As someone in the teaching profession, are you supportive of summerborns being able to start reception a year later?

[tushywush]

Are you aware of the summerborn campaign? Do you support it? Does your school support it?

It seems to be such a postcode lottery as to whether summerborns (1st April to 1st August) are being allowed to start in reception the term after they turn 5, rather than the term after they turn 4. Scotland seem to get it so right and have very clear rules for deferring/delaying entry, so I really don't get why England can't do the same, consistently (Herefordshire are more willing, others aren't at all). I think it's all a huge concern, and it also seems that some grammar schools are refusing to accept "over-age" 11+ entrants and other secondaries demanding that a child goes into the "correct cohort" and straight into y8 rather than y7! So in theory you could get a primary school to accept a later start into receipting but then a secondary school may trash that supposed good start.

Anyway really keen to hear the thoughts of teachers and heads on this point. Not so keen to hear anecdotal stories of how someone's August born ended up going to Oxbridge and it's never been an issue

For me, my end of July daughter will probably be ready for school at just turned 4 but I'm still concerned about the longer term impact it may have on her academic attainment and also self-esteem. We are also in a grammar area with awful non-grammar schools so I'd like to give my DD the best chance to get into a grammar (if that kind of school does suit her of course).

[januaryresolutions]

I agree the problem seems to be the curriculum being too academic too soon. If an August child isn't ready to read or write aged four, or even five, they have Year Two to suddenly complete Key Stage one, aged six. Do they really manage to and how??

I don't understand, because I thought it was good for children to learn when they were ready and not push them. So, are the younger children expected to keep up with the rest of the class, maybe with interventions in reception, or to cruise along at their own pace, and have some accelerated scheme later to catch up? Obviously some summer-borns are fine, but the majority of very young boys in particular just aren't ready academically?

Also, which type of child would benefit from more nursery? Is it one who needs to settle and learn routines or one who copes well but seems academically behind at that stage?

[mrz]

As a teacher and mother of two summer borns I would not want to delay my child's start but every child is different and I've taught plenty of autumn borns who would have benefitted from another year in nursery.

[SausageD0g]

More than. Id prefer to extend EYP too. I really don't have a problem with reception, but year 1 at 5 seems full on.

I think it's the ridiculous govt expectations, and the drive to drill things for sats (our school seems to worry about year 6 a lot so starting young....) Yet so many are pleased on mn/daily mail that it's "raising standards" or their kid would be "bored" playing.....grrrr.

[MoreThanUs]

I think there is no perfect solution. I agree with the entrenching inequality argument. I would prefer Early Years Provision (play based learning) to extend until ages 6/7.

I planned (and was lucky enough to conceive very quickly) to have Autumn-born children after teaching secondary for years, and am really relieved that will all be starting school within weeks of turning 5.

[LittleWonderYou]

I've been to lots of primary open days this term and while reception is play based, yr1 is v formal. Most teachers admitted that younger children struggle and they used a range of interventions incl extra handwriting homework, and additional support sessions to "catch them up " These are children who born a few months later would be playing in reception!

Delaying my child is not about gaining an advantage, it's about reducing the very real academic and emotional disadvantages to them in the current system.

[SausageD0g]

Heathery, in England if you turn 4 up to 31St August you start school beginning of September, so reception is 4-5 year olds.
Year 1 is 5-6 year olds. So in England we start "school" earlier however reception is play based so I think Scotland starts more formal schooling earlier. Technically you don't need to send until the term after children turn 5 but in reality most do. Some people defer.

[qumquat]

Like many here I think it's a bad idea as it will entrench disadvantage, as explained so well by milady. It will be the middle classes who can afford an extra year of childcare/don't really on benefits/know how to work the system who's children will be held back and then gain all the advantages of being the eldest in the year. The youngest in the class will become 16 months younger than the eldest so at even more disadvantage than they currently are. The extra differentiation demands on the teacher would be massive as well.

The youngest in the year will always be at a disadvantage, but 12 months younger is better than 16 months younger.

I think that what needs to change is that school should be play based for longer.

[Heatherbell1978]

Reading with interest as I'm in Scotland and didn't know how it worked in England. Here in Scotland children need to have turned 4 by 28th Feb to start school in August. So youngest will be 4.5 and oldest 5.5. If your baby is born in Feb you can choose to delay a year which I think is a decision made with HV.
DS1 is 2 and an August birthday (so ideal for Scotland as he'll be just 5 when he starts school) but DD is due 27/2! So she'll either be the youngest or oldest in her year. For that reason, Feb and March birthdays are probably less popular here!

[SausageD0g]

Wales manage with a play based curriculum for much longer don't they.

[ladyvimes]

Teacher here. I think the flexibility is daft and could potentially cause problems with admissions, especially for over-subscribed schools. There has to be a cut off somewhere.
I do, however, think the current curriculum for key stage 1 is ridiculously demanding and unrealistic for small children. The early years curriculum needs to be extended, even if just into year 1. I really think that would be a big step in closing the gap between summer borns and their peers.

[RaisingSteam]

Summer born is just one disadvantage and accident of birth. To defer so you child has a head start on the year below, pushes the youngest in that class even further down. It's effectively saying your kid should play in the under 7's team not the under 8's so he has better chance of being player of the match. There are many ways of compensating for disadvantage but in the end the cut off must be somewhere.

[SausageD0g]

I've heard stories of the year repeating in some of the states in America and it doesn't sound great. Good differentiation in class seems a better approach to me than prescriptive teaching that just gets repeated.

[Allington]

Here in South Africa you have to 'pass' the year as well (though can only repeat a year once in each of 3 phases IYSWIM).

It works quite well - enough children repeat a year at some point for it not to be stigmatising. Thinking of my daughter's school (she's still Foundation phase - Grade R to grade 3), I would guess that somewhere between a third and a quarter of children repeat a year in Grade R, 1 or 2. It's less common in the higher grades.

Generally once a child has repeated a year they don't need to repeat a year in the next phase - so it basically places the child with the right cohort out of their chronological year and the following chronological year (not sure if it's possible to start a year early...)

So this year my daughter was one of the 10% who repeated her grade. She's now coping comfortably with the work, and I think she just needed the extra time (born in the second half of the year, but not right at the end).

[ninnypoo]

I think it's great to be an option but it really doesn't depend on the child. I have some older children (autumn born) who emotionally aren't ready for school and some august born who are excelling. I think school starts too soon in general and all parents should have the option to start Reception a year later.

[Millionprammiles]

Winter borns once again performed better in all areas in the recent SATs results (a 14 point difference was quoted).

Holding children back a year is all very well in theory but the inevitable stigma attached (as well as losing friends made over a school year) doesn't make it the kindest approach from a child's perspective.

How about extra help in class, the younger the child? How about additional funding for schools depending on the ages of the intake, to support the extra teaching? How about adjusted marking of SATs to reflect age (eg lower thresholds for scores)?
Doesn't seem fair? Neither is the current system.

[jellyfrizz]

And if the norm was to defer I would have had major doubts about sending him to be the youngest in a class with kids 16 months older.

This is what happens where I taught in Australia, it just makes things worse for the redefined youngest.

[SausageD0g]

I thought you cant really compare scottish/english starting ages as the English reception is playbased. Scottish P1 is more like our year 1 isn't it? MOre formal work?

[BackforGood]

I agree with Trills and Milady
I totally disagree with deferring entry except where there is proven developmental delay or some other SEN/D, in which case it should be easier to get a deferment than it currently is in our authority.
You would just be widening the gap yet further, and that is the last thing society needs.

[CauliflowerSqueeze]

Oh the reason is that it's too expensive. The government would have to shell out an additional roughly £3000 per student. And they don't want to do that.

[Badbadbunny]

What is the point of moving up a year if a child hasn't met minimum requirements?

I've been banging on about this forever. I just can't understand why the entire school system is "age based", with kids forced to start if they're not ready, forced to move to secondary if they're not ready, forced to do their GCSE's if they're not ready. A bit of flexibility would solve a lot of problems, and allowing a child to stay back and resit a year could be very useful for some who have fallen behind for a variety of reasons. But, no, they just have to be pushed through the system and spat out at the other end whatever.

[MiladyThesaurus]

Genuinely I don't think tinkering around the edges of whether schools can hold children back or parents would be useful.

The key problem is the fools in government who insist that pushing ever more academic activities down the age range is the way to go. If we had more years of proper early childhood education and waited before insisting that all children must be able to perform academic tasks. All children would do better if we decided that we would wait until everyone was 6 before we decided to start standard schooling. There's no reason why YR and Y1 can't be redesigned as excellent play-based early childhood provision. But getting to that point would take a huge culture shift in England.

Children don't need to be taught times tables or phonics in order to avoid being 'bored', however bright they are. In a well planned and resources early childhood problem it genuinely isn't a problem. The fact that so many parents think this is the case is a result of cultural ideas about education and learning that insist that the 3Rs are all the matters. And the apparent boredom probably results from activities being conceived only in terms of preparing for them.

[MiladyThesaurus]

The evidence from the GUS study would be unlikely to apply to England for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most importantly, it's a longitudinal study so the results available are for children whose families made decisions under different benefit rules. I don't see the DWP relaxing their work rules under UC for someone who has chosen to delay their child starting school.

There are cultural differences between Scotland and (particularly SE) England. I am Scottish and it genuinely was a culture shock when I moved down to the SE. The education systems are very different indeed and the Scottish system does not function like the pressure cooker England seems to favour. DS1 has been at school in both systems and the difference is very obvious. The educational stakes feel different and that will impact on how people behave.

You don't see hundreds of panicky posts from Scottish MNers trying to navigate and game the school admissions system every single year (or hundreds of posts complaining about it). I didn't really understand the school places stories on the national news until I had to apply for schools in England. My mum (who is a teacher in Scotland) was similarly flummoxed. But school admissions is completely different in England and there are significant numbers of parents who have the means and the desire to ensure their child is at maximum advantage (even if it means behaving unethically). It would be naive to assume that allowing deferrals for April born children wouldn't simply add to existing practices.

In short, you can't necessarily or easily say that what happens in Scotland will be true in England.

[CauliflowerSqueeze]

In France children can retake a year if they don't pass the year. Perhaps this could be introduced here. What is the point of moving up a year if a child hasn't met minimum requirements?
I don't know the pluses nor minuses of this system though.

It's not that they "can" as if it's a parental option, the school can decide that they must retake a year.
It's becoming less and less fashionable because it's very expensive and hard to manage with class sizes. It can also be seen as quite humiliating and upsetting for the child, as their friends move up and they repeat the year. The curriculum followed in French schools is very static and specific - you can buy books for CM2 Maths for example and know that the whole country is covering the same material.


Personally, I think that premature babies and those with SEN should be given the option of starting the following academic year.

[thethoughtfox]

I read a study that tracing summer borns through to university showed that they did worse all the way through their education and some professors were suggesting that this be taken into account when their work was graded to make allowances for this.

[Sadik]

This is a really interesting thread. I really see Milady's point about making inequality even worse. But, would there be an alternative, that all children go into reception in the 'correct' year, but that then the school rather than the parents can make the decision that they need to spend an extra year in that stage rather than moving into year 1?

Maybe it's different here (we're in Wales) but the early years classes really aren't that much different from being in a good nursery.

In fact, children can (and mostly do) start in school half days from the term after they turn three. In dd's primary, the nursery and reception children were in the same physical space, with very fluid play based 'teaching'. (I put that in quotes not because the dc weren't learning, but because they probably didn't feel like they were being taught.)

As it happened, in dd's year because of a lumpy intake and practical teaching needs the youngest of her year group - those born after Easter - were kept in reception for another two terms.

I can't see why that sort of decision can't be made more formal - so that the reception teacher could say "I think your August born child would really benefit from another year in my class". While reasonably it should be done in discussion with parents, it's unlikely to disadvantage those with less pushy/clued up parents because in that situation I suspect they're likely to go along with the professional opinion of the teacher.