P1 school deferal

[Mamabear04]

Does anyone else think it's mad that there could be a 15 month age difference with kids starting P1? What does everyone think and parents of young kids will you defer?

They're not turning 6 before the start of the school term. They turn 6 shortly after.

Think a 15 month range is fine - especially at the start of school, school readiness criteria really vary - some kids are ready at 4, and some are ready by 6. Parents need more flexibility not less.
Deferral as an option is great but mandating all to start later is a step backwards imo.

If they are turning 6 after they have started P1 I honestly don't see a problem with this. Children's abilities vary wildly.

Think a 15 month range is fine - especially at the start of school, school readiness criteria really vary - some kids are ready at 4, and some are ready by 6. Parents need more flexibility not less

I agree with this entirely.

I think work wise it's actually much easier to have the "free" 2 days at private nursery 8-18, 50 weeks a year than trying to find wrap around care + holiday cover + deal with all the recent school disruptions.
There's also the option (maybe not everywhere) to send the kids to a 3+ preschool which follows term time.

It's a real headache. In my current P1, there are children born 2017, 2018 and 2019. There are P1s older than the P2s!

I always advocated for Jan/Feb deferral (especially in boys) and I think if an EP or at least a professional has signed off on it, then Aug-Dec deferral can be beneficial. I've seen that in action. But parental choice is the wrong approach imo. I

The introduction of play has totally muddied the waters as well. It's a different ball game playing to learn at 4 vs playing to learn at 6. That's before you've even started thinking about the age- related assessments we use!

There’s at least three children in my youngest (Oct birthday-still 4!) p1 class that have turned six. There’s also children who are the same age with two school years difference ie. a p5 and p7 the same age. I think that deferring when it’s a Dec-Feb birthday is no issue but I’ve definitely noticed that the birthdays are getting earlier and earlier.

I still don’t think it’s an issue - I’ve got one dd that’s the youngest in her class and one that’s the eldest and in both cases, the decision we made was right for them. I agree that in general you’d make these decisions with some input from school/nursery.

yet to see any concrete issues being raised from deferrals.

Do you think people are deferring purely on age now if it's becoming more popular? My DD started school in England just six weeks after turning 4. She was SO ready for it though, and I could have deferred her, but didn't. She absolutely thrived in her first year. Being the youngest isn't always necessarily a bad thing, but it 100% depends on the child. Is it that children are less ready, or it's just because they'd be the youngest? It's an interesting one!

There are no 6 year old starting P1. They will be 5 and x number of months, many may turn 6 4-6 months after they start P1 though if they've been deferred.

There are 6 year olds starting primary 1. They have to be approved by the local authority but there’s been over a 100 a year across Scotland approved the last few years and there are Facebook groups campaigning for older deferrals. There are also much more end of August and September children being deferred and from speaking to parents who’ve done this they seem to think that it will give their children an advantage which of course it will being as they can be 18 months older than the youngest in the class.
It does seem a bit unfair as they are physically bigger and stronger which is obvious in gym or in the playground and some kids will have had 3 full years at nursery compared to 1 year and a term for the January/ February born and so the older ones tend to be a bit more domineering.
The age range seems to be far too large now and I think it would be better if they just changed the cut offs and everyone went when prescribed unless exceptional circumstances.
Realistically some one has to be the youngest but no one wants that to be their child anymore but how the government are funding all these kids for an extra year at nursery I don’t know.

Usually a child who is 6 when starting p1 has had a retained nursery year linked to additional needs or maybe trauma within their life.

The nursery I work in last year had a lot of December birthday who all deferred and so did the February birthdays.

This year only 1 child was eligible to defer and did. We have an abundance of May/August Birthdays.

Upstart Scotland are campaigning for a kindergarten stage but realistically the 1140 hours has not been funded properly so I doubt a Kindergarten stage would either.

I'm a parent who deferred and will advocate deferal to parents who's children are eligible. Funding is now allowed from the first day of school in August as well as the Jan/Feb.

Yep that's basically what I was saying upthread but you have worded it much better than I did 😂

My youngest is mid-August birthday and was not allowed to defer as he turned 5yo just before the first day of the summer term in August.

It's a tricky one. In his case he would have benefited from extra time at nursery but due to DOB it wasn't allowed. Yet his sibling was allowed with an early September birthday 🤷🏻

A lot of kids in my sons class are in p1 and 6 in dec my ds is 6 and is in p3 (feb birthday) he started at 4 but was so ready for it and a p2 is younger than the new p1's as a Jan birthday all very confusing this year

I think the trend will be for kids to start school later. I was discussing this with a friend who is a primary teacher. She says she’s 100% behind starting formal education later and that they already do so in much of Europe. It’s also very much on the SNP agenda.

Yes I think it’s utterly ridiculous. We live in an affluent area and it’s so common to defer. You have September and October babies deferring as parents think it will give their kids an academic advantage. January February babies almost always defer. I know if I had a child with a January baby I would defer or you risk them being so much younger than the rest of the class.

I wonder how these deferred children will fair when they are older? My ds is a teen Dec birthday and I can't imagine him been in the year below him. I can see how it works academically but socially I am not so sure. Some children need to be the youngest, I would much prefer funding went to early years centres for vulnerable young children

I deferred my oldest who is a Feb birthday years ago and now he is in his final year of primary I am so glad I did as you can generally tell the youngest in the year from about P3. My middle child wasn't deferred but didn't need to be as he was very ready and his birthday meant he was just about 5 anyway. He does really well in school and always has done.
My youngest can't be deferred due to his birthday.

Personally I think it's a good idea to give kids a bit longer at nursery if possible. They maybe ready for P1 at 4 but how many will they be ready for P4 at 7 or secondary at just turned 11. I am glad the Scottish government are moving towards starting school at 6.

So these September deferrals... Start Primary just turning six, 7 years of Primary so then start Secondary just turning 13.

12 and 10 months still at Primary school seems on the old side...

(I'm all for the idea of having 3-5yos in a preschool style setting rather than school setting, but not sure about mixing the age groups!)

Most classes these days have a wide range of ability levels anyway. Even from P1, the difference in ability can be quite striking. Teachers regularly work across at least two levels, sometimes three if they are teaching older classes (early/first/second). This is partly due to the presumption of mainstream schooling and the lack of asn provision, so e.g. you could have a P7 pupil who is still working at early/first level. The advantage of composite classes is that the roll can't go above 25 pupils so at least the pupil:teacher ratio can be slightly lower.
If my child didn't seem school ready I would definitely defer them. People often think it isn't necessary because 1 They are already in nursery full time and 2 Many primary one classes are play based these days. However, as much as they would love to, primary teachers can't give the same time and attention to each individual child as they would be used to from nursery. One teacher for up to 25 children is really stretching the support available for meeting the various needs.

@Bumble84 thats a great idea, please could you report back with thr results?

I have a Feb born who I don't plan to defer. The school told me girls tend to fair a lot better than boys but even then, once they get up the school ladder, it becomes less noticable.

A friend who is a High School teacher told me that she doesn't think affects last beyond primary. She claims she could not tell you who was the youngest and the eldest in her classes.

I'm erring towards deferring my late-Feb born DS. It's one thing being the youngest in a 12-month continuous span of children, but the new rules mean he could be the youngest by 18 months, potentially with a big gap between him and the next youngest if everyone else defers, which just seems daft. I've no doubt he'd be ready academically to start next year but he's physically wee and I'm not sure he'll cope too well socially.

I've deferred my eldest who's January born, but not the youngest who's November.
I'm certain it was the right decision for the older one as P1 was a struggle. She's shy and not good in new environments. They missed a lot of schools due to Covid in P1/P2, but now she seems ok.
The jury's out about the little one, but so far it seems ok. I haven't noticed masses of kids turning 6, all of the parties we went to so far were for people turning 5.

A friend who is a High School teacher told me that she doesn't think affects last beyond primary. She claims she could not tell you who was the youngest and the eldest in her classes.

That's interesting, because I deferred (in part; it was multifactorial) after high school teachers told me it was often apparent who the youngest are when they move up; for example, the younger ones can still want to play on their breaktimes whereas it's more sitting around / getting into make up / kicking a football around / walking aimlessly once you to to high school, or that they fall behind socially as they aren't ready to process 'playground rules' around fashion etc and make a choice on where they fit in with that. Obviously this comes down to maturity as much as age, but the recommendation we had was to defer so they get the chance to outgrow primary school.