small and kids deferred, they either joined a year 1 class, or joined their correct cohort within a year or 2.

I have to say I don't really agree with summerborns joining the younger cohort and being bigger and older than everyone else.

We have a summer born and she started reception this year. We didn’t defer her and I’m really glad we didn’t as she’s already caught up academically with the older children in her class and holds her own with sports and in her extracurricular activities. If they’re intelligent then deferring just holds them down instead of brining them up with the rest of their proper cohort.

There's never going to be a system that works equally well for every child unfortunately. I have heard some discussions in coaching circles that some sports are looking at the possibility of streaming via developmental stage rather than chronological age and, in theory at least, this would probably be a good idea. I remember seeing my DS who is small went through puberty a bit later than average and was at the younger end of his cohort looking like a little boy standing next to almost full grown men on start lines in his mid teens and that clearly placed him at an insurmountable physical disadvantage in his own age group. He would have been far more competitive an age group down where most of the boys looked far more like him.
But in reality I can't see how a system like that could work. Who would decide and on what basis? Sporting performance isn't entirely determined by physical factors anyway. An older child who has has more years of training may have advantages in terms of better tactical abilities, more psychological resilience etc compared to a younger child even if they are physically well matched. I think it would be nigh on impossible to implement developmental stage banding fairly. Maybe it would be workable at say national development squad level but not in grassroots sport. So we are stuck with chronological age really.
There will always be youngsters who are advantaged by that and some who are disadvantaged but there probably isn't a better system and apart from genuinely exceptional circumstances the fairest and safest thing for the majority of children is that they compete within their own cohort. Wherever a particular sport chooses to draw the line, everyone needs to stick to it.

Oh dear. Are you not familiar with the summer born policy? You seem very angry for someone so ignorant.

You do realise it only exists to correct a disadvantage ? One that is backed up by stats. The evidence is clear about the negative consequences for summer borns. It’s not about giving them an unfair advantage, it’s about correcting a disadvantage. They are the same age as their adopted cohort; they’re potentially only the oldest by a day. As opposed to being an entire year younger than the oldest and starting school far too young (again lots of research to show how damaging it is to start school at just turned 4).

Yes but it's a relative disadvantage in terms of sport (and possibly also academics) - the disadvantage is for whoever is the youngest. so it just transfers the disadvantage to the next youngest child.

This. My DD is summer born. We didn't delay despite her having speech delay. Yes she's smaller than a lot of her class however I'm only 5ft3 and DH isn't tall so she's always going to be smaller. She's in Y3 now and whilst she's not top of the class she's on track. In fact there are children born in the September who I believe aren't as advanced as she is in terms of maths/english etc. The time I knew I'd made the right decision though was at a pick up in reception, the nursery children shared the same playground. I was looking at the nursery children waiting to be picked up and she was miles ahead, I think she'd have got bored very quickly if I'd delayed her start.
IMO delaying does have its place but it should only be allowed under limited circumstances. The face that a child born on 1st June could be in the same class as a child born 31st August the following year to me is crazy.

Another wonky opinion, fuelled by confirmation bias no doubt.
Delaying start until compulsory school age does not ‘hold down’ anyone, it corrects a disadvantage. If anything it is better for intelligent kids as otherwise they can unfairly think they’re under performing and not intelligent which can have an impact on mental health and social interactions, when it may just be they are a year less developed.
its great if your daughter is not impacted, not all summer borns will be. It is proven to more negatively affect boys. But the evidence is pretty clear about the outcomes for summer borns, throughout their entire school career so it’s ignorant to assert that it holds kids back, it’s quite the opposite. Your specific situation or opinion does not reflect the objective data around this.

But You wouldn’t mind a September 1st child being in the same class as one born on 31st August a year later?

I have to say I don't really agree with summerborns joining the younger cohort and being bigger and older than everyone else

Agree.

Someone has to be the youngest. It's just the luck of the draw and not something anyone should be allowed to opt out of imo.

The 'negative consequences' are due to being the youngest. Not specifically a summer birthday. So they still exist even if you shuffle the boundary along. Just for other peoples kids not yours.
All that's happening is you've now increased the potential age gap in one class from maximum of 12 months, to now 15 months. Which cannot possibly be better at a population level can it. It's worse.

So that argument is tripe. The 4 being too young argument is valid. I'd go with that one.

That’s not correct. Do read the studies around it, maybe better than random anecdotes or gut reactions?

I'm all for allowing deferrals to mandatory school age but they should still join their correct year group - otherwise it just increases the spread between the oldest and the youngest within a year and increases the disadvantage to the youngest. The evidence largely shows that it's being relatively younger that is the disadvantage - for example children born Sep-Dec in UK more likely to become professional sportspeople because their better development/ greater height on average means they are more likely to be identified as good at a sport at an early age and be encouraged- this is replicated in other countries depending on what the cut off is so it's relative, not absolute.

Those other summer borns can delay their start if required though? Not all will feel the need. The evidence is clear about starting formal education too young. If you could protect your child from some pretty scary stats around summer borns, why wouldn’t you?

@Muthaofcats not if there aren't any developmental concerns then no! Summer born is classed as 1st April onwards according to Google. Do you honestly think it's okay that a child born on 31st August can be in the same class and compared to a child born 16 months earlier?

Yes.

Do I feel sorry for those who started school at just turned 4 and whose parents weren’t concerned about their increased likelihood of being diagnosed as SEN, higher bullying risk, higher risk of suicide, lower academic outcomes and admission to Russel group unis? Yes.

I think deferring for the school year is a good idea which will bring a host of benefits - she’ll be one of the oldest in her class so all that entails. But she’s not being excluded from team sports - she’s just being told she has to play with her age group which is fair. It’s one thing to have your child the oldest in a group but you can’t insist they play with a team a year younger than them - if they are under 7, they play with them, rather than under 6 - surely you can see that wouldn’t be fair to children younger than her? also sports will have different cut off points, often January, so she’ll be middle of the group then age wise.

How do you not get this @Muthaofcats ?

I honestly can't fathom how to explain it to you any simpler.

It is the YOUNGEST in a class who is at a disadvantage.

Under the old system the maximum they could be younger is 12 months. So no one is any more than 12 months younger than anyone else

The option to defer INCREASES the potential gap to 15 months. So now we have a class where one child could be born in June 2023 and another in August 2024.

You can go by the argument that we all want to give our children the best chance that or 4 is too young if you want; but to try to argue that being 12 months younger is a bigger problem than being 15 months younger is beyond dumb.

Actually a lot of it is about the age at which children are starting school. The U.K. is one of a minority that starts as young as 4. Most of the world starts at 6/7 and the research suggests this is better for children in every respect. The only reason the U.K. moved to starting at 4 was because the schools were able to apply for the early years funding; it used to be an age 5 start and they also used to have staggered starts based on when the child’s birthday was. This was a cynical change based on money and not the child’s best interests.

Dd in year 6 is sum.er born abd deferred. Nest thing we did. She competes in cross country and athletics for school and other in house sports- no issues it's all based on year group abs ages a member of year 6. Check with LA.

Do read up about deferring as its definitely a disadvantage academically and socially ,usually a teacher can pick the summer birds out until about year 3 when it starts to even out a bit. People forget that reading levels etc are age related so often say their child is doing great in school- of course the teacher means for their afe not year group.

I don’t need you to explain it to me thanks. I’d rather refer to the body of evidence around this subject (as I have done at great length before deciding to do it) rather than some forum crackpot who no doubt is just feeling anxious about their own child and their own choices around them (which is understandable).

@Muthaofcats
All deferring does is shift the disadvantage to another child. If everyone who had children born 1st April onwards deferred it would mean those born on 31st March would then be the disadvantaged kids. So it's okay for those children then to be at risk of all of these things you've listed?