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?

you don’t understand that a child born on 31 August would more naturally sit developmentally with the following year group, really? You need me explaining that to you?

if I’m born on 31 August and the school year group before me ended 6 weeks before my birthday, and the next school year group started a day after my birthday; which year group am I closer in age to?

Omg how many times do people need to explain. It’s not about the child’s relative position as compared with other’s in the class; it’s about starting school at just turned 4, with up to a year’s less development and experience. They essentially miss a year of early years education and social development. How they sit alongside the rest of the class birthdays is not the point. It has no impact on the other kids (apart from positive) but can be of huge personal significance if it means they avoid the increased bullying, suicide risk, poorer academic attainment etc etc etc.

Generalising a bit there . I started school at 4 and 4 weeks , was perfectly well toilet trained and had been reading from before I can remember , indeed from yr1 they had to take myself and 2 other girls over to the primary school to choose books that were suitable for our ability . The only time being one of the youngest became an inconvenience was when numerous people had already passed their driving test before I could officially start . I have numerous friends who also had summer borns , my youngest was a June baby , and none of them had issues not being deferred .

The school year group doesn’t end in July, the cohort ends on August 31st. So if you’re born august 31st you’re still closest to your own cohort because that’s the one you’re born in.

I have a September born and an August born so I have a very good understanding of the impact on children. In my county in wales our children start half days at 3 so my son went to school 2 weeks after his third birthday. They do however do play based learning in wales until year 3. I think I probably would have held him back a year if I’d had the choice back then. He was physically smaller and behind in language and ability. Now as the tallest boy in his year 8 group, I know it would absolutely have been the wrong decision for him. He is above average in all his subjects and able to play sports with his classmates in and out of school. He isn’t closer to the cohort below. His birthday might be close to some September borns in year 7 but it’s also close to his friend who was born the week before him in August in his year group. In his cohort.

But they’re not just in school for reception are they. That gap in year 6 is quite big. Especially as it could potentially include children 16 months older than the youngest children in that year group.

the cohort is the group of children. So the year group in this case. What I’m saying is you can’t be closer to a cohort that is not your own. If your cohort is year 4 you are not closer to year 3. You are in the year 4 cohort but you can obviously move down and join the cohort below. However obviously that’s not closest to the one you were born in

The one before!!!!

The one before is supposed to be 1/9/00 to 31/8/01. So the furthest possible you are away from anyone is 364 days.

If you defer, then the next one is 31/8/01 to 31/8/02 and the furthest possible you are away is 365 days!!!

It is absolutely blowing my mind that you don't get this @Muthaofcats

You are the lone voice on this thread. Different people keep trying to explain to you how 16 is greater than 12 and you keep saying it's not. It's literally, to use your word, bonkers.

I feel like I’m going mad trying to explain it to @Muthaofcats 🙈

yes your August child might be closer in age to the September borns of the cohort below but the cohort below will also have children born in march, June, August. Your child will not be closer to those children so isn’t closer to the cohort below because it consists of the entire year group. Like @arethereanyleftatall says, your child will actually be further away from some of the children in the cohort below if some are also late august birthdays because your child is 12 months or more older than them. So how can they possible be closer to the entire cohort below?!

if I’m born on 31 August and the school year group before me ended 6 weeks before my birthday, and the next school year group started a day after my birthday; which year group am I closer in age to?

As a PP has pointed out, the school year group before you includes children right up to your birthday, 31st August; membership in the group does not end in mid-July. The fact that the school year ends in mid-July is irrelevant to this discussion.

There will be a group of children who were born between 1st September 2020 and 31st August 2021. There will be another group of children born between 1st September 2021 and 31st August 2022. Why would the average child born on 31st August 2021 be closer to the latter group than the former group?

You need me explaining that to you?

Yes, reductio ad absurdem, please explain to me why the average child born on 1st April 2021 will be closer to the latter group than the former group. Or born on 1st May, or 1st June, or 1st July, or 1st August 2021?

I use Latin phrases when they are the most concise way to convey my meaning. But I will provide the link this time to help you out.

But a school year is only that length for admin purposes logically you wouldnt pick for kids to be 12m apart either development or age as its very wide especialoy at 4. Yes it technically makes it woder but england at least it is rare so the class average doesnt hardly change.
But also the development range of chiodren is wide and would be more useful means of deciding who goes to school.
If we are sending not toilet trained kids to school (baring constipation issues) they are likely behind in other ways too.
If we were to pick criteria
Sit still for 10-15 min for a phonics session.
Speak fluently
Count to 20 objects
Cope with 1-30 supervision

And flexibility would allow some kids to drop back to nursery in the first few weeks when not coping.

In your average class it probably isnt the aug born struggling. But across the country there will be several who would be better in the year below even though they have no sen

It really will have zero negative affect on 30 kids. If lots nationally defer it might affect gcse results. As they are scaled.
If 1/3 of kids fail maths gcse ... And sats are lined up by birth month nationallly.

May-aug would be more likely to fail.

With FA you can apply for dispensation if the child has medical / SEN issues. But it's quite rare. Otherwise they just play in actual age group. So a yr6 may have to play in a Yr7 team.. which won't exist at primary but will in clubs. But still means can't play with class mates. Bothers some and not others. Socially it's a bit odd as Yr8 kids can be quite different in attitude to Yr7 etc

I'm a late summer born and can see all sides of arguements. Never struggled in school and was in sports teams throughout. But with 2xDC I see how tiny the summer 4 year olds are.. the difference evaporates generally by Yr3 and by high school it's hard to tell: they all grow physically & mentally at different rates. There could be summer born Yr6 who have periods and autumn Yr9s that don't as an example

In terms of sports I (sort of) see why cut offs usually have to be cut offs - but that is assuming that all children grow in a linear scale which isn't the case at all. There are 3 deferred summer borns in my DC's class and they are by no means the tallest or biggest. In fact, one of the Feb-born boys towers above all of them, and almost all of the next year up as well - and yet he is allowed to play with his year group so I think the argument falls apart a bit there.

But in terms of non-sporting situations I have never understood why people get so uptight about it. The children in a class are taught to the curriculum and expectations of that year. The curriculum isn't weighted to accommodate either the more able or the less able. There is no comparison chart in the classroom, the children are not ranked - and so the concept that this is 'unfair' as if this is a competition is a bit weird.

Summer borns are universally disadvantaged because they are learning concepts and lessons that they have had (up to) 12 months less time to develop for. Children being up to '16 months' older than them in the same room makes no difference at all to what they have to learn, and their individual development.

I couldn't give a monkeys about the deferred kids being in my DC's class. It doesn't affect her

We initially deferred our July DS to start at age 5 (so he was about 6-7 weeks older than anyone else in his class) but now in Y5 have moved him up a year (he skipped Y4). Sports was a huge part of this, he turned out to be a gregarious bright sporty kid, & we could see that being in the ‘wrong’ year to all his sporty friends had the possibility of impacting negatively as he aged. But he is very sports orientated!

Now that's a good idea. It's great that you can do that.

It seems deferring is front loaded, very important for the children who've just turned 4 - but a bit of a mess once you get older for the sporty kids.

Wow he has missed a whole year of education?
How has he coped with the academic side, that’s quite a decision!

Apparently Y3 and Y4 cover the same content, pretty much, so missing Y4 for an able child is not a big deal. He was in a Y3/Y4 class last year as a Y3, and this year is in the Y4/Y5 class as a Y5 so it’s not a big transition for him as he’s in the same class anyway.

So will he stay with the same peer group or will he move on to secondary a year before his friends ?

I can’t imagine being ok with my child missing a year of education; I’m not familiar with the curriculum at that level yet but even if year 4 is more a chance to build on skills and knowledge from y3 surely that consolidation and extension is vital? The whole reason parents delay summer born start is so their child doesn’t miss a year of education that their older peers get by virtue of their birth month, so seems weird to go to that effort and then squander the opportunity ? Even if your child was incredibly academic, surely socially they’d suffer suddenly being moved cohorts and now be the very youngest.

what was it that was limiting him sports wise? Why would it be an issue with your child playing in their age group for clubs (which tend to run by actual age anyway) and within his school year group at school?

I probably have a different attitude to lots of parents on this as my older kids both flexi schooled/home schooled for parts of their education & it hasn’t harmed them academically at all. I’m not concerned about any academic impact on him. I still have concerns about him being young for secondary school, maturity etc, but this does feel like the right decision for him, we will have to see!

Socially I don’t think you’ve understood the set up of a school with mixed year groups, he doesn’t really experience it as having moved cohorts as he’s in the same class as he was anyway with the same children, he’s just in another part of the class (now sits on a table with Y5 instead of Y4).

Yes i haven’t experienced those mixed year group classes in a primary setting, so don’t understand how they work, I can see there are real pros and cons to that set up, but imagine it does give flexibility to teach based on ability as opposed to age - although I guess doesn’t protect kids from moving on to secondary too young? And surely does still mean you lose a year of development time if you skip a year?

if anything those mixed classes undermine any argument that children suffer if the age range in class is too broad?

my kids started education at a Montessori which favours mixed age group classes as the idea is it helps build social skills and consolidate knowledge so I’ve never seen a spectrum of ages as a negative.

I definitely think the impact of being the youngest by up to a year only grows as kids move to secondary though, when suddenly the social issues and expectations are amplified and with even less support than at primary. It seems extremely young to suddenly be alone in a huge school with much more challenging behaviour, hormones flying, sex and drugs and violence and everything else teenagers are confronted with… And of course later when they’re all learning to drive, go out to drink, having sex, they’re not going to be able to join their peers…

is this a state or private school? i know several out of year group children in private schools and they always competed in fixtures in their school year group (i.e. out of age group technically). It shouldn't be a problem at all for friendlies and tournaments. There are some exceptions for the official tournaments, such as Surrey schools cup, county leagues and the like.

The only issue I see and I know happens to children who have deferred is that when they join a football club, they might indeed be in a different team from their classmates. So they are not excluded, they simply need to be in their correct age group for leagues and competitions.

It depends on the sport though. Tennis and swimming run by calendar year outside of school (1 Jan - 31 Dec) so it is all about which year they are born in.

The statement is wrong overall, but there are cases where they may not be competing with their classmates.

for those who do choose to defer, do you tell the other classmates and parents or do you keep it a secret?

For example, if you are inviting other children to a party, would you say which birthday it is?

Why would you keep it secret? It’s not something to be ashamed of?

We explained to our child that summer born children have the choice of when to start so we decided it was better to choose to be the oldest rather than very youngest, so my child feels pride that we made a decision in his best interests.

if someone was ignorant or competitive enough to have a bad feeling about that decision I would be unlikely to want to be friends with someone like that so wouldn’t mind at all unearthing that early doors tbh. The parent community at our school and locally have all said what a good idea it is and either how they wished they’d done the same or that they would totally do it in the same position. I think only once I’ve had someone openly say they viewed it as us trying to ‘get ahead’ and I thought it revealed more about her than us so just shrugged it off :)

My kids know exactly how old everyone is and think nothing of it. There would be no way to keep that secret. I wouldn’t think you would talk about it much at all to be honest - every family is figuring this out for their own kids and no reason to bring it up.

You'll find the kids declare how old they are!!!