Was your DC the youngest in their Reception Class?

[MrsOCD]

I'm on a roll now ...

Has anyone's DC been the youngest (by a year or so in some cases) in a Reception/Primary School? If so, were the differences huge?

Did they struggle? Were allowances made? Did the other kids want to make friends with them?

My DD will be 4.2 when she starts. She cant start in Jan as the school only has one intake in Sept.

My DD was - August baby. Still is the youngest in her class (now year 5).

She was a tad more tired than some of the older ch ildren but the staff made allowances for the younger ones. Reception is IMO very much still a "play" atmosphere, so whilst they have their rules etc, its not horribly strict.

DD is top of her class for most subjects now except Maths. She's crap at maths

dd was 4 and about 2 weeks. Physically she is tiny in comparison but at year 3 in top set for maths with kids almost a year older ! Her best friends from Reception were among the eldest , both pre Christmas boys and she got a lot of attention from girls a tear or 2 older. I'd say she has coped pretty well, without too many allowances (cushions and door handles aside!) but is probably less emotionally mature than many of the older girls and benefits from being a younger sibling.

My dd is the second youngest in her Reception class (July birthday). I was anxious before she started about how she would cope, but so far she has not had any problems at all. She has not seemed particularly tired and she seems to be mixing fine with the other kids. Mind you, they haven't started doing any work yet and it might change when she has to sit down and do somethiing. She does not know any letter-sounds yet and her pencil control is not great. I'm sure a lot of the older kids know more than her.

Girls cope better than boys they say. My ds was the youngest in his class and is probably one of the best. It depends on the child really, my ds is very independent and does things for himself.

Yes - DS was 3.10 - but the clue is in that - he was 'bumped' up into reception from nursery at the school's suggestion (a week into term) so no, he didn't struggle - his teacher did make some allowances for emotional immaturity but I was keen that she didn't, on the whole, as if we had thought at any stage that he was only doing well 'considering his age' then we would have moved him back into the year group where he would have been almost the oldest.

Other children were fine - some of the girls mothered him a bit to start with. Differences are noticable but not huge and soon disappear IME (DS is Y2 now).

If you can it might be worth checking what the likely spread of ages would be - DS's group was biased towards the end of the year (lots of May/June birthdays) so although he was clearly the youngest there was only child who was over a year older than him.

My dd just got the cut off date 30th Aug she did struggle with tiredness at first and one of her best friends birthday was 2nd sept so a year between them. She is in yr 10 now and coping fine (I hope)

It was a long time ago , but I'm an August birthday and was put up a year within 10 days of starting school. They wouldn't do that now, obv, but I was ok.

What I'm trying to say is that it all depends on the individual child. Age/size/maturity etc will all vary from child to child - and a good school will take account of that. Somebody has to be the youngest, after all - it's a question of how that's managed.

(FWIW I'm not a fan of January starts - can see it would work for some, but can also be difficult socially coping with half a class that's already had a term to settle into friendships etc)

Both my boys have mid to late August birthdays. DS1 is now 10 and in Y6. Socially and academically he's always been fine - some problems with the physical side of writing, with concentrating and with sitting still. Emotionally, more in evidence in behaviour at home than at school, I think he's struggled sometimes. He certainly looks very small in Y6, as he's small anyway, and some of the 11 year old girls are huge. He's always been the only summer-born boy in his top reading group, but took a while to really catch on to maths. He's grown into his ability, I think, which being the youngest has sometimes masked until the last year or so.

DS2 (Y3) has also always been fine, with the same handwriting caveat and a few emotional blips in Year 1. He doesn't have the same concentration issues as DS1 and he's not as physically small, though he's not especially tall. For Reception and Y1, though, DS2 was the only summer-born child, not just summer-born boy, in any of the top groups. Now a May birthday girl has joined his reading group.

In Reception the big issue was tiredness. Both boys found the adjustment to Y1 difficult too - a lot less play and a lot more writing and sitting down. I think it can take longer for younger children to 'find their level'; they may not want to cooperate (DS2 in Y1) or they may not see the value of trying to do as well as possible (DS1 until Y5).

My ds was 4.2 when he started reception this term so isn't the youngest. Apart from the first two weekends when he turned into a monster from overtiredness we haven't had any problems. His school did offer intakes at Jan and Easter but we had already committed to a Sept start (and given notice to his nursery) before we found that out. In any event we decided to start him in Sept as the vast majority of the intake was then.

Knowing he would be full time from Sept we built up his nursery hours so by the end he was doing 4.5 days. Although he does lots at school he seems to have boundless energy and I'm not aware of any allowances being made. He is certainly less mature than some of his older classmates but not unreasonably so.

As for making friends, it seems more down to personality than age as far as I can tell. My ds is friends with older boys in the class (and older boys in the school) as well as younger ones.

I also think on the whole that girls are more mature than boys at this age.

Your responses have reassured me and yes, I agree with the friend-making issue, it's more down to the individual personality and confidence rather than age.

Looks like an early bedtime will be on the agenda for her though!

DD1 is second youngest in her class and the youngest girl. She's also small so it's kind of obvious.

She's now in Year 2. She gets a bit frustrated that her birthday is always the last to come around. And there have been some very minor "you're a baby" type comments from some of the more "sophisticated" girls.

But she had no problem settling into school, beyond the usual tiredness. Absolutely no problem keeping up academically. And she seems to have managed a nice balance of making friends without being a slave to popularity.

dd is August 30th. She started school at 4 and 3 days. She is now in year one.

I insisted she only did mornings throughout reception. She has now caught everyone up - and overtaken! She manages fine socially.

I have had this before because ds (year 6) is also an August birthday. He has always been very keen on school, and is top of the year.

I do beat my breast on a regular basis that both dcs decided to arrive prematurely, because I wish they had been in the year below and the oldest in the year.

Although ds is very clever, he is still quite a baby, and as someone else said, those year 6 girls are huuuuge and literally busting out all over. There is a world of difference between a boy who's just 10 and a nearly 12-year-old girl.

yup. ds1 was August 27th, I let him go part time to start with.