summerbornchildren

Anyone else miss out on a year of primary school?
A few years ago, I came across the discussion forum above.

It describes a chronological reorganisation of children in school, which does not appear to have considered their individual best interests, and includes the anecdotes below.

“…a girl in my brother’s class was suddenly found to be too old for his year, was put up to my year but was the youngest“.

“I think it has something to do with them changing the school years from “children born in 1974” to “children born from Sept 1973-August 1974” – as another friend (who I was with in the first year… was born in October 1974 but he stayed behind and completed his 1st year infants and didn’t leave for secondary school until September 1986 – a full year after me.” Continue reading →

On the very same day I read this in the Guardian – Cuts, cuts, cuts. Headteachers tell of school system ‘that could implode’ – a parent in our Summer Born Campaign group described how no fewer than three head teachers had attended a meeting with her to decide the school entry fate of her summer born child.

In total, the local authority had convened a panel of seven specialists, including the three heads, an educational psychologist, and early years specialists, to spend two hours trying to convince the parent (a teacher herself, with the child’s nursery’s full support) that she does not need to ‘delay’ her child’s entry to school.

Two hours spent (wasted) answering the wrong question. Continue reading →