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Advantages And Disadvantages Of Summer-Young Children Should Delay Their Year Of Entrance To Primary School

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“Too young? Summer born children should delay their year of entrance to primary school.”
Regarding the educational system, there is an ongoing debate as to whether those who are summer-born children should have deferred entry a year later than their older peers. According to the government, decisions as to which year group a child should be put into should be done on a case-by-case basis since every child is different. Although it is in fact the school’s admissions who have the authority and parents are not deemed the right to decide for their children. Those in favour of the delayed entry would argue that it allows summer-born students to mature and be more emotionally developed, so then they are less likely to fall behind. Furthermore, delaying their schooling by a year would help to improve the academic success and social experiences of summer-born children. However, it could be argued that there may be no evidence to suggest that summer-born students are at a disadvantage and cannot succeed as well as autumn-born students. Initially, those in favour of delayed school entry believe that there is quite a significant amount of research to suggest that there is a relationship between the month of birth, the school year and various academic and extra-academic conclusions. Pidgeon (1965) stated that, results from research has found that younger children in any school group are already at a disadvantage than older children. Students who are younger are consistently scoring lower on tests that display academic ability and tend to be in lower streams in primary and secondary schools. Pidgeon and Dodds (1961) and Williams (1964) have indicated that there may be several ways to explain why this is the case for summer-born students. One explanation is because these children generally have less infant schooling and the second is that they are less mature and so are easily put under stress and it is difficult for them to cope with teaching levels. As a result, this may further affect their social capabilities as they may not be able to adapt to a class room environment whereby it will be difficult to be build substantial relationships between teachers and other children. On the other hand, it is argued that

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