Summer born children and moving to private/independent secondary schools

[Stokeymum2014]

Hello

I wondered if anyone had any experience of private/independent secondary school admission for a summer born child who is being educated out of their cohort in primary school (i.e. who began Reception at 5, rather than 4)?

We are based in Hackney but may end up moving out of London by the time our son is ready to move, though we'll remain within commuting distance.

We have found a lovely independent primary which may enable us to delay his entry into Reception until he is 5. This school goes up to Year 6. However the head has expressed concern that none of the obvious destinations for leavers would consider admitting a child out of their 'normal' cohort for the 11+.

Does anyone have any advice? We feel strongly that it would be in our son's best interest to wait until he is 5 to start Reception, but clearly it would be worrisome if he was being made to skip forward a year at the other end (and I think he'd be pretty unlikely to get into any selective school if they made him skip a year in any case).

Many thanks for your help

All grammars, I think, have a weighting for age, so that younger children are not at a disadvantage. Independents will vary.

I know my daughters' v selective girls school took no account of age (I asked, as one had a summer birthday).

@Fifthtimelucky - not all selective state adjust for age. Some disregard it, others adjust the 1st round but not the lengthier English/Maths.

Independent schools have much more discretion in every way including interview/exam/reference split so who know what they adjust.

I stand corrected. State grammars were not an option for us as we live too far away for any to have been an option, so I don't have any personal experience. The only only people I know whose children do go to grammar schools were in an area where age was taken into account.

We have two children in Year 6 this year that should be in year 7, we have had no problem with them applying to a range of schools in the area and being successful at most in gaining places. If they weren’t successful it wasn’t anything to do with age, more the number of candidates and academic credentials of the huge number of applicants.

You may have an issue if you want to get a scholarship at 13+, as most senior schools do have rules on the ages to take this

Shouldbesleepingnow: It is fair because there has to be a cut off point somewhere. Someone’s child will always be the youngest in any cohort you choose! Bad luck if it’s yours - and it was mine!

Why is it a competition? It doesn’t need to be. I have two summer borns. One is August. She was never noticeably behind anyone and was one mark off full marks in our LA 11 plus. Do not fall into the trap of dumbing down what your child can do or, crucially, will be able to do. Mine more than held their own.

Many independent senior schools take overseas students out of year. So do preps. You just stay out of year all the way through. Ask around and see what the school policies are.

there has to be a cut of somewhere..in Australia they are much more leniant in state and independant sector, but that means there is always an 18 month age difference in classes.

We’ve done a few different things

DC3 part time reception then full time in year1 - doing GCSEs now

DC1 was home ed reception, Steiner year 1, state primary year 2, just finishing uni now.

Depending on your reasons for delaying the start, you might find joining year 1 and missing reception or just doing the summer term of reception works?

Should have said part time Steiner year 1, like 2 days a week.

Hi Stokey,
I'm wondering what did you do at the end? I have delayed my son's school entrance til CSA. He is 5yo and doing reception, I know some Grammar schools in our area have changed admissions policy and they would consider taking children out of cohort, but couldn't find anything about independent schools.
Not sure about my thoughts but my eldest took the 11+ exam for an independent school and he was 10 years and 10 months old, one of his friends (September born) was 11 already by January when they took the exam. Wouldn't be the same with a summer born child educated out of cohort? Wouldn't that child be 11 at the time of the test like any other September born child?

I defer our son ( 6) for reception entry until he was 5. Now he is Y1 and we have issues moving him to a different school as he is outside of age group. We are going to talk to them if they are Ok if he jump a year e.g. instead of applying for Y2 he will go for Y3.

The argument that they don't want everybody to start to defer their children and age difference will be even greater. Yes, I believe there should be a cut off point for delaying kids starting school but there are at least two students whose b/day is in October and who are just a 8-9 weeks younger then my son. If he stated at 4 this kids will be a whole 10 month ahead of him. It makes no difference for an adult but it is massive for someone who is 4 or 5.

You should definitely check the information for schools in your area. In Kent, you can take the 11+ with your cohort even if you're 'too old' for that year - they will just apply a heavier age weighting.

stokeymum my DS (who is now 21) was moved in a Haringey school back from yr 1 to reception (he is a late August birthday).
I doubt they would do that now, but it was the best choice for him.
He turned out to be Dyslexic, he spent yr 5/6 in a private dyslexic school, but then went to a north london state secondary school in yr 7, they accepted him in the year group he had always been in (so officially the wrong year) but it was a bit stressful and we had to have several meetings to ensure it was ok.
I would imagine taking the 11+ out of year could be tricky, so I would research this well.
One thing I will say though is you have to just work with where you are at the moment, we planned, moved from Dalston to north london for the schools at primary (moved into catchment for very desirable secondary) but them had to deal with the dyslexia, the secondary didn’t really work either so we moved him in yr 8 to a private school a bit out of London.
Things change and you just have to adapt and work with where you are.

Hi, @Stokeymum2014 could i ask what was your last decision and if you managed to find provate secondary school that accept summerborn out of year group. I delayed my daughter's start to 2023, but now I wonder how it will be for the secondary school. I did not think that private school will really much care about this. Thanks

@MS0 , you realize the thread is over four years old?
might be best to start your own thread and get current relevant info.

Just throw this in here…I don’t want to be shot down as it is my experience
up until relatively recently this was unheard of and the whole summer born children being at a disadvantage was not a thing

I’m summer holiday born, my brother was summer holiday born, my elder son born in mid 90s was summer born ( literally last day of august) . I have had many friends who are summer born.

I know no one who as it got to secondary were ever affected just because of being the youngest in their cohort. let alone in life. None at all in my entire life.

The biggest things that make a difference to school performance is support of parents in early years. Even a not so good school can be overcome with parenteral support. Given your posts and concerns you clearly are going to be a supportive parent so have confidence that you don’t need to jump on this bandwagon of holding a child back. Children develop really quickly and to hold dc back 1 whole year is imho quite bonkers. Children who could be effected by being that much younger in first few years are already with disadvantages- kids that have lacked early years support from parents, poor socialising etc

please try to rationalise this for yourself rather than jump on the catastrophising bandwagon that your dc will be forever scared and disadvantaged by going into their correct school year. Have trust in teaching professionals that they have been dealing with this for decades since school,became compulsory for all children.

Shit just seen it’s zombie 🤦‍♀️

@fallfallfall of course, that's why I asked. :)