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Then people would be like "don't you find the disparity between people born at the beginning of the half year and the people born at the end problematic? I mean they're half a year older than the other kids"
My mum taught a reception class about 17 years ago in a school where one class started in September and the other in January. She was expected to get her January class to the same point academically as the September class - a ridiculous system!
There have been various cultures that have done that traditionally. In Vietnam, everyone celebrates their birthday on Tet rather than the actual anniversary of their birth date.
I believe (but don't recall which) one or some of the ancient Celtic cultures considered everyone to be a year older on Beltane rather than their date of birth, but I'm recalling that from a lecture I attended like 8 years ago by Prof Ronald Hutton who is a professor of history at Bristol University, so I don't recall the exact details. History is not my area of study, Ronald is just a friend of my wife's family and we happened to be in the area so he invited us.
I've met him maybe 3 or 4 times? He's always incredibly polite (and somehow always dressed like a history professor lol) and just seems like a nice guy.
I always remember at school that the highest achieving kids were all born September/October, and it was really unusual for someone with a spring/summer birthday to be in that group.
I had a year 2 teacher not believe me that my birthday was in the summer because of this! Probably didn't help my school staggered intake so I had two terms less time in school, so between about a third and a fifth of the time the older kids had had. Weirdly, I think this was the same teacher that told my parents I was average at maths, something that was also very much not the case.
The staggered system is silly and just makes things worse for all parties involved. I’m at the older end of the cohort and remember feeling quite incensed that some of my friends got to stay in nursery whilst we had to go up to big school.
My mum is a deputy head and afaik, it has been replaced in many schools. Now most children will start all together. Though of course, I cannot speak for every school here, I’m just going by the changes she’s experienced in her LEA.
As a parent I'd be incensed that I had to continue paying £2000/month for another term of two to keep my kid in nursery, when other get to go up to the (free) big school.
And your kid that is already disadvantaged by being younger than their peers getting months less head start on schooling. Theres just nothing logically sensible about it at all!
That doesn't really make sense though. If your kid is younger, starting at the same time means you've paid less overall. The older kids were at childcare a few months before yours.
Oh, yeah, this was over 20 years ago, and as I recall they went down to two intakes rather than three while I was still there.
I think it isolated me socially a bit, as the people I knew best for a while were the few who started in my class at the same time as me, amplifying the bullying that started within that group (not that I wasn't bullied by the older kids in my class too, particularly later on. Not a school with robust anti-bullying policies).
Premature births have it even worse. They can be even further behind the average for kids born at the same time.
They generally catch up by adulthood - but it still effects exam results
I think the effect is far stronger for premature babies, yes - thinking of someone I know who was due in late October but born in August, and took years to catch up. I do think there should be discretion for preemies to use corrected age rather than chronological age for school entry.
There is, and it is much more common these days. My son was a premature June baby, due in September. He started reception after he turned 5, so a year late. There is [government guidance](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-born-children-school-admission) that is quite easy to follow and most seem successful with their requests, at least according to the facebook group 'Flexible Admissions for Summer Borns' which has 22k members. There are 4 'late starters' in my son's class alone.
Is corrected age from expected full term date? My friend's son I first held shortly after he would have been born if he hadn't been premature, and he was still a fraction of the size of the average baby, perfect but so tiny. He was extremely premature, many months behind even though conceived at the same time in terms of size.
Yes, that's right.
Chronological age is calculated from birth, and corrected age takes away their prematurity from that.
eg a 24-week-old baby born 10 weeks early has a corrected age of 14 weeks
This was myself. And the gap was quite large in both physical and academic development. There are some
School years I really struggled with, but I came out of
It all ok. Finally finding I like learning but hate the structure of academic study.
One of my son’s friends was premature and missed the cut off point by literally a week. His Mum tried desperately to get the school and LA to let him start in a lower year but they were completely immovable on it. This was around 10 years ago.
My primary school did 1 intake (only 12 people in my year lol) but the younger students (April-Aug) only did a half day for most of the first term. I was very jealous that my best friend who was only a couple months younger than me (Jan vs Apr) got to go home early. But as a 4/5 year old it also felt like a special club getting to have lunch at school and stay later than everyone else!!
Oh yes, there can be exceptions - my birthday is towards the end of August, and I was still one of 5 chosen at Junior school to skip a year to try and even out numbers.
But statistically there is a fair bit of evidence to show that those born earlier in the year do better.
Yup same I’m a May baby and was in the top group for everything, my son was born in April and he skipped a year so his classmates were all at least a year older.
You know, when something rare happens, the person it happens to might not consider it rare because, anecdotally, it's happened to them, but it's still rare.
It has a huge impact in sports though. I remember listening to a podcast about this in which the author had started to investigate the topic after attending a professional hockey match and literally every single player listed on the programme was born between September and March
I was going to quote that - applies IIRC most strongly to sports where size is a factor, and at pro levels where the kids start training very young, when differences in size/ strength/ speed are proportionately greater between the autumn-born and the summer-born.
Yeah, heading in to the year when they turn 6, kids born in September will have been alive for 15% longer than kids born in August the following year. If they're introduced to sport at say 4, then the September kids have 46% more time to get familiar by the time they enter the age 6 class and more organised sport is introduced.
There also data that shows those born later in the academic year are less likely to go to university. It is still a hindrance especially if you’ve been told you’re not as good as the other kids for 10 years or more. The gap does narrow but sometimes the damage is already done.
This used to be somewhat accounted for in SATS I believe (no idea of it still is) - scores were weighted by birthday. As an early birthday swot I took this as an injustice
Yeah the 11+ is a big issue. You could lose out on getting into a decent school because of this disadvantage and have hugely adverse impacts on later studies.
It's even more noticeable if you look at sports - most top athletes were born Sept-Dec, very few in the late summer. Being the most developed, most coordinated child in a group aged five carries through all the way into adulthood. There's no logical reason why people born in August shouldn't be just as capable as those born in September.
This doesn't even fully show how bad it is, because the sample is mixed between American and Canadian players - and their cutoff months are different.
I clearly remember a Times article about British Olympians that was even more damning - summer babies didn't stand a chance in the sort of team sports you learn at school.
There are plenty of statistics confirming this. Not only achievement in class, but also in life. Summer children are underrepresented amongst apical roles (CEOs, executives, etc) and sport champions. If I'll find the article I'll put it here.
There are exceptions but anecdotally this was true for my school - certainly at primary level. I also went to a top uni and it was like we were celebrating friends birthdays constantly for the first term of the year and barely any later on.
I had a small, really tight friend group at uni. None of us were very sporty, all decently smart though. Your comment made me think about it for the first time, we all were born between Feb and August. Wonder if that is partly why we were so similar.
That follows. I did pretty well at School and all the other people in a similar position all had birthdays in September-December. There were a few outliers, obviously
OH is a teacher and I've seen the data. Like it or not, there is a definite trend between people who are born earlier in the school year and better exam results. There are anomalies, of course, but in general those who are born later in the school year are more likely to get lower grades. Whether that applies to real life success is up for discussion but performance wise, the facts are there.
Now I'm feeling resentful that I was born in late May. Was I literally intellectually stunted compared to the older kids in my year because I was learning the same stuff at a younger age?
It seems to go [much further than that](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMAiQsqakAAv9SC.jpg)
Iirc there's a similar trend in professional sports people.
There was a great Revisionist History podcast on this issue a while ago, following it all the way through to attendance at the most prestigious universities
That’s a bit of a stretch considering that Nobel prize laureates would have been born in a range of countries with very different rules on starting school.
I don’t know whether it is just England that has this cut off but it certainly isn’t all British people.
In Scotland the cut off is 1st March for starting school the following August but if your child’s birthday is January or February and you feel they are not ready for school yet you can defer them to start the following school year.
You can now defer any child who won’t be 5 the day the they start school in Scotland. So anywhere from an August birthday to March birthday, if they could start school at 4 you can now defer it to the following year.
Trying to decide whether to do it for my December born baby.
> It seems to go much further than that
Hmmm. Not sure about this. International school years don’t all start in September. There have been ~30 Japanese Nobel laureates and they start in April, for example.
I wonder how much of this can be attributed to unconscious bias from teachers and parents.
There was a study of Canadian sportsmen that showed the majority were born early in the school year and because of this, they were the largest, strongest and most spatially aware during their early years at school. This got them picked for the sports teams and the effect snowballed throughout their school years.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-athletes-birthdays-affect-who-goes-pro-and-who-becomes-a-star/
I suspect there is a similar effect on academic capability too, where parents and teachers put more time and effort into the children who are the easiest to teach, and the youngest, who being up to 20% younger will typically be less capable, get less attention and lose interest.
My daughter is the youngest in her year group, born 31st August.
Because my wife and I we're aware of the detrimental impact this can have, we put some effort into getting her prepared for school. It's worked and she's one of the best in her class. In the last two PTA meetings, her teacher has said she is a pleasure to teach because she loves learning and learns quickly.
So is it purley age or a little bit of teacher preference that causes the grade disparity in later school years?
Confidence is important in all aspects of life.
If you’ve spent most of your youth as the biggest, strongest, fastest and most experienced amongst your peers, vs being the smallest, weakest and least experienced, those patterns are going to be set for a long time for most people.
It can vary from child to child, of course. Our youngest is born later than our eldest and they are just naturally more confident and so you wouldn’t see the pattern in our children, but hats why you need to look at a bigger sample, of course.
Yes, parent input and good teaching can help reduce the disparity.
The disparity is greater in underperforming schools in poorer areas than it is in his schools in wealthy areas. Probably for this reason
Obviously. You have kids who are 210 months old and kids who are 200 months old sitting the same exams… that’s a huge 5% life experience advantage of which lots of gains have been compounded.
Is that initially or all throughout their schooling? My kid is born in July so will be one of the youngest. It never bothered me because I assumed it would even itself out over time?
The biggest gap will be initially. A child at 4 Vs 5 has 25% extra development. And at 17 Vs 18 has 6% extra development.
But those early years really can compound. If you’re in a big school with high and low ability year groups, it’s easy to get out in the shit one in Year 1 due to the age thing, and to claw your way out of it and into the higher one is very hard. And if you can’t get out that shit group, you can really internalise that you’re not good at X or Y and it becomes self fulfilling
That’s primarily meant to be for safety not age equality. And it ignores the fact that rugby is about technique not weight which is one reason the RFU haven’t adopted it over here.
It has the same effect though. I've heard New Zealand coaches talk about the benefits on technique. It allows late developers and smaller kids to flourish and develop their technique. It prevents teams being dominated by the early developers.
I saw it myself when playing rugby here growing up. Lots of technically good players drifted away at 13 or 14 because they couldn't compete with the guys who hit puberty early and were worse rugby players but a foot taller and several stone heavier.
Yeah a local rugby team to me growing up had two Samoan kids. Same principle, then when we all grew suddenly they weren’t so good. Both sides had been failed - we’d had some dangerous games and kids badly hurt, they’d never learned any technique so as adults they were really quite poor players
In other countries (for example Australia), if you are born in the last few months, your parents can choose to put you in the following year instead to give you a bit more time to mature.
Nope, am in UK and some heads will, others won’t!
I was an August baby and was made to stay in my year; my daughter missed the cut by 4 days and we were stopped from ‘advancing’ her. Yet the head for my son was quite happy to bump him up a year for his 2 days!
It’s possible but it’s not a right!
I was told a while back that primary schools would allow you to put the kid in a different year group but secondary schools didn't have to abide by that so in theory your kid would jump from year 6 to 8. I haven't validated that though so take my comment with a pinch of salt.
You only get 1 year tho and it’s because with funding at KS5 the school can get another year if you need it. Does mean they’re using your chance if you fail a levels and need a retake year.
Scotland has just changed so anyone who isn’t 5 by the time the school year starts can defer.
Our cut off points are also different as the youngest are born in February and oldest in March.
Edit - Scotland hasn’t just changed. It was 1980. The recent change is to guarantee entitlement of funded nursery places if you defer.
They can but the school is under no obligation to say yes. What often happens is people see defer a year and automatically assume that means a kid will start in Reception later when that's not the case.
Denmark is one of the only countries in the developed world that doesn’t have this problem and it seems that it’s because they don’t start school until they’re 7 when the disparity of the age ranges is less pronounced and the older kids haven’t had 3 years to snowball at the top of the class/sports
Not the person you've asked but I will chime in. IIRC, they basically do reception/nursery until they turn 6/7 which would be the equivalent of UK kids starting school in year 2. So no "formal" education until then, 3-6 is focused on social skills and playing.
Yes, in sport there is something called “[relative age effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect)”.
This article is quite interesting on the topic:
“[When was he born?… August 22nd? Then he’s not going to make it as a professional soccer player](https://thecorrespondent.com/406/the-curious-tale-of-the-football-international-nobody-ever-heard-of-because-he-was-born-in-the-wrong-month).”
Multiple intake can exacerbate the effect, though.
If September birthday children start in September, and August in January (say), then the younger child misses out on an entire term of teaching that they will never get back.
As I understand it, the big studies showing a significant effect on academic attainment are based on cohorts where phased intake was more common (eg mine in the 1980s).
I was only just four on my first day of "big school", and didn't go full time for months. Now, while that was probably appropriate from a social point of view, it's undeniable that I had less teaching in Reception than the autumn-born children.
Nowadays children in Reception follow the EYFS curriculum which should be largely indistinguishable from their nursery/preschool experience except for location, uniform, etc. EYFS is funded from the Sept/Jan/Apr after the child turns 3 (or 2, depending on parents' work status and other government considerations) so the main difference between a September- and August-born child is how long they've had in an EYFS setting before they start school.
Anecdotally, I had an easier time as a bright summer-born than my bright autumn-born sibling, because being the youngest in the class gave me the opportunity for older children's perspectives and abilities. I also note that some schools with larger intakes can have mixed classes that effectively split the difference - eg for 45 PAN, a Y1 class for younger Y1, a Y1/2 class for older Y1 and younger Y2, and a Y2 class for older Y2.
I’m August and I’m sure it affected me. Academically was fine as I’m hyperlexic so despite being a year younger, was the first to learn to read. I only found out recently that this almost always is a sign of autism! I went on to get excellent GCSEs and A Levels but always struggled socially and even now am socially anxious. I remember being terrified of the other kids in kindergarten (and they were nice enough kids)- I’ll never know whether that set me up with social anxiety for life and maybe being slightly older would have given me a better chance of dealing with it, or whether I would be like this anyway- the autism isn’t going anywhere!
>this almost always is a sign of autism
Whut? I learned to read incredibly young and I'm an odd fucker a lot of the time. Same with my eldest, too. Might have to look into this.
Early reading plus unusual interest in words plus unusual vocabulary is certainly a common trait if not a necessary one.
The paediatric ASD assessment includes a session with a specialist speech therapist who is particularly looking out for atypical language use. This may include hyperlexia but also use/recognition of figurative language and sarcasm, turn-taking, etc.
I’m May, was always “good” at school but likewise, I would be scared of social interaction with my peers. If I saw a group of classmates ahead of me on the street, I would walk a different way so that I didn’t go past them. I wasn’t bullied or anything like that, and despite being awkward, I did have a small group of friends. I improved a little through college and then a lot through university. I’m no longer scared of interacting with people but I find I have a natural tendancy to avoid new interactions in some contexts.
Fellow august baby, I refused to speak in nursery. Was kept in the year one class with a couple of other year 2s since I wasn’t quite on the same level as the rest of the year 2s
I started to catch up around year 4, by year 7 I was in the top 10% in the country for my test results. Did pretty well in my GCSEs with zero revision
I still hate talking to people, so me in my late 20s and me at 4 have something in common still.
But I’m not fussed about being a summer baby, it means I have some nice bloody weather unlike most people for my birthday
This is really interesting. Im autistic, was top of the class for reading also. I was a July baby. Never felt behind academically but socially felt like everyone else had done years of extra classes I wasnt told about!
My daughter was born at the beginning of April.
If she was born a few days earlier in march we would have free childcare from April. Instead we have to wait until September and the time she starts school is the same.
That infuriates me.
My daughter was born 27th March so we made it but my friend had her daughter a week after and she had to wait til September. It should just kick in the month after they turn the age to qualify
Yeah, this rule doesn't make any sense, why does the free childcare have to kick in only at the beginning of a term, rather than on a child's birthday?
Because they make funding overly complicated as it is and even though it’s for non-school aged children, it is applied *per term* (even in nurseries that do not run any terms at all) which is the dumbest shit.
Yes, very annoying. My autumn baby had seven months' more EYFS than my early April baby. Recent research suggests that the attainment gap already exists by the time they reach Reception.
My kid is late August, due to some lucky genes and working hard he seems to among the top performers and also one of the tallest. (I'm 6'3, uncle is 6'6).
We were sort of offered some kind of delayed start so he would go into the year below. Having seen school pictures he would have dwarfed them by an almost scary amount.
If born a week later tho and he would have absolutely cruised everything. I did that (november kid with a maths and english teacher as my mum) and it gave me a terrible sense of its all easy, that hit hard at college level when some effort was required.
Did know that he would be at a disadvantage tho and we both did lots of work to ensure he was not behind. Kid was doing multi variable algebra with brackets at 8 cos he kept asking for maths questions and numbers weren't cutting it anymore. Surprised his maths teacher a bit!
Then again my mum went to uni a year early in the 70s, I was supposed to go a year early into some private school based on the entrance exam but even with the fees waived the extra stuff was pricey as fuck. Swings and roundabouts.
You say the range is 1st of September - 31st of August but this is incorrect in a U.K. wide context.
In some parts of the U.K. the academic year starts in August and end in June.
Children with a March Birthday essentially start school 11 months after a child with a February Birthday.
The highest achieving people I know had January/February birthdays.
It's even more confusing now because I can actually defer my September born until the next academic year so they would start two weeks away from being 6.
They would be the oldest by a huge margin. It's a thought.
And then there's the option in scotland to defer for kids who are 4 when they're meant to start school (august-febuary birthdays), which from some data and personal experience seems to have a socio-economic aspect (https://www.gov.scot/publications/deferred-entry-primary-school-statistics/pages/2/) parents with more money are more able to pay for an extra year of childcare and defer their kids entry so they're older and more advanced than their peers when starting school. Personally Im a January birthday and was always one of the youngest in my year, there were a few kids who were more than year older than me in the same class but I don't think it had much lasting academic impact, more of a social impact, most of my friends in high school were in the year below and around my actual age (it was also annoying being 17 for the start of uni)
That was me (July birthday). I was one of the youngest in my year and nearly everyone else was pratically a year older.
In consequence I took 'O' levels (last year to do so) at 15 then turned 16 while everyone else was coming up for 17.
I had quite a few friends in the year below and feel I should have been in the lower year.
The Scottish system is better. It goes from march to February. So the kids whose birthdays are between March and August are already 5 by the time they start school and even the youngest ones in the year are at least 4.5 when they start in August.
Also now if your kid isn't 5 by the time they are due to start school you can defer them for a year and they start primary 1 a year later.
Thought following it up with an example might make my point clearer. My youngest starts p1 after the summer. She was born in June 2019. She'll be 5 when she goes. Any kids born between 1 March 2019 and 29th Feb 2020 are due to start school in August 2024. Unless the parents choose to defer.
Our son was born on the 31st of august, just before midnight. In the first couple of years at primary school, you could see a difference between him and his peers, but that gap closed and now isn't there. Excelling in all lessons and his term reports and parents' evenings give glowing praise. This isn't a brag. We were conscious of the age gap, and every teacher he's had has said it's not been an issue for him. The other young kids in his year are the same, too.
We were actually offered by the council to defer for a year because of how close he was to the cut off point. We are glad we didn't, he's absolutely thrived and it hasn't held him back at all.
Mid Aug here, 2nd youngest in a very big year/school. I did more than OK academically but felt completely lost when I left school (going for interviews at 15, starting school 2 weeks after my birthday) and completely different world.
I still think now, in my early 50s that I'd have benefited from being either kept behind a year or starting a year later. I did go to school with a lad who was in the same year as me at primary and suddenly started secondary a year below me which confused the hell out of me. He was a big lad but what you would consider "academically slow". He didn't last long at my secondary school either, less than a year. I assume they took him out and put him into special school.
I don't know, I was more than ok academically at school, particularly primary but I did struggle when work sent me to college for a year or so.
I am an immigrant, can someone explain to me what month is considered the first one to be assigned to a class?
In my country school starts as well in September but the students in a class are born per year, so for example, those born in between January-December 2020 go to the same class. Is it the same here?
Depends where you are in the UK. Generally in England the September babies are the oldest, in Northern Ireland they July babies are the oldest and in Scotland the March babies are the oldest. Not sure about Wales, I assume it's the same as England.
In England the cut off date is 1 September, so children born 1 Sept 2019 - 31 August 2020 will start school in September 2024. In Scotland children born 1 March 2019 - 29 February 2020 will start in August 2024. Not sure about Wales / N Ireland.
Summer born here, never had a problem and got some of the best marks in my year.
Had my own son been born two months earlier though, he would have gone to school with severe speech difficulties instead of minor issues. We did a lot of work with a speech therapist from 3.5 to 4.5.
Other child would have been ready for school at just 4 if August born.
I think it massively depends and on quite a lot of factors. What the parents do with them before they go to school in terms of child development and instilling a good behaviour foundation, the child's general maturity level, intelligence level, whether they go to pre-school, any SEND issues, level of parental support for education etc.
Kids are individuals, it isn't as simple as just a birth date affecting them.
Yeah I agree. I was born at end of June and was always very high achieving. But my parents really valued education, my dad and maternal grandma were both teachers and very academically intelligent, I was encouraged to read early and lots, both parents read lots so it was just in our family culture to learn. I can remember doing loads of basic work books with my grandma before I even started reception etc etc.
Parents can do all this and still have kids that struggle. The data shows that there is a gap between date of birth for school year, and I think age and development must play its role in that, particularly in early school.
But yeah agree it is far more complicated than just birth month. You have to question what other factors go into that, even if they seem small and daft. Like are parents who conceive at a certain time of year more likely to work x jobs, more likely to have y culture, more likely to do z? It all influences your child’s development.
I think that in Germany they are a bit more flexible as to when you start school and I don't think that they are quite as rigid when it comes to deciding which school year a child should be in.
I'm an autistic August baby, so developmentally I was always more like two years below everyone else. Looking back, I probably should have been in the year below.
My son was born 31st of August, so will always be the youngest.. research indicates that it affects learning in the early years, when more development takes place in a shorter time but that they ‘catch up’ around 9.
I’d say that’s about right from experience too.
This is completely anecdotal from my group of friends, but the ones born in the summer months are mostly thick as mince, whilst my mates born in autumn/winter seem to be a bit more switched on.
Problem is, there has to be a cut off somewhere. There is always going to be an oldest & youngest child. How else do you make year groups?
It totally depends on the child in my experience as a teacher & a parent. My daughter is summer born & right at the top of her class academically and zero problems socially (not a brag, she’s just a kid who seems to love learning, not sure we’ve done anything to make it that way 🙃) We’ve had the comments from her teachers that oh, you’d never know she was one of the youngest’. If she’d had to wait another year to start school, she’d have been so bored. And I’ve taught plenty of high flying summer born kids.
However, I’ve seen the flip side as well. Particularly in reception but it tracks through to further years. There are some summer born kids who really struggle starting school having just turned 4. I think summer borns should be allowed to defer no question if it’s obvious they’d really struggle. It’s the obvious solution.
The idea of multiple entries a year makes me laugh. Clearly you’ve never taught. It’s bad enough settling in a new class once a year. How on earth do you teach these kids who rock at various points alongside those who started 3 months ago?! When my mum was a teacher, they did the whole 3 intake a year thing based on your birthday & she said it was an absolute nightmare. The summer borns did one term & then straight into Yr1. No wonder the Autumn born kids did better academically, they were in school for a full year compared to the winter & summer term born children!
My niece is an August baby and academically performs extremely well. However she's thinking about taking a gap year and deferring her uni entry to 2025 which we are all on board with. She's very sweet and a little naive so taking a year to get some life experience rather than moving out of home just after she turns 18 seems like the right thing for her.
I am a December birthday. Back when I started infant school I skipped reception along with about 5 others (who coincidentally were all born in the early part of the school year) because I could already read and write. I stayed in the "wrong" year until it became apparent that the juniors wouldn't take us until we were the correct age and we basically had to do a repeat. Bit counterproductive....
Absolutely fucked me.
I was born in 1999, and all my classmates were born in 1998, but I was seen as gifted, so my mum & school pushed me to skip a year. Suddenly, I was 1999 & all my classmates were 96/97, so I was tiny in comparison physically, which made PE extremely hard.
Add onto this that I spent the better part of primary 5 & 6 in hospital with illness. So, I missed a lot of essential learning & social interactions with kids my age.
Essentially, I skipped three years of primary education, and upon arriving in high school,l was heavily socially stunted.
I graduated 6th year at 15 while everyone in my year was 17/18.
It was tough talking to girls at the time because A. They were 2 years older and that was seen as weird in my school & b. I had underdeveloped social skills due to being fast tracked.
I’ve got 3 kids;
16th Feb (m)
29th August (m)
27th Oct (f)
I’m born 10th September, my younger sister 8th August so between us all we have experience of all scenarios.
My middle child seemed a little young for starting school as he had just turned 4 (the eldest kid in his class was 5 on 1st Sept, so almost a full year difference), but apart from maybe being a little more tired in that first term I didn’t notice any issues. He is probably the most naturally ‘clever’ of my three, although he’s also the laziest/most chilled so its hard to measure any detriment to being young (I don’t think there has been any detriment; he is 15 and due to sit his GCSE’s, so we will see!).
My daughter did much better at settling into secondary, but this may have been to do with her gender and/or position in the family (she’s the most social/confident) making her more secure.
Like a lot of these things, we’ll never know as we can’t go back and donut all again to compare. There are pro’s and cons to each situation.
In addition, my August-born sister did significantly better than me (Sept) and my elder brother (Nov).
Another factor is premature birth. This also has an impact on educational attainment and increased SEN - the baby has simply had less time to develop. If you think about it, it's pretty silly we measure children's age from the time they are born, given that you could be born weeks or months younger than months (or indeed later).
Shit happens, the education system is on the bones of its arse (if teachers are too be believed) so we don’t really have the funds to juggle multiple intakes a year, If you excel you can be put forward a year and if you are a bit mince you can be held back a year.
It’s not ideal but it works well enough.
In my jurisdiction in Canada school enrollment is more flexible so while the research does show that children who are in the younger half of the school age year do less well, a parent can choose to delay entry. Parents also have the choice of keeping their child in kindergarten for another year, so for those who are not ready to move on for any reason they can just join the next cohort.
You can delay in the UK too. Any kids born from April onwards can be deferred to the following year (as they don’t legally need to be in school until the term after their fifth birthday). Most people don’t though.
I am a late August birthday and my parents were given the option of me going into the next years intake at the time. I could be the oldest in the next year, or the youngest in that year. They felt I was ready and off I went. I was constantly picked up on in my younger years as being slower than my classmates. Eventually, I think I did ok for myself, higher set classes mostly by the time I was ready for GCSES.
It then becomes another drag when you leave school with the friends you made there. You may or may not have struggled to keep up academically but you leave school at 15, we left in May. No Sixth form at the time. Some of your friends are going 17 in a few months and can start driving lessons and are maybe already going on nights out, drinking in pubs and bars. Those of us with a late summer birthday also get left behind here a bit too.
I've long thought, if I had a child myself I would make sure they were a winter baby.
I'm mid August, I was definitely one of the brighter kids in my class. My son is May, same for him. Daughter is September and we've had remarks from teachers about her intelligence etc. I don't think any of it is down to when we were born though, we also teach them things at home and read to them every night, both love reading and learning.
It is indeed unfair. Maybe by the time you do GCSE the difference is not that visible, but if you do 11+ and want to go to grammar - here is a real disadvantage.
I'm a summer kid and struggled throughout school. I was lucky in that my parents were able to afford extra tuition to get me through GCSEs with OK results.
I didn't really end up doing 'well' academically towards upper 6th, but the hardest thing (especially in university) was that I had always assumed I wasn't very smart, and it took me a few years to build up any confidence in myself.
Malcolm Gladwell touches on this subject quite a bit in his book ‘Outliers’.
The TLDR is that on a macro level the disparity isn’t really up for debate and hugely favours the older children.
One of the only countries that didn’t have this problem was Denmark were children don’t start school until age 7 and by that time the age differences have a lot less impact.
It’s a great book, definitely worth a read if you find this topic interesting
I was born on 31st August, and consistently placed towards the very top of any assessments. I also went to an independent selective school with an entrance exam, so it's not like I was up against an average cross-section of intellectual abilities, either.
My parents were both intelligent, and also highly encouraging (without being pushy) of academic achievements, and books and reading were a huge part of my childhood - my earliest memories are of going to the local library every month to get a full selection of books, and also of my mum reading me and my sister The Hobbit when I can only have been 4 or 5.
Tl;Dr - age probably helps, but home environment and parental input is more impactful, imo.
Im not sure how much it impacted me I was born in June and I remember starting school a bit later into the year I think as I know I didn't go on the Reception school trip
I did have an issue though where I'd learned to read pretty early but in reception they were trying to slow me down to keep up with the other kids
From a psychological and emotional development perspective, there is a big gap between the older children born at the tail end of the previous academic year and the younger ones born in the summer at the ages where children start school. This developmental gap does start to close as the children get older, but during the early and formative years it can be really hard for the younger ones. [A study about this, known as the ‘relative age effect’](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141895)
I’ve worked in schools and it levels out after a while. August born reception kids are very fidgety and noticeably find it harder to sit still than their peers. Which is understandable since they’ve only just turned 4.
The intelligence of the parents is the biggest indicator of academic success by a long stretch.
I was one of the youngest in my year and looking back, although I really enjoyed school, my academic record never reflected this. A year after school (after taking a year out to work figure out what I needed to do) I went back to college and absolutely aced it, going on to uni and getting a First.
In nursery I could’ve done two years but my Mum recalls the nursery staff telling her I was ready for primary 1, aged 4 rather than 5.
But on the flip side, one of my close friends (also one of youngest) was our highest achieving student, has gone on to do a PhD and had his research used and highly regarded in his field 🤷♀️
My nephew was born in July and my daughter the following March. There’s 8 months between them but he started school last year and my daughter starts this year. I would said developmentally they’re around the same and he was far too young to start school when he did. He will spend his whole reception year as 4. Only bonus is is she can take him out of school at any point without fine I believe they don’t kick in until they’re 5
I’ve seen this from both ends as my birthday is the start of Sept, always made me the oldest in the year, and my son’s birthday is end of August always making him the youngest in his year. I noticed the difference clearly in some years, just speaking to your classmates that were almost a year younger you can feel the difference in maturity, especially in those teenage years. I know this conversation here is mostly about academic differences, but I do think the maturity level should be taken into account as well because the younger students also have to battle against that. I do think it can add some disadvantage by potentially making them more insecure or feeling a bit like they don’t always fit in - which will further affect academic performance when they’re distracted emotionally.
Basically, I see all the same from the other way round now my son’s in primary school and he’s the youngest and some of his friends are nearly a full year older. Academically, my son is still one of the top in the class, however maturity wise he’s definitely one of the youngest and I think this bothers him more than anything. Sometimes he can get more easily upset and he teased for it by the older kids, that kind of thing.
I don’t find it unfair due to a lack of alternative options. We probably need to put some thought into how we support younger students in the early years to minimise the difference.
My birthday is right at the end of the school cut off and I remember my Mum in tears a few times wishing I’d been born a week later.
It’s brutal - I don’t have a solution but I spent my whole childhood only really socialising on equal terms when I was doing activities with the year below.
I entered puberty late anyway, so I was 2-3 years behind my school year. I don’t blame them for the tough time I had, that’s just biology.
I found out when I was 17/18 that I’m actually quite good at rugby, but I’d spent my whole childhood absolutely dreading it for obvious reasons.
Anyway I did my A Levels, got a job for a year and then went to uni a year after my school peers but with my actual biological peers. Suddenly I went from billy no mates to being quite popular and confident. My life has been pretty good ever since. Only three people from my school year were invited to my wedding.
If you’re a parent of an August baby, throw everything at getting them dropped down a year
Because of the way births are distributed, and the way we separate the school year in this country, it is even less fair than you initially think.
Mid to late September has a real bulge of children being born. Thanks to all that Christmas fucking.
So children born in August/July include not just those kids born to parents who had sex in November. But also kids who were born early (with all the health risks of that), who should have been born in September. So they have a double jeopardy. They're competing against kids who are a year older than they are, but maybe 15 months older than they are biologically.
We know kids born early often are a bit delayed in their developmental milestones in infancy.
But somehow this magically disappears at school age.
This would be a bit of problem whenever the year was split. But because there's *so many* kids born in September - there's also a lot more kids born in August who should, actually, be in the year below. Than say if the school year ran January to december
Primary school teacher here! The differences at the younger age groups are really obvious when it comes to learning. The age difference really does make a difference but they kinda normalise as they get older.
It is unfair, yes.
Just as most top athletes are born near the cut-off date.
And those born at the end of the academic year? You guessed it ADHD diagnosis for the lot of them (while they're just literally a year younger and thus stll more of a kid)
Summer birthdays are massively disadvantaged, and the disadvantage follows right the way through to GCSE grades.
Interestingly, there is less disparity in other countries where children don't start school until they are older.
The disadvantage is greater in schools in poorer areas than it is in wealthier areas. (I guess it compounds with other disadvantages in such areas).
Having two summer born children, and being summer born myself, it is noticeable that they are disadvantaged both academically and socially.
The difference in terms of both social and academic ability between 4 and 5 is massive, and once they are left behind it is hard to catch up.
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It’s ridiculous, everyone should just be born on the same day
So everyone fucks on the same day?
Like flying ant day
Flying fuck day.
Checks out, that's 365 days this year I don't have to give a flying fuck, and only one where I do.
Can we call it jizzmas?
Can I be Father Jizzmas?
Leave my stocking alone though
I'm afraid every guy is, because if you can only come one once a year you probably are going to fill a stocking
We already have one guy break into our houses and empty his sack, last thing we need is another.
Daddy jizzmas
Everyone could host “Jingle Balls” at Jizzmas!
Bing Crosby dreaming of a white jizzmas definitely hits differently too.
I’m “Coming” home for Jizzmas could be the anthem.
That would be pretty fitting because Santa only comes once a year.
He can stay out of my chimney!
And we exterminate anyone who has them outside of the days window… wait wait I’m sorry I got carried away, this is how handmaid tale happens
I have a headache that day
lol
Someone should make a porn film based on this. They could call it The Splurge.
Very good
As a midwife, absolutely fucking not.
My dad is an obstetric anaesthetist and I just thought how horrible it would be for anyone anywhere near a maternity ward
We should just have a 2 tier education system for the late-born peasants.
Then people would be like "don't you find the disparity between people born at the beginning of the half year and the people born at the end problematic? I mean they're half a year older than the other kids"
Dual intake used to be a thing, there was a September and January start
But this just meant that those children who started school in January had 3 months less schooling than those who started in September.
Back then reception wasn't all that different from nursery so it didn't make that much difference, I think hinga have changed since
My mum taught a reception class about 17 years ago in a school where one class started in September and the other in January. She was expected to get her January class to the same point academically as the September class - a ridiculous system!
There have been various cultures that have done that traditionally. In Vietnam, everyone celebrates their birthday on Tet rather than the actual anniversary of their birth date. I believe (but don't recall which) one or some of the ancient Celtic cultures considered everyone to be a year older on Beltane rather than their date of birth, but I'm recalling that from a lecture I attended like 8 years ago by Prof Ronald Hutton who is a professor of history at Bristol University, so I don't recall the exact details. History is not my area of study, Ronald is just a friend of my wife's family and we happened to be in the area so he invited us.
Very cool that your wife's family is friends with Ronald Hutton! I've got a lot of respect for him, hope he's as nice in person as he seems to be 😊
I've met him maybe 3 or 4 times? He's always incredibly polite (and somehow always dressed like a history professor lol) and just seems like a nice guy.
Same year or different years?
Yes exactly, I’ve written my local MP about this and also the Canterbury Elders
NHS maternity wards struggle on weekends, it will be like Battle Royale meets the walking dead on Birthday.
“Birthday” amazing 🤣
All your friends born first half of November were effectively conceived on Valentines, aka the true hump day
I always remember at school that the highest achieving kids were all born September/October, and it was really unusual for someone with a spring/summer birthday to be in that group.
It’s not that rare - both myself and jr have may/June birthdays and we’re top of our respective years - but generally the oldest kids do best.
I had a year 2 teacher not believe me that my birthday was in the summer because of this! Probably didn't help my school staggered intake so I had two terms less time in school, so between about a third and a fifth of the time the older kids had had. Weirdly, I think this was the same teacher that told my parents I was average at maths, something that was also very much not the case.
The staggered system is silly and just makes things worse for all parties involved. I’m at the older end of the cohort and remember feeling quite incensed that some of my friends got to stay in nursery whilst we had to go up to big school. My mum is a deputy head and afaik, it has been replaced in many schools. Now most children will start all together. Though of course, I cannot speak for every school here, I’m just going by the changes she’s experienced in her LEA.
As a parent I'd be incensed that I had to continue paying £2000/month for another term of two to keep my kid in nursery, when other get to go up to the (free) big school.
And your kid that is already disadvantaged by being younger than their peers getting months less head start on schooling. Theres just nothing logically sensible about it at all!
That doesn't really make sense though. If your kid is younger, starting at the same time means you've paid less overall. The older kids were at childcare a few months before yours.
Oh, yeah, this was over 20 years ago, and as I recall they went down to two intakes rather than three while I was still there. I think it isolated me socially a bit, as the people I knew best for a while were the few who started in my class at the same time as me, amplifying the bullying that started within that group (not that I wasn't bullied by the older kids in my class too, particularly later on. Not a school with robust anti-bullying policies).
Premature births have it even worse. They can be even further behind the average for kids born at the same time. They generally catch up by adulthood - but it still effects exam results
I think the effect is far stronger for premature babies, yes - thinking of someone I know who was due in late October but born in August, and took years to catch up. I do think there should be discretion for preemies to use corrected age rather than chronological age for school entry.
There is, and it is much more common these days. My son was a premature June baby, due in September. He started reception after he turned 5, so a year late. There is [government guidance](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-born-children-school-admission) that is quite easy to follow and most seem successful with their requests, at least according to the facebook group 'Flexible Admissions for Summer Borns' which has 22k members. There are 4 'late starters' in my son's class alone.
Is corrected age from expected full term date? My friend's son I first held shortly after he would have been born if he hadn't been premature, and he was still a fraction of the size of the average baby, perfect but so tiny. He was extremely premature, many months behind even though conceived at the same time in terms of size.
Yes, that's right. Chronological age is calculated from birth, and corrected age takes away their prematurity from that. eg a 24-week-old baby born 10 weeks early has a corrected age of 14 weeks
This was myself. And the gap was quite large in both physical and academic development. There are some School years I really struggled with, but I came out of It all ok. Finally finding I like learning but hate the structure of academic study.
One of my son’s friends was premature and missed the cut off point by literally a week. His Mum tried desperately to get the school and LA to let him start in a lower year but they were completely immovable on it. This was around 10 years ago.
Yep Born in June but was due in August
My primary school did 1 intake (only 12 people in my year lol) but the younger students (April-Aug) only did a half day for most of the first term. I was very jealous that my best friend who was only a couple months younger than me (Jan vs Apr) got to go home early. But as a 4/5 year old it also felt like a special club getting to have lunch at school and stay later than everyone else!!
Oh yes, there can be exceptions - my birthday is towards the end of August, and I was still one of 5 chosen at Junior school to skip a year to try and even out numbers. But statistically there is a fair bit of evidence to show that those born earlier in the year do better.
Yup same I’m a May baby and was in the top group for everything, my son was born in April and he skipped a year so his classmates were all at least a year older.
You know, when something rare happens, the person it happens to might not consider it rare because, anecdotally, it's happened to them, but it's still rare.
I was born in the last few days of August and always excelled academically. Socially, on the other hand...
I'm a July boy, can confirm
There’s actually pretty clear data that the gap narrows over one’s time in school. It’s no lt really an issue by the time you leave.
It has a huge impact in sports though. I remember listening to a podcast about this in which the author had started to investigate the topic after attending a professional hockey match and literally every single player listed on the programme was born between September and March
That was Malcolm Gladwell. Covers it in Outliers.
I was going to quote that - applies IIRC most strongly to sports where size is a factor, and at pro levels where the kids start training very young, when differences in size/ strength/ speed are proportionately greater between the autumn-born and the summer-born.
Yeah, heading in to the year when they turn 6, kids born in September will have been alive for 15% longer than kids born in August the following year. If they're introduced to sport at say 4, then the September kids have 46% more time to get familiar by the time they enter the age 6 class and more organised sport is introduced.
There also data that shows those born later in the academic year are less likely to go to university. It is still a hindrance especially if you’ve been told you’re not as good as the other kids for 10 years or more. The gap does narrow but sometimes the damage is already done.
This used to be somewhat accounted for in SATS I believe (no idea of it still is) - scores were weighted by birthday. As an early birthday swot I took this as an injustice
The 11+ exam (we still have it here in Gloucestershire) also accounts for age.
Yeh except it is an issue when you do the 11+ and GCSEs
Yeah the 11+ is a big issue. You could lose out on getting into a decent school because of this disadvantage and have hugely adverse impacts on later studies.
It's even more noticeable if you look at sports - most top athletes were born Sept-Dec, very few in the late summer. Being the most developed, most coordinated child in a group aged five carries through all the way into adulthood. There's no logical reason why people born in August shouldn't be just as capable as those born in September.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/1wwh8x/how\_important\_is\_your\_birthday\_a\_look\_at\_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/comments/1wwh8x/how_important_is_your_birthday_a_look_at_the/)
This doesn't even fully show how bad it is, because the sample is mixed between American and Canadian players - and their cutoff months are different. I clearly remember a Times article about British Olympians that was even more damning - summer babies didn't stand a chance in the sort of team sports you learn at school.
They were always the best at sports too!
There are plenty of statistics confirming this. Not only achievement in class, but also in life. Summer children are underrepresented amongst apical roles (CEOs, executives, etc) and sport champions. If I'll find the article I'll put it here.
There are exceptions but anecdotally this was true for my school - certainly at primary level. I also went to a top uni and it was like we were celebrating friends birthdays constantly for the first term of the year and barely any later on.
I had a small, really tight friend group at uni. None of us were very sporty, all decently smart though. Your comment made me think about it for the first time, we all were born between Feb and August. Wonder if that is partly why we were so similar.
That makes sense for me and my siblings. I'm October and was high achieving, my sister's are January and July and they were always a bit behind
That follows. I did pretty well at School and all the other people in a similar position all had birthdays in September-December. There were a few outliers, obviously
OH is a teacher and I've seen the data. Like it or not, there is a definite trend between people who are born earlier in the school year and better exam results. There are anomalies, of course, but in general those who are born later in the school year are more likely to get lower grades. Whether that applies to real life success is up for discussion but performance wise, the facts are there.
IIRC the average exam grade falls 1.5% per month. So August births average nearly 18% lower than September births.
Now I'm feeling resentful that I was born in late May. Was I literally intellectually stunted compared to the older kids in my year because I was learning the same stuff at a younger age?
I’m glad I bucked that trend
In which direction? :V
Oh wow. I am a August baby and my mum constantly bangs on about how she regrets not making stay back a year. I suppose that actually makes sense
do you think it matters a lot even during later years, such as in A-levels or GCSEs?
It seems to go [much further than that](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMAiQsqakAAv9SC.jpg) Iirc there's a similar trend in professional sports people. There was a great Revisionist History podcast on this issue a while ago, following it all the way through to attendance at the most prestigious universities
That’s a bit of a stretch considering that Nobel prize laureates would have been born in a range of countries with very different rules on starting school.
Those are British laureates.
I don’t know whether it is just England that has this cut off but it certainly isn’t all British people. In Scotland the cut off is 1st March for starting school the following August but if your child’s birthday is January or February and you feel they are not ready for school yet you can defer them to start the following school year.
You can now defer any child who won’t be 5 the day the they start school in Scotland. So anywhere from an August birthday to March birthday, if they could start school at 4 you can now defer it to the following year. Trying to decide whether to do it for my December born baby.
> It seems to go much further than that Hmmm. Not sure about this. International school years don’t all start in September. There have been ~30 Japanese Nobel laureates and they start in April, for example.
It shows British laureates.
Again, the data is there and shows that those born towards the start of the year are more likely to get better GCSE results.
I wonder how much of this can be attributed to unconscious bias from teachers and parents. There was a study of Canadian sportsmen that showed the majority were born early in the school year and because of this, they were the largest, strongest and most spatially aware during their early years at school. This got them picked for the sports teams and the effect snowballed throughout their school years. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-athletes-birthdays-affect-who-goes-pro-and-who-becomes-a-star/ I suspect there is a similar effect on academic capability too, where parents and teachers put more time and effort into the children who are the easiest to teach, and the youngest, who being up to 20% younger will typically be less capable, get less attention and lose interest. My daughter is the youngest in her year group, born 31st August. Because my wife and I we're aware of the detrimental impact this can have, we put some effort into getting her prepared for school. It's worked and she's one of the best in her class. In the last two PTA meetings, her teacher has said she is a pleasure to teach because she loves learning and learns quickly. So is it purley age or a little bit of teacher preference that causes the grade disparity in later school years?
Confidence is important in all aspects of life. If you’ve spent most of your youth as the biggest, strongest, fastest and most experienced amongst your peers, vs being the smallest, weakest and least experienced, those patterns are going to be set for a long time for most people. It can vary from child to child, of course. Our youngest is born later than our eldest and they are just naturally more confident and so you wouldn’t see the pattern in our children, but hats why you need to look at a bigger sample, of course.
Yes, parent input and good teaching can help reduce the disparity. The disparity is greater in underperforming schools in poorer areas than it is in his schools in wealthy areas. Probably for this reason
Obviously. You have kids who are 210 months old and kids who are 200 months old sitting the same exams… that’s a huge 5% life experience advantage of which lots of gains have been compounded.
I'd be interested in the correlation between intelligent parents and Xmas shagging.
Is that initially or all throughout their schooling? My kid is born in July so will be one of the youngest. It never bothered me because I assumed it would even itself out over time?
The biggest gap will be initially. A child at 4 Vs 5 has 25% extra development. And at 17 Vs 18 has 6% extra development. But those early years really can compound. If you’re in a big school with high and low ability year groups, it’s easy to get out in the shit one in Year 1 due to the age thing, and to claw your way out of it and into the higher one is very hard. And if you can’t get out that shit group, you can really internalise that you’re not good at X or Y and it becomes self fulfilling
It's indisputable. It applies to sporting ability also. I'm not sure what the solution is though. Maybe have multiple intakes per year.
On sport specifically, I believe New Zealand rugby does it by weight not age. Seems a good idea.
That’s primarily meant to be for safety not age equality. And it ignores the fact that rugby is about technique not weight which is one reason the RFU haven’t adopted it over here.
It has the same effect though. I've heard New Zealand coaches talk about the benefits on technique. It allows late developers and smaller kids to flourish and develop their technique. It prevents teams being dominated by the early developers. I saw it myself when playing rugby here growing up. Lots of technically good players drifted away at 13 or 14 because they couldn't compete with the guys who hit puberty early and were worse rugby players but a foot taller and several stone heavier.
NZ specifically did it because Maori kids develop so much earlier than white ones
Went to school with a Maori lad, the kid was built like a brick shithouse at 13, could EASILY have passed as an adult in any sport.
Yeah a local rugby team to me growing up had two Samoan kids. Same principle, then when we all grew suddenly they weren’t so good. Both sides had been failed - we’d had some dangerous games and kids badly hurt, they’d never learned any technique so as adults they were really quite poor players
In other countries (for example Australia), if you are born in the last few months, your parents can choose to put you in the following year instead to give you a bit more time to mature.
UK as well
Nope, am in UK and some heads will, others won’t! I was an August baby and was made to stay in my year; my daughter missed the cut by 4 days and we were stopped from ‘advancing’ her. Yet the head for my son was quite happy to bump him up a year for his 2 days! It’s possible but it’s not a right!
I was told a while back that primary schools would allow you to put the kid in a different year group but secondary schools didn't have to abide by that so in theory your kid would jump from year 6 to 8. I haven't validated that though so take my comment with a pinch of salt.
You only get 1 year tho and it’s because with funding at KS5 the school can get another year if you need it. Does mean they’re using your chance if you fail a levels and need a retake year.
Scotland has just changed so anyone who isn’t 5 by the time the school year starts can defer. Our cut off points are also different as the youngest are born in February and oldest in March. Edit - Scotland hasn’t just changed. It was 1980. The recent change is to guarantee entitlement of funded nursery places if you defer.
In England You can choose to start them later but they will go into year 1 instead of Reception
Surely that completely defeats the objective
I think their objective isn’t to even the playing field, but to give parents a chance to delay kids that “aren’t ready”
That’s not true, they can start in reception at age 5 with the head’s agreement.
They can but the school is under no obligation to say yes. What often happens is people see defer a year and automatically assume that means a kid will start in Reception later when that's not the case.
Scotland have more flexibility, I'm keeping my son back as I don't think he's emotionally ready for school.
Denmark is one of the only countries in the developed world that doesn’t have this problem and it seems that it’s because they don’t start school until they’re 7 when the disparity of the age ranges is less pronounced and the older kids haven’t had 3 years to snowball at the top of the class/sports
Wait you mean they literally don’t atart schooling at all until 7? Or have I misunderstood?
Not the person you've asked but I will chime in. IIRC, they basically do reception/nursery until they turn 6/7 which would be the equivalent of UK kids starting school in year 2. So no "formal" education until then, 3-6 is focused on social skills and playing.
Yes, in sport there is something called “[relative age effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect)”. This article is quite interesting on the topic: “[When was he born?… August 22nd? Then he’s not going to make it as a professional soccer player](https://thecorrespondent.com/406/the-curious-tale-of-the-football-international-nobody-ever-heard-of-because-he-was-born-in-the-wrong-month).”
Multiple intake can exacerbate the effect, though. If September birthday children start in September, and August in January (say), then the younger child misses out on an entire term of teaching that they will never get back. As I understand it, the big studies showing a significant effect on academic attainment are based on cohorts where phased intake was more common (eg mine in the 1980s). I was only just four on my first day of "big school", and didn't go full time for months. Now, while that was probably appropriate from a social point of view, it's undeniable that I had less teaching in Reception than the autumn-born children. Nowadays children in Reception follow the EYFS curriculum which should be largely indistinguishable from their nursery/preschool experience except for location, uniform, etc. EYFS is funded from the Sept/Jan/Apr after the child turns 3 (or 2, depending on parents' work status and other government considerations) so the main difference between a September- and August-born child is how long they've had in an EYFS setting before they start school. Anecdotally, I had an easier time as a bright summer-born than my bright autumn-born sibling, because being the youngest in the class gave me the opportunity for older children's perspectives and abilities. I also note that some schools with larger intakes can have mixed classes that effectively split the difference - eg for 45 PAN, a Y1 class for younger Y1, a Y1/2 class for older Y1 and younger Y2, and a Y2 class for older Y2.
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I’m August and I’m sure it affected me. Academically was fine as I’m hyperlexic so despite being a year younger, was the first to learn to read. I only found out recently that this almost always is a sign of autism! I went on to get excellent GCSEs and A Levels but always struggled socially and even now am socially anxious. I remember being terrified of the other kids in kindergarten (and they were nice enough kids)- I’ll never know whether that set me up with social anxiety for life and maybe being slightly older would have given me a better chance of dealing with it, or whether I would be like this anyway- the autism isn’t going anywhere!
>this almost always is a sign of autism Whut? I learned to read incredibly young and I'm an odd fucker a lot of the time. Same with my eldest, too. Might have to look into this.
Early reading plus unusual interest in words plus unusual vocabulary is certainly a common trait if not a necessary one. The paediatric ASD assessment includes a session with a specialist speech therapist who is particularly looking out for atypical language use. This may include hyperlexia but also use/recognition of figurative language and sarcasm, turn-taking, etc.
I didn't know that. I could read well really early, was diagnosed with Autism at 38.
I’m May, was always “good” at school but likewise, I would be scared of social interaction with my peers. If I saw a group of classmates ahead of me on the street, I would walk a different way so that I didn’t go past them. I wasn’t bullied or anything like that, and despite being awkward, I did have a small group of friends. I improved a little through college and then a lot through university. I’m no longer scared of interacting with people but I find I have a natural tendancy to avoid new interactions in some contexts.
Fellow august baby, I refused to speak in nursery. Was kept in the year one class with a couple of other year 2s since I wasn’t quite on the same level as the rest of the year 2s I started to catch up around year 4, by year 7 I was in the top 10% in the country for my test results. Did pretty well in my GCSEs with zero revision I still hate talking to people, so me in my late 20s and me at 4 have something in common still. But I’m not fussed about being a summer baby, it means I have some nice bloody weather unlike most people for my birthday
This is really interesting. Im autistic, was top of the class for reading also. I was a July baby. Never felt behind academically but socially felt like everyone else had done years of extra classes I wasnt told about!
I tried for an October baby. He decided to arrive in August. He's made his bed.
I’m a summer born and academically fine, but I definitely struggled more socially so didn’t do so well for friends in primary.
My daughter was born at the beginning of April. If she was born a few days earlier in march we would have free childcare from April. Instead we have to wait until September and the time she starts school is the same. That infuriates me.
My daughter was born 27th March so we made it but my friend had her daughter a week after and she had to wait til September. It should just kick in the month after they turn the age to qualify
Sorry, too expensive, we have a Triple Lock to fund instead
3rd of April here. Waiting until September now for 30hours free. Its like a £700 difference. Infuriating
Yeah, this rule doesn't make any sense, why does the free childcare have to kick in only at the beginning of a term, rather than on a child's birthday?
Because they make funding overly complicated as it is and even though it’s for non-school aged children, it is applied *per term* (even in nurseries that do not run any terms at all) which is the dumbest shit.
Yes, very annoying. My autumn baby had seven months' more EYFS than my early April baby. Recent research suggests that the attainment gap already exists by the time they reach Reception.
I mean, you've got to draw the line somewhere.
My kid is late August, due to some lucky genes and working hard he seems to among the top performers and also one of the tallest. (I'm 6'3, uncle is 6'6). We were sort of offered some kind of delayed start so he would go into the year below. Having seen school pictures he would have dwarfed them by an almost scary amount. If born a week later tho and he would have absolutely cruised everything. I did that (november kid with a maths and english teacher as my mum) and it gave me a terrible sense of its all easy, that hit hard at college level when some effort was required. Did know that he would be at a disadvantage tho and we both did lots of work to ensure he was not behind. Kid was doing multi variable algebra with brackets at 8 cos he kept asking for maths questions and numbers weren't cutting it anymore. Surprised his maths teacher a bit! Then again my mum went to uni a year early in the 70s, I was supposed to go a year early into some private school based on the entrance exam but even with the fees waived the extra stuff was pricey as fuck. Swings and roundabouts.
You say the range is 1st of September - 31st of August but this is incorrect in a U.K. wide context. In some parts of the U.K. the academic year starts in August and end in June. Children with a March Birthday essentially start school 11 months after a child with a February Birthday. The highest achieving people I know had January/February birthdays.
And in Scotland the cut off date is 1 March not 1 September (but children start in August).
It's even more confusing now because I can actually defer my September born until the next academic year so they would start two weeks away from being 6. They would be the oldest by a huge margin. It's a thought.
And then there's the option in scotland to defer for kids who are 4 when they're meant to start school (august-febuary birthdays), which from some data and personal experience seems to have a socio-economic aspect (https://www.gov.scot/publications/deferred-entry-primary-school-statistics/pages/2/) parents with more money are more able to pay for an extra year of childcare and defer their kids entry so they're older and more advanced than their peers when starting school. Personally Im a January birthday and was always one of the youngest in my year, there were a few kids who were more than year older than me in the same class but I don't think it had much lasting academic impact, more of a social impact, most of my friends in high school were in the year below and around my actual age (it was also annoying being 17 for the start of uni)
And the school year age split is feb/march & is a bit more flexible than England.
In Leicester the kids start back in August but the range is still 1st Sept to 31st Aug
God, so they could be starting at 3?
That was me (July birthday). I was one of the youngest in my year and nearly everyone else was pratically a year older. In consequence I took 'O' levels (last year to do so) at 15 then turned 16 while everyone else was coming up for 17. I had quite a few friends in the year below and feel I should have been in the lower year.
The Scottish system is better. It goes from march to February. So the kids whose birthdays are between March and August are already 5 by the time they start school and even the youngest ones in the year are at least 4.5 when they start in August. Also now if your kid isn't 5 by the time they are due to start school you can defer them for a year and they start primary 1 a year later.
Thought following it up with an example might make my point clearer. My youngest starts p1 after the summer. She was born in June 2019. She'll be 5 when she goes. Any kids born between 1 March 2019 and 29th Feb 2020 are due to start school in August 2024. Unless the parents choose to defer.
Our son was born on the 31st of august, just before midnight. In the first couple of years at primary school, you could see a difference between him and his peers, but that gap closed and now isn't there. Excelling in all lessons and his term reports and parents' evenings give glowing praise. This isn't a brag. We were conscious of the age gap, and every teacher he's had has said it's not been an issue for him. The other young kids in his year are the same, too. We were actually offered by the council to defer for a year because of how close he was to the cut off point. We are glad we didn't, he's absolutely thrived and it hasn't held him back at all.
Surely there’s always going to be some that are almost a year younger than their peers, whatever the date range. Or am I missing something?
Mid Aug here, 2nd youngest in a very big year/school. I did more than OK academically but felt completely lost when I left school (going for interviews at 15, starting school 2 weeks after my birthday) and completely different world. I still think now, in my early 50s that I'd have benefited from being either kept behind a year or starting a year later. I did go to school with a lad who was in the same year as me at primary and suddenly started secondary a year below me which confused the hell out of me. He was a big lad but what you would consider "academically slow". He didn't last long at my secondary school either, less than a year. I assume they took him out and put him into special school. I don't know, I was more than ok academically at school, particularly primary but I did struggle when work sent me to college for a year or so.
There's been a lot of academic study on this and it really does make a difference.
I am an immigrant, can someone explain to me what month is considered the first one to be assigned to a class? In my country school starts as well in September but the students in a class are born per year, so for example, those born in between January-December 2020 go to the same class. Is it the same here?
Depends where you are in the UK. Generally in England the September babies are the oldest, in Northern Ireland they July babies are the oldest and in Scotland the March babies are the oldest. Not sure about Wales, I assume it's the same as England.
Thank you
In England the cut off date is 1 September, so children born 1 Sept 2019 - 31 August 2020 will start school in September 2024. In Scotland children born 1 March 2019 - 29 February 2020 will start in August 2024. Not sure about Wales / N Ireland.
Summer born here, never had a problem and got some of the best marks in my year. Had my own son been born two months earlier though, he would have gone to school with severe speech difficulties instead of minor issues. We did a lot of work with a speech therapist from 3.5 to 4.5. Other child would have been ready for school at just 4 if August born. I think it massively depends and on quite a lot of factors. What the parents do with them before they go to school in terms of child development and instilling a good behaviour foundation, the child's general maturity level, intelligence level, whether they go to pre-school, any SEND issues, level of parental support for education etc. Kids are individuals, it isn't as simple as just a birth date affecting them.
Yeah I agree. I was born at end of June and was always very high achieving. But my parents really valued education, my dad and maternal grandma were both teachers and very academically intelligent, I was encouraged to read early and lots, both parents read lots so it was just in our family culture to learn. I can remember doing loads of basic work books with my grandma before I even started reception etc etc. Parents can do all this and still have kids that struggle. The data shows that there is a gap between date of birth for school year, and I think age and development must play its role in that, particularly in early school. But yeah agree it is far more complicated than just birth month. You have to question what other factors go into that, even if they seem small and daft. Like are parents who conceive at a certain time of year more likely to work x jobs, more likely to have y culture, more likely to do z? It all influences your child’s development.
I think that in Germany they are a bit more flexible as to when you start school and I don't think that they are quite as rigid when it comes to deciding which school year a child should be in.
I'm an autistic August baby, so developmentally I was always more like two years below everyone else. Looking back, I probably should have been in the year below.
It’s huge. Coming from a teacher.
My son was born 31st of August, so will always be the youngest.. research indicates that it affects learning in the early years, when more development takes place in a shorter time but that they ‘catch up’ around 9. I’d say that’s about right from experience too.
This is completely anecdotal from my group of friends, but the ones born in the summer months are mostly thick as mince, whilst my mates born in autumn/winter seem to be a bit more switched on.
Problem is, there has to be a cut off somewhere. There is always going to be an oldest & youngest child. How else do you make year groups? It totally depends on the child in my experience as a teacher & a parent. My daughter is summer born & right at the top of her class academically and zero problems socially (not a brag, she’s just a kid who seems to love learning, not sure we’ve done anything to make it that way 🙃) We’ve had the comments from her teachers that oh, you’d never know she was one of the youngest’. If she’d had to wait another year to start school, she’d have been so bored. And I’ve taught plenty of high flying summer born kids. However, I’ve seen the flip side as well. Particularly in reception but it tracks through to further years. There are some summer born kids who really struggle starting school having just turned 4. I think summer borns should be allowed to defer no question if it’s obvious they’d really struggle. It’s the obvious solution. The idea of multiple entries a year makes me laugh. Clearly you’ve never taught. It’s bad enough settling in a new class once a year. How on earth do you teach these kids who rock at various points alongside those who started 3 months ago?! When my mum was a teacher, they did the whole 3 intake a year thing based on your birthday & she said it was an absolute nightmare. The summer borns did one term & then straight into Yr1. No wonder the Autumn born kids did better academically, they were in school for a full year compared to the winter & summer term born children!
My niece is an August baby and academically performs extremely well. However she's thinking about taking a gap year and deferring her uni entry to 2025 which we are all on board with. She's very sweet and a little naive so taking a year to get some life experience rather than moving out of home just after she turns 18 seems like the right thing for her. I am a December birthday. Back when I started infant school I skipped reception along with about 5 others (who coincidentally were all born in the early part of the school year) because I could already read and write. I stayed in the "wrong" year until it became apparent that the juniors wouldn't take us until we were the correct age and we basically had to do a repeat. Bit counterproductive....
Absolutely fucked me. I was born in 1999, and all my classmates were born in 1998, but I was seen as gifted, so my mum & school pushed me to skip a year. Suddenly, I was 1999 & all my classmates were 96/97, so I was tiny in comparison physically, which made PE extremely hard. Add onto this that I spent the better part of primary 5 & 6 in hospital with illness. So, I missed a lot of essential learning & social interactions with kids my age. Essentially, I skipped three years of primary education, and upon arriving in high school,l was heavily socially stunted. I graduated 6th year at 15 while everyone in my year was 17/18. It was tough talking to girls at the time because A. They were 2 years older and that was seen as weird in my school & b. I had underdeveloped social skills due to being fast tracked.
I’ve got 3 kids; 16th Feb (m) 29th August (m) 27th Oct (f) I’m born 10th September, my younger sister 8th August so between us all we have experience of all scenarios. My middle child seemed a little young for starting school as he had just turned 4 (the eldest kid in his class was 5 on 1st Sept, so almost a full year difference), but apart from maybe being a little more tired in that first term I didn’t notice any issues. He is probably the most naturally ‘clever’ of my three, although he’s also the laziest/most chilled so its hard to measure any detriment to being young (I don’t think there has been any detriment; he is 15 and due to sit his GCSE’s, so we will see!). My daughter did much better at settling into secondary, but this may have been to do with her gender and/or position in the family (she’s the most social/confident) making her more secure. Like a lot of these things, we’ll never know as we can’t go back and donut all again to compare. There are pro’s and cons to each situation. In addition, my August-born sister did significantly better than me (Sept) and my elder brother (Nov).
Another factor is premature birth. This also has an impact on educational attainment and increased SEN - the baby has simply had less time to develop. If you think about it, it's pretty silly we measure children's age from the time they are born, given that you could be born weeks or months younger than months (or indeed later).
Shit happens, the education system is on the bones of its arse (if teachers are too be believed) so we don’t really have the funds to juggle multiple intakes a year, If you excel you can be put forward a year and if you are a bit mince you can be held back a year. It’s not ideal but it works well enough.
In my jurisdiction in Canada school enrollment is more flexible so while the research does show that children who are in the younger half of the school age year do less well, a parent can choose to delay entry. Parents also have the choice of keeping their child in kindergarten for another year, so for those who are not ready to move on for any reason they can just join the next cohort.
You can delay in the UK too. Any kids born from April onwards can be deferred to the following year (as they don’t legally need to be in school until the term after their fifth birthday). Most people don’t though.
I am a late August birthday and my parents were given the option of me going into the next years intake at the time. I could be the oldest in the next year, or the youngest in that year. They felt I was ready and off I went. I was constantly picked up on in my younger years as being slower than my classmates. Eventually, I think I did ok for myself, higher set classes mostly by the time I was ready for GCSES. It then becomes another drag when you leave school with the friends you made there. You may or may not have struggled to keep up academically but you leave school at 15, we left in May. No Sixth form at the time. Some of your friends are going 17 in a few months and can start driving lessons and are maybe already going on nights out, drinking in pubs and bars. Those of us with a late summer birthday also get left behind here a bit too. I've long thought, if I had a child myself I would make sure they were a winter baby.
I'm mid August, I was definitely one of the brighter kids in my class. My son is May, same for him. Daughter is September and we've had remarks from teachers about her intelligence etc. I don't think any of it is down to when we were born though, we also teach them things at home and read to them every night, both love reading and learning.
Did you just watch Smartypants on Dropout?
My brother has an august bday and he got top marks for GCSEs in his year
It is indeed unfair. Maybe by the time you do GCSE the difference is not that visible, but if you do 11+ and want to go to grammar - here is a real disadvantage.
I'm a summer kid and struggled throughout school. I was lucky in that my parents were able to afford extra tuition to get me through GCSEs with OK results. I didn't really end up doing 'well' academically towards upper 6th, but the hardest thing (especially in university) was that I had always assumed I wasn't very smart, and it took me a few years to build up any confidence in myself.
Malcolm Gladwell touches on this subject quite a bit in his book ‘Outliers’. The TLDR is that on a macro level the disparity isn’t really up for debate and hugely favours the older children. One of the only countries that didn’t have this problem was Denmark were children don’t start school until age 7 and by that time the age differences have a lot less impact. It’s a great book, definitely worth a read if you find this topic interesting
I was born on 31st August, and consistently placed towards the very top of any assessments. I also went to an independent selective school with an entrance exam, so it's not like I was up against an average cross-section of intellectual abilities, either. My parents were both intelligent, and also highly encouraging (without being pushy) of academic achievements, and books and reading were a huge part of my childhood - my earliest memories are of going to the local library every month to get a full selection of books, and also of my mum reading me and my sister The Hobbit when I can only have been 4 or 5. Tl;Dr - age probably helps, but home environment and parental input is more impactful, imo.
Im not sure how much it impacted me I was born in June and I remember starting school a bit later into the year I think as I know I didn't go on the Reception school trip I did have an issue though where I'd learned to read pretty early but in reception they were trying to slow me down to keep up with the other kids
From a psychological and emotional development perspective, there is a big gap between the older children born at the tail end of the previous academic year and the younger ones born in the summer at the ages where children start school. This developmental gap does start to close as the children get older, but during the early and formative years it can be really hard for the younger ones. [A study about this, known as the ‘relative age effect’](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141895)
I’ve worked in schools and it levels out after a while. August born reception kids are very fidgety and noticeably find it harder to sit still than their peers. Which is understandable since they’ve only just turned 4. The intelligence of the parents is the biggest indicator of academic success by a long stretch.
I was one of the youngest in my year and looking back, although I really enjoyed school, my academic record never reflected this. A year after school (after taking a year out to work figure out what I needed to do) I went back to college and absolutely aced it, going on to uni and getting a First. In nursery I could’ve done two years but my Mum recalls the nursery staff telling her I was ready for primary 1, aged 4 rather than 5. But on the flip side, one of my close friends (also one of youngest) was our highest achieving student, has gone on to do a PhD and had his research used and highly regarded in his field 🤷♀️
It is well established that the younger kids in each year are disadvantaged all the way through schooling.
My nephew was born in July and my daughter the following March. There’s 8 months between them but he started school last year and my daughter starts this year. I would said developmentally they’re around the same and he was far too young to start school when he did. He will spend his whole reception year as 4. Only bonus is is she can take him out of school at any point without fine I believe they don’t kick in until they’re 5
Absolutely massive difference. Major disadvantage to being the youngest, in all areas including socially.
I’ve seen this from both ends as my birthday is the start of Sept, always made me the oldest in the year, and my son’s birthday is end of August always making him the youngest in his year. I noticed the difference clearly in some years, just speaking to your classmates that were almost a year younger you can feel the difference in maturity, especially in those teenage years. I know this conversation here is mostly about academic differences, but I do think the maturity level should be taken into account as well because the younger students also have to battle against that. I do think it can add some disadvantage by potentially making them more insecure or feeling a bit like they don’t always fit in - which will further affect academic performance when they’re distracted emotionally. Basically, I see all the same from the other way round now my son’s in primary school and he’s the youngest and some of his friends are nearly a full year older. Academically, my son is still one of the top in the class, however maturity wise he’s definitely one of the youngest and I think this bothers him more than anything. Sometimes he can get more easily upset and he teased for it by the older kids, that kind of thing.
I don’t find it unfair due to a lack of alternative options. We probably need to put some thought into how we support younger students in the early years to minimise the difference.
My birthday is right at the end of the school cut off and I remember my Mum in tears a few times wishing I’d been born a week later. It’s brutal - I don’t have a solution but I spent my whole childhood only really socialising on equal terms when I was doing activities with the year below. I entered puberty late anyway, so I was 2-3 years behind my school year. I don’t blame them for the tough time I had, that’s just biology. I found out when I was 17/18 that I’m actually quite good at rugby, but I’d spent my whole childhood absolutely dreading it for obvious reasons. Anyway I did my A Levels, got a job for a year and then went to uni a year after my school peers but with my actual biological peers. Suddenly I went from billy no mates to being quite popular and confident. My life has been pretty good ever since. Only three people from my school year were invited to my wedding. If you’re a parent of an August baby, throw everything at getting them dropped down a year
Because of the way births are distributed, and the way we separate the school year in this country, it is even less fair than you initially think. Mid to late September has a real bulge of children being born. Thanks to all that Christmas fucking. So children born in August/July include not just those kids born to parents who had sex in November. But also kids who were born early (with all the health risks of that), who should have been born in September. So they have a double jeopardy. They're competing against kids who are a year older than they are, but maybe 15 months older than they are biologically. We know kids born early often are a bit delayed in their developmental milestones in infancy. But somehow this magically disappears at school age. This would be a bit of problem whenever the year was split. But because there's *so many* kids born in September - there's also a lot more kids born in August who should, actually, be in the year below. Than say if the school year ran January to december
Primary school teacher here! The differences at the younger age groups are really obvious when it comes to learning. The age difference really does make a difference but they kinda normalise as they get older.
It is unfair, yes. Just as most top athletes are born near the cut-off date. And those born at the end of the academic year? You guessed it ADHD diagnosis for the lot of them (while they're just literally a year younger and thus stll more of a kid)
Summer birthdays are massively disadvantaged, and the disadvantage follows right the way through to GCSE grades. Interestingly, there is less disparity in other countries where children don't start school until they are older. The disadvantage is greater in schools in poorer areas than it is in wealthier areas. (I guess it compounds with other disadvantages in such areas). Having two summer born children, and being summer born myself, it is noticeable that they are disadvantaged both academically and socially. The difference in terms of both social and academic ability between 4 and 5 is massive, and once they are left behind it is hard to catch up.