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).

Ps I'm not a teacher but I do work in a primary school with kids from age 2 up to 11.

Thanks for an interesting thread. I've applied for my summer born child to start school at 5 so I'm interested in teachers' views. While I take the point about reinforcing social inequality I'd be interested in what you'd do or have done with your children given the choice.

While many of the teachers I've spoken to say that summer born children catch up; the academic evidence is clear that while the gap narrows over time the gap in attainment persists until A Level. Part time or flexi schooling for summer borns compounds their disadvantage as they are both younger and then receive less education. The saddest thing is that summer borns are more likely to speak about themselves negatively as learners when older.

I'd be less worried if children started at 6 or 7 but the formal curriculum at just 5 seems inappropriate and likely to damage young children's self esteem. The current system isn't working for younger children and although I'd like all children to start formal schooling later (with high quality preschool) I feel I'm doing what's best for my child.

My son should officially be starting school in September 2017 aged 4 years and 3 weeks, but I have requested a Reception start for him in 2018 when he will have just turned 5. I'm lucky to live somewhere where the LEA is fully supportive of the parent's right to do so.

My main reason is how much the Curriculum has changed for the worse since I was at school. There is too much pressure on children from too young an age. I am most worried about Year 1 and am relieved my son will be 6 and not 5 when he goes in to Year 1.

I would never send my child to a grammar school, so that wouldn't factor I. To my decision. I would hope that he be allowed to stay with his adopted cohort right through senior school, but will cross that bridge when I cone to it.

Some people I know have suggested I'm doing this for selfish reasons, but I know my child better than anybody. I know what he can and can't cope with.

Sorry for the typos in my post.

I'd like to challenge the thought that only wealthier parents would defer. This report from Scotland shows no socio-economic difference between those deferring and those not: There were no significant differences by parental level of education, household income or area deprivation.

The legal age for children to start school in England is the term after they turn 5. So I don't get why my DD would be made to start a whole year before this?

And FWIW I don't necessarily agree with grammar schools either but the when the non-grammar alternatives are struggling to get 30% of their pupils achieving a-c grades, I feel the grammars are a better shot for my DD to have a decent future.

If it is decided that just turned 4 is too young (and let's face it, anyone applying to start at Christmas or Easter is also frowned upon, so it's start in September or nothing usually) then we should move the school starting age back by 6 months for everyone. So next year's cohort will be born from September to 31 July.. The year after July to June. Etc etc til the accademy year start in Sept with the youngest child being 4.5, and the oldest child 5.5. This would have the benifit of reducing demand for the next 6 years, allowing the government 6 years to sort out the number of primary places available (and if they could sort secondary places at the same time.....).

DS1 is a May baby. There is a boy in his class a full 12 months older than him, so they shared their 7th and 8th birthday earlier this year. Since that point of admission, school have made the decision not to place ANY child out of year. You are assessed for your year according to UK standards, and pass or fail (both kids started in UK, we have moved them to a British school in the Middle East).

Following as looking to potentially hold my July born boy back

When we started school, in the mid-80's it was common for schools to have two entry points per year. I am a July baby and started after Christmas when I was 4.5. I only did two terms in reception, and at least the first was part time. DH is a September baby (and lived a 100 miles away so it seems this was common) and started the September he turned 5. He also started part time. So nobody was starting younger than 4.5.

I now have my own April baby and would not dream of calling him a summer baby, or holding back his school start time. Not least because it would be a decision that would cost us £12K. Surely it should be a case by case basis?

I am both a teacher and a summer born (end Aug). I know I would have benefitted academically and socially from being held back a year, as it was college/uni 3 years after my cohort and benefitted massively from that, I just wasn't ready before.

It depends on the child. I have taught summer born children who it made no difference to. You know your child and it is great to have the flexibility. However, having looked into it for my own Ds, the whole system seems confused, especially on transferring to secondary. They should be able to stay in the same cohort if needed.

I do think that summer born children catch up, my friend and I all went to school together and while most are Sept birthdays, the of us who were born in the summer months have done just as well academically and in our future careers (some better).
I know this is anecdotal but worth pointing out from personal experience.

Another point, every Sept in the reception classes, the most obvious difference is not between summer born children and others but between children who did or didn't attend some kind of nursery before starting school. That seems to have a big impact on the child's readiness for school and their academic achievement.

I meant my friends and I, I have more than one!

August born 4yo Ds is currently in reception (so the "right" year Group). Our school does allow deferred start and I am aware of one child who "should" be in DS's class who will be in next year's intake. However the vast majority have stuck to standard year groups.

In DS class of 20, there are 2 July and 4 August birthdays. There are also 3 kids with quite marked SEN (extra support at reception appears to be reserved for those with pretty severe SEN - but please don't flame me about that comment as I am not personally experienced in SEN). The reception teacher is superb and seems to provide a learning environment suitable for the mixed abilities in a way that doesn't make DS's young age a problem at all. There is also good interaction with other year groups - sometimes joint lessons. So the age group lines are more blurred. Perhaps because it is a small school.

I think that, when the school provides the right environment for the children's abilities, in general it is better to stick to the "right" year. DS has developed enormously over the last term. I would feel I was holding him back if we had deferred - he would have been bored in nursery for another year.

I also completely agree with the points above about disadvantage and social inequality. Though it wasn't a financial decision for us, it will be for most people. 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.

Interesting thread. We are considering applying to hold back our DD, who is summer born but also had GDD. She is making good progress now and we hope will cope in mainstream, also her needs are probably not serious enough to get an EHCP. Another suggestion was that she could start reception at the appropriate time but then repeat the year if she were struggling, our LA seem more receptive to this when it is the school rather than the parents saying the child is not ready for Y1. I see a massive difference in how our autumn born oldest coped with school compared to summer born youngest (no SN) and I'm worried we are setting DD up to fail if she is expected to keep up with her peer group.

I've got an end-of-May born DS. I'm not currently considering sending him later (supposed to start 2018) but I might review that once he starts nursery if he doesn't manage to fit in and follow instructions - on maturity rather than academic grounds. If we deferred a year then he'd be 5.3 when he started.

However, I also have a September born DD who is at school and it was really difficult to find things for her to do in the last year before she started school (only at nursery part time) because she was too old for things like toddler groups and a lot of the other children's activities so I'd be concerned that he'd be really bored at home for another year.

Under the current system, there would be children up to 10 months older than DS at school, but under the new system he'd either be pretty much the oldest in the year if we deferred (if nobody else did he'd be the oldest by 3 months!) or potentially have children over a year older than him, which I could see being a big disadvantage for things like sports teams.

We're not in a grammar school area so I'm not worried about exams but potentially having to skip year 7 would concern me a lot.

Am not a teacher.
I wanted to make a couple of points:
Boys seem to suffer more from being younger than girls.
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.

I think it should be decided on a case by case basis, taking into account the views of parents, nursery teachers, GP etc rather than an option for everybody.

I also think it should be reserved mainly for VERY late birthdays ie. August only really or prematurity which puts the child into the 'wrong' year. It's a double whammy for say a child due in Oct but born in August to be 2 months premature and also the youngest.

I have taught August triplets at Secondary who would have done so much better in the year below (in every way). I think it does affect summer born boys more than girls on average too.

My own dd has an April birthday, started at 4.4 and I would not consider her disadvantaged at all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?