Summerborn reception

[Userflower]

I just wanted to share some good news, my friends child started reception this week (deferred summerborn so is already age 5). There are 7 summerborn children deferred in her class. There are no children born in July or August 2021, as they’ve all deferred to start next year!
Times are changing!!

I said if it isn't handled well, they might go off the rails. It's my own view. I've been a secondary boys' teacher for a long time. Clever and bored is a bad combination if not handled well.

I didn't mention winter born - winter is dec-feb - that is really misquoting me by moving the goalposts! Look back at my original comment that you initially disagreed with, I was talking about some summer borns being by far the oldest if deferred. Op says as early as April born could all benefit from being deferred, and that is what I really disagree with.

I'm just illustrating a counter argument to any parents who are on the fence, this is my view on why it might be detrimental.

Your son is only 5 days older than September, you said. Well, that's neither here nor there, is it really. It's clearly not the point of my initial comments. When I said "why would you want your child to be so much older". Your son isn't much older.

And come on now, I'm not "tarring" any boys with "accusations"...! (What is with all this hyperbole)

Clearly, it's not the boy's own fault if he's bored. It's the fault of the parents and teachers. We've got to make sure he's not bored.

For the avoidance of doubt I'm not talking about any particular boy and especially not the sons of anyone here. I'm talking about a hypothetical boy

Apologies if you've already stated this OP, but what is your 'skin in the game'?
Your OP suggests you're sharing your friend's 'good news' not yours.

I don’t know why people go backwards and forwards with this.

If you want to defer your child, fantastic, go ahead. If you don’t, send them to school and crack on. Other people’s opinions shouldn’t matter.

My (1st of) October son struggled so much in that we actually ended up home educating him until year 4. He was far too young and immature in himself for the school environment, despite being one of the oldest in his year, and struggled massively.

His end of August sister started reception a week after her 4th birthday and flew.

Different children, different personalities.

@Muchtoomuchtodo No! When DD was in primary several of the brightest were summer born! 4 eventually got places at Oxbridge! The brightest pick things up easily and early. One went for maths at Cambridge. May birthday. DD went to their birthday parties and DD got a place at Oxford - mid August birthday. The idea of these types of dc being held back is ludicrous.

I am glad they did so well and go against the norm as per the data

I agree, you tend to find those who defer are super happy but those who don’t defer get annoyed at the ones who do

That’s right

Who are all these people you personally know who have deferred and are really happy? Who are the people who haven't who are annoyed with them- people you know in real life?

I don't think anyone on this thread is annoyed at parents who chose to defer and everyone has agreed it's a personal choice. Some posters have taken objection to the central premise of the thread that ALL children should defer.

You avoided the question OP. Why are you sharing their news? Why aren't they sharing it themselves?

Eh? I didn’t defer my August born. Do you know what, it didn’t even cross my mind. I didn’t give it a single thought.

I wouldn’t know if anyone else did defer. There could be deferred children in my daughter’s class for all I know. Why and how would I know?

Why on Earth would I be annoyed at anyone who did? If it wasn’t important enough for me to even think about, why would I care what anyone else did?

I honestly don’t think anyone is “annoyed” that someone else deferred when they didn’t. What a sad little life you’d have to live to be like that.

It’s often forgotten that many schools did not start August birthdays in September until recently either. Data can be flawed as a result.

Many schools, until around 25 years ago, started Summer born DC after Easter. I started after Easter moons ago - July born. Several friends had DC starting at this time. YR gradually grew in size over 3 terms and larger schools saved money as lower staff costs. Summer borns missed out on a great deal of teaching and hit y1 with just a few months in YR. In my day, no nursery where I lived either. So no wonder dc didn’t do as well as they should. Even 25 years ago, some summer borns were starting after Christmas or at Easter. So not only were they younger, they got less teaching too and often Christmas and Easter starters were part time. People now have no idea how disadvantaged these dc were compared with Autumn born dc starting in September. No one deferred in those days! Most people wanted dc to have an equal chance and were desperate for September starts for the whole cohort. How times change.

In Wales our dc start half days in nursery / meithrin the term after they turn 3.

This means the older ones get 5 terms, the younger ones only get 3!

Well said. I didbt defer my late August child but have no beef with those who choose to. Your choice. I don't like the implicstion that I've set my child up to fail. She's doing really well and I am super happy with my choice.

Do all children do this or is it like in England where some stay at private nursery and school/LA nursery provision is patchy?

I'm not English but live there and found it funny when my children were turning 3 and strangers making chit chat would ask if they were starting nursery. They'd been in nursery since 12 months and there wasn't a school pre-school for them to move to. I've never actually taught at a primary school that has a nursery class.

As far as I know most do attend school nursery.

our dc went to Welsh medium schools where it is definitely the norm to attend meithrin before starting derbyn (reception).

Those that didn’t were mainly for logistical reasons as half days are really tricky. We were lucky to have a great childminder who could accommodate the drop offs and pick ups.

DS1 is October born and repeated a year. DS2 is summer born and didn’t defer. DS2 is far, far more academic than DS1.

It is the case that summerborn children do worse. It's why this is the case that is interesting, and it's not all that clear why.

OP keeps saying it's all about children not being only just 4 when they start school. But this can't be true - "redshirting" in the US is a big deal, and there children only start Kindergarten when they are rising 6 - so all children are at least 5 when they start. There are similar benefits in the US to being the older child in the class. I assume at some point this has diminishing returns - i.e. it seems unlikely that starting at 9 while everyone else was 5 would be beneficial, but who knows.

So that brings us back to why being the oldest, no matter what age you start school, has such an advantage. I think it probably is a combination of:

Informed pushy parents
Being the best is a reinforcing prophecy; if you find it easier to pick up new concepts, you have high self confidence that only reinforces itself
Being good at sport - particularly important for boys to form friendships

OP repeatedly refers to poor long term mental health outcomes & says it's more about secondary school/later life. I have to say given she hasn't provided any evidence of this, beyond saying you have to do an FOI, that I find this pretty dubious. Logically being 4 while everyone else is 5 is a bigger difference and disadvantage than being 17 while everyone else is 18. I think it's more likely that summerborns are more likely to be diagnosed with learning disabilities that they don't have, and this might follow them later on.

I have a summerborn who was born 2nd week of August and started reception two weeks ago. We considered holding him back, but decided not to, based on:

• Him being able to read and write because we taught him from 3. He will (hopefully) have immediate self confidence
• All of his nursery friends starting at the same time. Immediate friendship group and social/emotional support; all of his nursery friends are born May onwards and none deferred. He was substantially older than the other children at nursery, and there's no guarantee they would go onto the same school.
• His brother being at the school and able to provide support
• Knowing about the risk he may be "diagnosed" with a learning disability later on; I think this is unlikely given he has good concentration/enjoys rules; but who knows

Following this thread with interest as a parent to an August born boy who in theory be starting school next September, which is wild to me.

In my case, I don’t think we can ‘win’ either way. Our son is the oldest in his nursery class, so as a result they will all have an extra year at nursery whereas he will in theory go to school a year earlier.
He’s so clearly older than his class mates, he’s a head taller than all of them (97th percentile height), and his speech is more advanced and he’s independent on the toilet, whereas many are in nappies still. BUT emotionally he’s all over the shop, cries at drop off, struggles with separation, is an ‘observer’ and doesn’t like to draw attention to himself, or volunteer to answer a question etc.
I feel like he’ll be bored and stand out physically in the year below (deferred entry) but struggle confidence wise if we send him just after 4. He loves being in the preschool class above him, and playing with the older kids, but looks small compared to them!
He talks about going to school all the time but I don’t conflate that with school readiness at all.
I’ll be observing him with interest over the next year to see how he gets on.

I have 3 close male friends who were August born and self confessed that they hated being the youngest - although all 3 are have small stature so I wonder if physicality had a part to play in this (one self reported this). Then I have a bunch of oxbridge educated male friends (all born May-July) who rowed, went on to prestigious careers and ‘thrived’ (to co-opt OPs goady terminology).

Me and DH both have mathematical backgrounds so I will be looking into the data more closely, but don’t find the OP vague that all of this is hiding in FOI requests compelling. It’s easy enough to share screenshots and references in this day and age.

Starting to read through documents regarding deferral on my morning commute and some interesting snippets from the latest gov report published Oct 2025 (I’ll add the link below):

• ”School census data (2024/25) confirms that pupils being admitted out of year group continue to represent a very small minority - 1.6% of the summer-born intake which is a similar proportion to the last few years”
• “A small proportion of the children were born premature (19%) and may otherwise have been born in the following academic year if the pregnancy was full term”
• ”Almost a third of parents (32%) indicated their child had been identified by an educational or health professional as having a special educational need or disability, and a further 12% said they suspected their child has SEND.”
• ”Twenty percent of respondents had an annual household income of £100,000 or more”

This clearly doesn’t say anything about outcomes for deferred verses none deferred, but it’s interesting to see the scale of deferral is tiny (1.6%) and reasoning for doing so. With 44% of deferred kids having SEN or suspected SEN it’s no wonder that this cohort would benefit hugely from an additional year. It also should put parents of non deferred kids at ease - even if there are kids in the same year 14 months older, they may be more likely to have SEN / have been premature, rather than have a huge advantage over your child.

Linked report here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69020395e6e3290939a1d0e1/Delayed_admission_for_summer_born_pupils_2025.pdf

(Very curious to read your references @Userflower )