Scotland - did you defer your dd/ds and what impact has this had in secondary?

[ificouldbeacamera]

Hi there,
I'm trying to decide whether or not to defer ds who turned 4 right at the end of December. I've done a lot of research into it, and thought about it constantly - still can't decide. I think he would probably be ok in P1 and maybe throughout primary - nursery have said he's probably ready, but my concern really is beyond that eg how will he cope in secondary if he's one of the youngest children, and also how will this impact on sitting S grades effectively nearly a year younger than some children in the class.

I'd love to hear anyone's experiences of deferring/not deferring and how this has impacted (hard to quantify, I know) on their dc's experiences at secondary.
thanks

My dd is halfway through S2. She has a January birthday and started in P1 when she was 5. I had some regrets in the early years as she ended up in the younger half of composite classes and some of the children who were younger than her that she knew from outside school were in the older half. That caused some problems.

Now that she is at Secondary I am glad that she is more mature. However, my biggest worry is that she is now in the year that will be the first to sit the new exams for Curriculum for Excellence. Standard Grades are going out, so your ds will not sit them a year younger than some of his classmates! In theory children will have more opportunity to sit the new exams in different subjects at different levels according to their individual abilities. But what these exams will be like and whether she will end up being disadvantaged compared to the year above her, I do not know.....

I haven't got a Secondary aged child but I taught in Secondary Schools for many years.

My feeling is that children experiment as a year group generally, so when the smoking issue rears its head, or other similar decisions, if the child has deferred then they are a little bit older than they might have been if they hadn't, when they make the decision. Does that make sense?

I also found that when I had a streamed class which was struggling they usually had a larger than normal portion of younger students in them.

However, there was an article or Radio Scotland last week saying that our perceptions of pupils coping better if they are older were doubtful. I will see if I can find a link to it.

I haven't read this but this seems to be the sort of research they were talking about

My children have Jan and Feb birthdays and I deferred with both of them and never regretted it for one minute. Dd is 28th feb so you couldn't have got any younger, she was also tiny and hadn't had the best first year in life (we adopted her) so it was a fairly easy decision to make ( although I still agonised over it at the time). Ds is jan birthday but by then I was so pleased with decision for dd i didn't have to think hard about it. Ds is natural son so didn't have same difficulties as dd, nursery thought he was ready etc etc but I agree that the main benefits are later in their education, they will just be that little bit more mature when they have to make important decisions, wether that is choosing subjects or choosing how to behave with their peers. Life can be hard enough, why make it harder than it needs to be. I know someone has to be the youngest in the class, but given the choice.....

I didn't defer ds (thought about it and discussed it with the ht at the primary - but she visited him at nursery and said he was ready). He's now in S1 and is coping fine. He was absolutely ready for secondary so at the moment I am happy with our decision. Only issue is he is a bit smaller - but that doesn't seem to bother him.

We moved from England, where DD2 had been one of the youngest in her year group (so only just 4 when she started school) back to Scotland. The different intake time meant that DD2 automatically "went back a year", and we were given a choice about DD3, who is a January birthday.

Having seen how much DD2 really wasn't ready for school at 4, we only hesitated a little before agreeing to "hold back" DD3, even though she'd already done reception in England. This meant that she started P1 on the same day that all the other children went full time. We've been double lucky with her though, because the next year, her class became composite with the youngest children from the year above.

DD1 is one of the youngest in her year. She's quite academic, and the move from being one of the oldest in her english class, to one of the youngest in Scotland doesn't seem to have done her any harm.

I think, honestly maturity is the key, and only you can tell that. That said, being more mature, I would have thought, would only be helpful.

Good luck with your decision!

Sorry, the whole point of that was to say that for DD2, now being in the middle age group has been hugely beneficial. Rambling...

It is a difficult decision. We had to pay for private nursery for another year, although we got another year's pre-school funding which offset it a bit. Dd was very small for her age, so that was another factor in my decision-making. In retrospect I'm sure she would have got on fine starting at 4, but I feel that she has probably developed more confidence and self-esteem from being one of the oldest.

FWIW I wanted to defer my ds but nursery and school said he was ready, despite his file saying he was emotionally immature and having had some speech therapy.

I now wish we had kept him. He has been very anxious at school and has been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. We are seeing a child psychologist once a fortnight, he is getting one to one support at school and we are seeing a community paediatrician etc.

Obviously not everyone will face that sort of mess but my instincts told me to keep him and I was talked round by the authorities and now I wish I had listened to myself and we are considering repeating a year at school.

DS is a feb birthday and started p1 in August. He is 5 next month. I never knew you could defer them once they go to secondary. I knew we could have kept him back a year in nursery. But he was ready and most of his friends were moving up. So we put him and so far so good. Not in your situation yet, but I can't imagine deferring a year when all his friends will be going to high school. I think(this is a personal things as I know DS) it would do him more damage to leave his friends. But DS is managing to keep up and sometimes exceed the older ones on his class. He is also half a foot taller than the whole class very tall boy. He is taller than most p2s.

I think you need to ask your DS? It's a hard choice. Being a parent is never easy. Goodkuck to both of you

My DS has a Feb birthday and I had wanted to defer his school entrance as I didn't want him to be the youngest in secondary school, especially as boys tend to mature later than girls. However, he was certainly intellectually and socially able and I was persuaded by nursery teachers and others that he was ready.

Initially things were fine and teachers were often surprised he was the youngest as he kept up with the others in his class and was physically and socially similar to his peers.

However when he reached S4 and S5 he was clearly not really mature enough to concentrate and study properly for his exams and despite being bright he didn't achieve as well as his ability would suggest he should.

He is now in S6 and is much better at working and pacing himself so should achieve better Higher results. But he is applying to university courses without the crop of good results he could have had last year and it's much more uncertain that he will get a place on the course and at the universities he prefers.

With hindsight I do wish I had insisted on keeping him at nursery a year longer.

i would defer though it is not automatic for dec - you will need approval i think.

what do nursery think? there might be a questionnaire you could do (score each developmental thing, add up at the end) there is one about they might have seen it. if you are really undecided can you seek guidance from the educational psychologist attached to the primary school (they will have one) and see what they advise. school can give you contact details.

I just can't understand why anyone defers, apart from if there is a developmental problem such as speech delay.

In England it rarely happens. They can be 4 on the 31st of August and start school on September 1st. It doesn't seem to be a stumbling block.

One of mine started school in England (summer birthday) and they wanted him to go into P1 when we moved up here the next year so I had to have him tested. He was put into P2. He was on higher reading books and higher maths books than the class was. He's now applying for University and the only thing he's moaning about is that he won't be able to drink for a year when he gets there!

Thanks for all the responses! Sorry, got distracted, and forgot to check if anyone had responded.

Carrots, that is exactly one of the issues I was thinking about: when ds is a teenager, as the youngest, he'll be less mature when it comes to issues outside of school - relationships, smoking, drinking etc. Hard to think of now as he's a lovely 4 year old, but it will happen!

Also, as Carrots and Butterflies confirm, no-one ever seems to regret deferring, but some people do have doubts about NOT deferring.

Raffiiscool - nursery think he probably will be ready for school. And in a way so do I. I'm more worried in a way about what impact this decision will have on his teenage years though.

Mustdash - you're right, maturity is the key. But sometimes that's hard to work out. Ds is much less mature than my dd at a similar age.

Almostfifty - in England, research has shown that summer born children are less likely to do as well academically and less likely to go to university than older children. But in England I understand you can't defer entry in the way you can in Scotland, so while lots of August born children's parents don't like it, they can't do much about it. Obviously we do have a choice here in Scotland, and given the above research (none similar has been carried out in Scotland), then that's one reason to consider deferral.

Yes, but we're talking six to eight months difference in England aren't we? Not a couple of months.

Almostfifty I am glad your ds is doing so well. My dh was the same and started University at 16 and now has a phd - so it is not an issue for everyone. No problem ever is.

The problem is not every child is as lucky and if you are struggling and THEN also asked to fast forward you are in a really horrible situation. Not every child will struggle, but some do. Being younger just makes it so much harder.

As I said, whenever I taught the lower band at Secondary there would be a high proportion of late birthdays.

We deferred DS (late Feb birthday) and I'm glad we did. DS was slightly below average height (as are DH and I); if we hadn't deferred he'd have been noticeably small and, because he was a latish developer, would have been one of the last in his class to have his voice break / shave (though, to be honest, I don't know if that would have bothered him.)

Both Dnephews (late Dec and mid Jan birthdays) deferred and their parents have no regrets.

Something else to bear in mind is - what are the other parents doing? If all the Jan / Feb birthdays defer, and some of the Dec birthdays are deferring, then your DS will be the youngest in the class. If not all the Jan/Feb birthdays are deferring, he won't be. Potentially, if there's an early Dec birthday deferred from last year, he could have a classmate over a year older than him.

We didn't defer son and he struggled at primary school. He had dyslexia and it took a while to diagnose as we just thought he was a young boy. Now in 4th year secondary he is doing well at everything except English, fits in well with peers etc. The only disadvantage will be that when he goes to university he'll have a few months when he's too young to drink.

o wish we could defer in uk Ds3 tarted school 4 years and 1 month and has GDD etc so younger still

But if I had opushed and got in in England they then have to catch the year up So y5 then straight into Y7

Ds is in y2 now and th gap even allowing for the delay is so big

Scotland is in the UK!

Well... it's in the UK for the next couple of years. Not sure what will happen after that!

I've deferred dd and she's off to High School in August. I think that extra year has helped her mature and cope with change and we've had a few incidents which have me thinking had it been a year ago she would not have coped as well then.

Dh and I were december birthdays. I struggled maturity wise during high school and some of the situations I faced were horrific at the time. Dh switched off in 1st year as he was put into a class with someone he hated and everyone else already seemed to be friends. He couldn't wait until halfway through 5th year when he could legally leave.

Dd's soon to be high school do early presentation and is smaller than the one we originally had as a catchment so hopefully she will thrive. But I think she'll cope with the change more than me and dh ever did.

opps sorry i meant to type England [bush]

argh

Everything carrotsandcelery said. I defered both my boys and it has given them an enormous advantage.
I am a secondary school teacher and I could point out the non deferred students in any class, physically, emotionally and academically.
I am English and when I realised I had a choice it was WOW what a genius idea, I can give my child an enormous advantage.
I can't find the research but when we were looking at deferring it pointed towards older pupils achieving more at standard grade / highers / uni etc.
Obv as they are older!