PHOTOS:
ISTOCKPHOTOS: IZABELA HABUR, ROSEMARIE GEARHART
EDUCATION BIRTHDATE EFFECT
So what is the solution? Some parents
try to solve the problem by holding their child back a year so that they join their academic year when they are nine or 10 rather than eight, but not only is this not a long-term solution, it may add to your child’s difficulties, especially if they are boarding. One former prep school boy explained that it is better for everyone to start at the same time and get over the homesick together as that’s when you make your friends. “If you go later, and are crying alone, everyone else calls you a sissy”. It is a complex
issue, but in the independent sector, schools offer flexibility, which can help to alleviate the problem. “Independent schools recognise that summer-born children, especially boys, have something of a time lag in maturity,” says John Tranmer, Headmaster of Froebelian School in Leeds and current Chair of the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools. “Te difference between a three- and a four-year-old or a 10- and an 11-year-old child is very acute. If we were designing it from scratch we wouldn’t start with an arbitrary date of September 1st
but we do our best to
cope. Te advantage of independent schools is that we can be flexible. If there are notable situations when it is in the child’s best interest to join a lower year, then we will accommodate this.” Opinion differs on the best way to
respond to the issue. “Some prep schools admit children in phases to allow the younger ones time to mature, others, including the Frobelian, prefer to take them as one cohort and then, once they are in the school, make allowances for differences by putting them into different classes”, says Tranmer. “With a ratio of 9:1, we can then concentrate on supporting the slower ones while helping
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the older and seemingly brighter ones to achieve their full potential.” Jane Cameron, who founded Notting
Hill Preparatory School, has always felt that summer-born babies should not move onto pre-prep if they haven’t turned four before they have left nursery school. Cameron, former head of the Acorn
In the independent sector,
schools offer flexibility, which can help to alleviate the problem
Nursery School, which offered a ‘sapling year’ to summer-born children, noticed the difference between the older ones who understood what was happening and the younger ones, who were unable to articulate their feelings about moving to ‘big school’. At Notting Hill Preparatory School, she accepts August-born children into the year below and keeps the children born in the second six months of the academic year separated from the older children until Year 3. At the prep school stage, parents can
buck the system if they are planning to send their children to a country public school but not if they want them to continue into secondary education in London. Not all London schools are rigid but parents don’t want to narrrow their childrens’ options at such a young age. It starts at the pre-prep stage, the school preceding the preparatory stage. “Tere is a difference in maturity between boys
born earlier and later in the academic year” says Mark Snell, Headmaster of Wetherby Pre-Preparatory School, “but if they are going on to a prep school which won’t accept boys into the year below, then there is nothing I can do. It wouldn’t be fair as they would have to jump a year. I spread the boys randomly across the classes because they learn from the older ones, just as they learn from older siblings.” Nick Baker head of Wetherby Prep has inherited a couple of summer born boys in the year below but considers each case individually, specifically with children coming from abroad whose education might not be so “brisk”, he says diplomatically. Rarely does he need to keep them down a year. It is perhaps significant that
Cambridge Assessment’s research focused on the state system. Many independent public schools argue that by 12 or 13, the age differences have been ironed out. Angus McPhail, Warden of Radley College, permits late-August boys to start a year later but they have to have a good reason. With the support Radley gives them, his younger boys have done very well. “Not just in their academic abilities. It’s across the board, whether as head boys, in sport, army scholarships or those going on to Cambridge,” he explains. Dr Stephen Spurr, Headmaster
of Westminster School, doesn’t put boys into the year below, explaining that, “Although we are aware of the phenomenon and are sensitive to it when considering younger boys for entrance, I think we fall into the top category, where boys with late summer birthdays can do just as well as anybody else if they fall into that top percentile bracket.” He is the first to acknowledge the
significance of the review, however. “Tim Oates has put his finger on something,” he says. “Competition is stiff – this is the real world. But if this is an important developmental issue, it would be a shame if we were guilty of missing out on potential. It would be a good outcome of this feature if there was more debate on the subject.” %
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