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?

* Those other summer borns can delay their start if required though?

Yup, and what's the point?!? All you'll have is a new set of stats 'Spring born children at a disadvantage' in a few years time!! You've just moved the boundary from august to April.

No it’s terrible for the other summer borns and I would encourage their parents to looking into delaying their start too if they felt it was right for their child.

Your logic doesn’t work, Those born in March would be starting school at 4.5, not at just turned 4. It’s still arguably very young but still a big developmental difference of half a year and much different to a child who was 3 only days before.

You don’t seem to be getting it do you, I assume you won’t bother to go and actually look into this so what’s the point discussing it further?

Exactly.

"Getting it"

Or, put another way.
People disagreeing with you, are automatically wrong, so you aren't prepared to consider anyone else's argument.

Lol. So your actual argument, which you never managed to articulate, is that children shouldn't start school till 4.5yrs old? Fine. Valid argument which I already mentioned way up thread.

So each year group is April to March, starting the September.

No one younger that 4.5 ; no one older than 5.4

Fine.

Far better than allowing some children, (only the ones whose parents are already all over the system but not the ones whose parents don't understand and are already at a disadvantage), ti be 15 months older than others which is the current system and the one you've been advocating throughout the thread.

I have recounted this story before. Child 1 autumn baby like my oldest, very academically talented and very sporty. Child 2, late July baby like one of mine. Mum opted to defer as she perceived she was struggling in nursery ( academically selective school and compared to child 1).
all went well until secondary level where over the years child 2s chosen sports teams qualified for the national finals 3 times, an amazing achievement, but her child 2 had to sit on the sidelines every time, as she was overage. Mum and kid were gutted and both said they would never have chosen that path again if they had known ( thb mum should have worked it out with child 1s sporting commitments) my equivalent child 2 went off to do medicine at a Russell group uni and played county level in their sport ( not particularly relevant to the story but just to counterbalance the old, oh they never achieve stories).

I'm in Scotland where the age cut off is 1st March, pretty much all middle class people defer their Oct-Feb born, so the more privileged kids can be 16 months or so older than their less privileged classmates. The sports, however, have a huge variety of cut offs.

For athletics it's 1st Sept, for badminton and football it's "born 2014, 2011 etc," for some sports it's March 1st, a recent event was "age at first event, in mid November." Everyone gets a chance to feel hard done by in some way, the deferred kids do tend to complain the most, but really it's a non issue if your classmates fall on another side of a cut off.

Your child will also be allowed to start things earlier than their peers. Insurance for athletics starts at 8, I think, so she'd get an "advantage," in that way.

You aren't going to be able to rig the system in your child's favour every time, and that's ok.

For competitive sport there has to be a cut off date. Everyone going on about disadvantage of August born has not considered the situation of a child born , full term ie not premature and should have been born in August. All the family are above average height and athletic. If his parents defer his entry to school by a year he would have a totally unacceptable physical advantage if he played sport in his academic rather than chronological year. Defer a child if you really must but don't expect people to allow them to cheat by competing with children in the year below their correct cohort.

Interestingly, my grandson is the youngest in his class - another 3 days and he would have been in the next cohort. It was eventually decided that he stay with his age cohort for several reasons. Now in Year 3, he is by far the tallest, fastest and certainly the strongest in his class! If he had started the next year he would have really stood out in comparison with his peers.

I guess there are two disadvantages of being youngest- absolute (you're too young to cope with formal school and get behind) and relative (you're young compared to the other kids and therefore not as developed/ mature etc so don't look as capable relative to the older kids, even though on an age adjusted basis you quite possibly are). Absolute disadvantage is not permanent and so is probably better dealt with by allowing a flexible start- i.e. just start school in Year 1 or 2 which is basically allowed as you can just say you're homeschooling till then. Relative disadvantage is permanent, albeit shrinks with age as the % gap between oldest and youngest gets smaller, and why allowing the gap between oldest and youngest in a year/ team to spread more isn't ideal, especially re. sport which is what this thread was originally about. Plus when they hit puberty you already end up with quite a spread of physical development for a few years until they all even out, which you don't want to exacerbate any more. Year 8/9 is quite often like boys vs men.

I disagree with deferring, but I don't see how it's ok for the summer borns to always be disadvantaged, but not ok for the other children??

@Anxioustealady I agree but I have one at each end of the academic year and take the view that the chips fall as they fall- there are so many other factors that will impact how they do relative to others- innate ability, resilience and motivation, sex, birth order, personality, height. Plus age is taken into account for selective secondary school tests which some argue benefits the summer borns as they have exactly the same educational input but don't have to score as highly relative to September borns.

Or just become a swimmer- December cut off :-)

Yes I don't like deferring either and I think there has to be a cutoff somewhere, but I just found that comment strange. How is it unfair for summer borns to be bigger and older than others, when that's what they have to deal with all the time?

One if my best friends was born 31 August. Definitely the youngest.
She was a brilliant student, both academically and socially, and is now a very senior nurse. Someone has to be the youngest.

@Anxioustealady
At the moment the deferral system is meaning the age gap is potentially larger. The maximum it used to be was one year., 12 months. Now it's increased to 16 months because of the deferral system.

For something like grass roots football she would have to be in her relevant year group. My daughter does dance competitions and they are segregated on age. So sometimes she is competing against those in the academic year above her or the academic year below her. Beavers/ cubs/guides is based on ages not academic year also.

Haha I said at the outset that this subject triggers a lot of parents who appear to feel v competitive about their kids and clearly don’t like the idea of children born with a disadvantage being given an opportunity to correct that; and as expected, we’ve seen a fair few of them on here so far. Obviously it stirs some feelings of anxiety in them about their own choices. I get it; it’s hard: you can’t win whatever you choose to do but at least read up on it properly if you’re going to go to the effort of commenting on threads about it….

@Muthaofcats school isn't compulsory until the term after a child turns 5 anyway so your argument about a 4 year old not being ready for school is irrelevant.

It's not correcting it though, it's shifting the disadvantage to someone else. And you haven't given one reason to explain why you think that that is okay.

She'll do sports with kids who are in the 'correct' age group- she won't be excluded from anything, but will be younger than the rest of the cohort, that's all. Will make absolutely no difference with schooling- and (personally) I think it's great she's not going to be in a class where she is significantly younger than everyone else.

We had a couple kids who for whatever reason were held back a year. They still played with the year above for team sport.
Frankly other than age is there a another reason the delaying? Kids are born throughout the year. My son is a late July baby, and I know several in his class who were August born. All did fine, no adjustment problems and of the ones who went to uni did well (Bath, Manchester etc).

I asked my husband.
He is an FAW B license coach.
He said Yes she could.

She'd have to be shit at football and then the FA/FAW have to agree that she is not good enough to play at that age and sign her to play down.

I get that. I'm not explaining myself very well