Competitions and winter born advantage...

[Mumto2two]

In terms of competitions such as Bebras, Primary Maths challenge etc., it does seem that without any form of age adjustment, older children are clearly advantaged.
Our daughter is summer born, so at age 8 had a high merit on Bebras in the 8-10 category, and a high distinction at age 9. Clearly age has an impact..and now at 10 she has to compete against 12 year olds, which seems unfair.
Equally with the maths challenge. She scored one mark less than the 2 winter born kids who were chosen to go to bonus round, which also seems a little unfair. This must surely be a common theme where age is not differentiated in any way?

Ive deferred to csa for reasons of maturity and behaviour.
Dc1 went on time and it was hell. Just not ready. But extremely bright.
Ks1 sats though only GD on the reading. Average on the others.

People box and wrestle in weight categories but not high jump or shot put. Should we adjust for age, socio-economic, health status, sex? Should we do it for gcses, a levels, job applications?

I don’t think it would be unreasonable to adjust at a young age but less so at an older age - because statistically I think if a summer born gcse or a level kid did the same exams a few months later, They are unlikely to improve their grade by the same amount as an 8 year old.

Especially for competition, they only need to choose Special gifted Children. Others only do it for fun and don’t need to be serious.

Should we adjust for age, socio-economic, health status, sex?

Most sports have categories for sex.
Many sports have age categories for both children and older athletes.
Paralympics comes to mind for health status.

Should we do it for gcses, a levels, job applications?

If the purpose is to find out who did their best as an indicator of ultimate potential, perhaps. If the purpose is to find out who produced the most up to this point, perhaps not.