results and age
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The latest IFS study looked at the relative effects of school starting age as well as the overall effects of month of birth.
"3. Which of these factors – absolute age, age of starting school, length of schooling, age position – drive differences in cognitive outcomes between August- and September-born children?
The results of our work on this question (discussed in Chapter 7 of this report) suggest that the major reason why August-born children perform significantly worse than September-born children in the Key Stage tests is simply that they are almost a year younger when they sit them. Whilst, as we saw above, August-born children do benefit from starting school earlier rather than later (for example, in the September, rather than the January or the April, of their reception year), this makes only a modest positive contribution to test scores and only at early Key Stages. Age position effects are generally not important. Clearly, other policy options are needed in order to eliminate the August birth penalty. "
The link if anyone wants to read the whole article is
www.ifs.org.uk/docs/born_matters_summary.pdf
"3. Which of these factors – absolute age, age of starting school, length of schooling, age position – drive differences in cognitive outcomes between August- and September-born children?
The results of our work on this question (discussed in Chapter 7 of this report) suggest that the major reason why August-born children perform significantly worse than September-born children in the Key Stage tests is simply that they are almost a year younger when they sit them. Whilst, as we saw above, August-born children do benefit from starting school earlier rather than later (for example, in the September, rather than the January or the April, of their reception year), this makes only a modest positive contribution to test scores and only at early Key Stages. Age position effects are generally not important. Clearly, other policy options are needed in order to eliminate the August birth penalty. "
The link if anyone wants to read the whole article is
www.ifs.org.uk/docs/born_matters_summary.pdf
age
The point is that from the earliest cohorts (who have now left school) SOME areas did have one admission time (the study identifies around 6 different policies, with hundreds if not thousands of children in each ) so it is possible to compare separately the effects of the starting time, the age, and also look for interactions with various social factors. As a statistician myself, I believe it is a thorough and detailed study which avoids the pitfalls of many more simplistic "surveys" that are often trotted out to support various pet theories.
The thing is, Statistics deals in population averages. Of course there will be children with August birthdays who excel, just as there are smokers who (occasionally) live to be 100. Perhaps the kind of parents who are on this forum are also those who are most likely to be able to overcome any disadvantage to their summer-born children - which is why a survey of this forum will not be representative of all parents
The thing is, Statistics deals in population averages. Of course there will be children with August birthdays who excel, just as there are smokers who (occasionally) live to be 100. Perhaps the kind of parents who are on this forum are also those who are most likely to be able to overcome any disadvantage to their summer-born children - which is why a survey of this forum will not be representative of all parents
Hmm...the whole point of large scale studies is to look to see if there is any significance in what has been observed or suspected - yes, we should be wary of how we interpret statistics but they are the ONLY way to validate or refute our observations and to overcome the problems inherent in "on the ground" observations from individuals.
This study may not be the last word on this subject but to me it seems methodologically fairly sound and one of its attractions was precisely that it did look, amongst other things, at the the effects of different admissions policies over all the key stages right through the school career.
This study may not be the last word on this subject but to me it seems methodologically fairly sound and one of its attractions was precisely that it did look, amongst other things, at the the effects of different admissions policies over all the key stages right through the school career.
Hi Solimum and Guest55
There has actually been some recent research done on the Subject of Age Standardisation by Julian Williams et al as part of the University of Manchester MaLT project.
This used a nationally representative sample of 12,591 pupils aged 5-14 with data collected between Feb and March 2005.
The paper is available at
http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/IPs/ip25-3/BSRLM-IP-25-3-15.pdf
This does appear to show that for Mathematics at least age is a significant factor but that this appear to start to plateau about 140 months (11 year 8 months) with a strange upturn again at year 9!
They do however mention that:-
Ken
There has actually been some recent research done on the Subject of Age Standardisation by Julian Williams et al as part of the University of Manchester MaLT project.
This used a nationally representative sample of 12,591 pupils aged 5-14 with data collected between Feb and March 2005.
The paper is available at
http://www.bsrlm.org.uk/IPs/ip25-3/BSRLM-IP-25-3-15.pdf
This does appear to show that for Mathematics at least age is a significant factor but that this appear to start to plateau about 140 months (11 year 8 months) with a strange upturn again at year 9!
They do however mention that:-
Interesting figuresFigure 6 highlights the Reception year as one with an especially severe year-group effect. The interpretation might be (i) connected with the varied effect of diverse school starting times of Reception/year one children, and (ii) the effect of early years’ induction into the social practices of teacher assessment.
Ken
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guestsss
Just picking this up, very interesting. I have both a winter and a very late summer born child. both seem bright and do well, but my winter child was tutored with a summer born child recently and was rather disappointed when her higher result (raw score) in a test paper was translated into lesser percentage than summer born child, who got more questions wrong. We are in an area where age standardisation is used and accept the situation. However, on the other side of the coin, it is somewhat irritating when my summer born child, who is a bright child, does well in tests etc. without standardised scores and other parents continually comment that we "don't have to worry about the 11plus as being August born, there won't be any difficulty for child as it is so heavily weighted in their favour." It would be great if a system could be devised which would suit all.
