The Times: Call for summer-born children to have marks adjusted

As a late spring child myself, I completely agree with this. For certain 11+ school exams, month of birth is taken into consideration. I see many summer born children who, in an ideal world, should be allowed to go back a year if requested by their parents.

The test scores of children born in summer should be adjusted to make up for the disadvantage of being the youngest in class, a teaching guidebook has said.

Pupils born between June and August do not perform as well as their classmates on average. Research published in the book shows that they are more likely to have special educational needs or lower self-esteem, and fall into risky behaviour.

The chance of a student born in October getting a place at Oxford or Cambridge is 30 per cent higher than for one born in July, for example. The guidebook What Works? says, however, that holding back a child for a year has no effect on these disadvantages.

It suggests that teachers should monitor the progress of the youngest pupils in the same way as they do for other disadvantaged groups.

Delaying school entry for a year is a right for any child born between April 1 and August 31. Many local authorities discourage the practice, however, because it makes the provision of school places hard to manage.

The rest of the online article can be found here