Deferrals and composite classes in primary schools

[SayDoWhatNow]

I'm curious about the combined impact of the referral window being widened to 6 months, plus the frequent use of composite classes in Scottish primary schools.

Doesn't this lead to potentially a very wide age range in classes? For example a non-deferred winter born (Feb) would be 4.5y at the start of P1. But a deferred P2 would be 6.5y. These children could potentially be in the same class, which feels like a very wide range to cover.

I know in rural areas it is very common to have 2 year groups in one class throughout primary school. But I think that is also generally alongside small class sizes which reduces the teaching burden a bit.

I'm thinking of the situation in urban schools where there might be 3 full classes - P1, P2 and composite P1/2. Intuitively it feels really messy, but how is it actually managed in classrooms?

Right - so change the starting age. Make it a blanket rule across all children.

Fund appropriate childcare for pre-school children.

Don't make it a choice that only well off families can access, and don't put deferred children in with younger children.

If it's not a behaviour issue, then most likely school is not the best place for them anymore...

I think fundamentally this needs to be the answer.

The discussion about deferral generally conflates 2 things:

• the impact of a child being under 5 when starting school (absolute age of you like)
• the impact of being younger within a cohort (relative age)

If there is a disadvantage to starting school at 4 vs 5 (or 4.5 vs 4 or whatever), change the threshold so that everyone starts at 5+. Scotland already has a later starting age then England and that feels reasonable.

Obviously there is still the relative age effect - I think it is fairly well documented that children who are older within a cohort are more likely to excel in sport for example. But that is always going to exist and is mitigated by an older starting age.

We currently have a situation where some parents are able to move their children from what would be the middle of the age cohort (eg September birthday) to the very very top. But only if they are financially able to. Which then doubly disadvantages the non-deferred younger children and from the sound of things feels quite chaotic to manage in a school. And also, as pp have mentioned, this also limits available nursery places for 3yos as deferred children get a further funded year (although I think there are other issues with allocating nursery spaces too that disadvantage the spring cohort). While I think since discretion about starting age is appropriate for eg Dec-Feb birthdays, I really think that the 6 month window is too wide to be practical.

And why wouldn't school be the best place for a just turned 16 year old?
Who's potentially got 2 years of school left?

Why has there been nothing done with the school leaving age to say they must complete 4th year before they leave school?

It's certainly not child centred to have kids leaving at Christmas in 4th year. Which deferred children are eligible to do.
Is that being made crystal clear to parents when they are making decisions 10years earlier?

There are very very few children who leave at Christmas in S4. Usually they stay with an individual timetable. Each child needs a pathway, regardless of ability. I've taught Christmas leavers classes over the years and they were much more common in previous years.

And thats my point, as more and more children are deferred more and more will be eligible to leave at Christmas of S4.

Why can only better-off parents afford to defer, if the extra year at nursery is fully funded? I've read this before but never fully understood it. The funded hours are the same as school hours, aren't they? Or is it because paying for wraparound care at primary school is cheaper than paying for top up hours at a private nursery if you need full time childcare?

@littleturtledove it depends on the school nursery some are all year so it's less hours per week. Wrap around care is the problematic bit for many parents especially in more rural locations.

Although I find the argument it's just for well off parents to be a bit bizarre - DS1 went to private nursery and was only one to defer, in his year there are 18 deferrals the rest all went to the school nursery! Every child at the private nursery had at least 1 parent in a professional role for work.

DS2 is also being deferred but again out of the number that could (9 with 6 of those Jan/Feb birthdays) only 4 of them are.

Thanks, scottishskifun...yes, I guess the fact that the nursery hours can be divided up so differently throughout the year depending on the nursery makes it more complicated (though it still looks to me like overall the parents will still be paying for the same number of top-up hours throughout the year whether that's weighted towards term-time or holidays, so I agree that while the logistics of wraparound care can be very complicated it doesn't necessarily seem obvious that deferral automatically favours the better-off!)

When I looked at deferring 10 years ago it was said deferring was fairly even across all socioeconomic groups.
That may have changed now that they seem to be encouraging the Sept - Dec deferrals.

The "funding" in Scotland covers school hours - so 9-3 (or possibly 8.30-2:30), term time only. Lots of preschool nurseries (eg attached to a school) run only these hours.

Once kids are school age you can get wraparound care to cover after school. And there are holiday club options for the holidays. But most of these options are no good for preschool children. So unless you are either working in a school hours job or a SAHM that option is a non-starter.

The alternative is a private nursery. In Edinburgh this is approximately £80 a day. The funding covers just about 2 days, but the nursery might ask you to pay extra costs (nappies , food) or say that you need to use a minimum number of days to use the funded hours. For lots of parents, paying for nursery takes the equivalent of a whole salary.

Realistically nursery fees are a very significant expense for most parents and there is a significant reduction once kids are in school.

I think this completely depends on the nursery and area.
My area very few are 9-3 they split the sessions into morning and afternoon so 8-12 or 1-6 for school nursery.
If you manage to get full days then you get 3 days but often it's half a day which doesn't work either.

It's definitely cheaper for us to use private nursery then school nursery and wrap around private nursery sessions.
The school nursery doesn't work for a lot of working parents though unless using childminder or family support.

My daughter is in the younger year group of a composite but it has been organised based on age. She is only 6 days away from being in the year above due to where to cut-off lies

Primary 1-4 are working towards varying outcomes at First Level of Curriculum for Excellence. They might work on different activities but they are using the same curriculum framework. P1/2 is slightly more tricky as the P1’s are still working towards Early Level outcomes whereas the P2’s are working at First Level. However, there will be children in a straight class who are at a higher or lower level than the average child so the teachers will be used to managing the differing levels. I teach in a special needs school and I can be working across three different levels in one single class. We just differentiate the work accordingly so that each child has an appropriate task for their level.

My eldest son was in a composite in p6. He’s old for his year and yes there were some of the p5 cohort almost 2 years younger. It depends though on how the school split the composite. Ours did based on ability not age so the more able p6s as they were more able to work independently/as a group. My son loved it as he got to stay in his p5 classroom and had the same teacher he had in p5. There are always some parents who kick off but as my SIL who taught in a rural school with all composites told me teachers are very used to wide range of ability and teach in groups even in a straight year group. They also did a lot of stuff with just p6 so that helped socially. My eldest ended up with 5 As after s5 so it never held him back anyway ;)

My younger son is young for his year and also has ASN and school gently told me He wasn’t a good candidate for a 2/1 composite when he was in p2 as he still needed too much support.

The teachers setting work isn't the issue.

The issue is socially, if you have a deferred P7 they could be turning 12 in September.
Your youngest P6 will only be 9½ not turning 10 until February.

2½ year age gap at that stage is a really big age gap, especially with puberty in the mix.

It’s a cheat imo. Also when kids get to year 10 and 11, other kids find it weird some are 17, ask awkward questions and assume something “is wrong” with them.

How old are year 10 & year 11?

Socially they put the p5 and p6 with the rest of their peers for things like gym, assembly etc

My son is now 20 and as well as doing well academically he’s not socially stunted either

Sorry but you can't compare what happened in primary schools 8 years ago to now.
But my experience gym would be done with the composite class, space and teacher supervision makes it too difficult to have that done with rest of year.

Trips would be done with year groups but thats one day a year.

Generally 8 years ago the max age gap in a year group would have been 14 mths, Jan & Feb babies maybe / maybe not deferring. So 2 years and 2 mths in a composite.

After covid they half heartly tried to push the start age up, Sept - Dec babies were also allowed to defer. You now have 2½ years in a composite.
With girls especially 12 is a lot more mature than a girl at 9½.

While almost encouraging deferrals they are also pushing play based learning. So kids who 15 years ago would have been sat at desks in P1 will be deferred and messing around in sandpits until the are about 7.

They made no change to leaving age, referred kids can all leave school December of 4th year. So before sitting any exams. Hence my view it was all ill thought out half hearted plan