Does age make a difference at a GS?

[stressedalready1]

I'm just curious to hear from people who have children at a grammer school whether the month the child is born in makes any difference to how they cope with the work? My DS is a summer child whereas all his friends that passed are Sept and Oct born.

Wouldn't be me if I didn't have something to worry about!!

[moved]

No problem from what I've seen. The differences in maturity are huge as they go through grammar and far bigger than those few months.

[bravado]

From what I've seen so far, it doesn't seem to have made a difference with DD2 who was a "later-in-the-academic-year" child.

[Flanker3105]

Grammar school or not, I can't believe it makes that much difference, but I always felt cheated at school personally having been born at the end of May - what I potentially could have achieved given a extra nine months!

[hermanmunster]

I don't think it makes any difference - there are high fliers born in all months of the year

[stressedalready1]

Thank you for all your replies, was interested to hear other peoples views.

Totally agree with you Flanker3105... I often wondered this too... The 'what if' scenario!

[KB]

Have seen big range of maturity in year 7 and no apparent correlation to age.

Would advise all parents to encourage independence through year 6 and over summer holidays (taking responsibility for homework, taking kit to school etc, delivering letters from 'book bag' rather than you searching through and then practising travel over the summer, accompanied and then alone (with you following at first if necessary!)

Practical and organisational issues are more likely in year 7 than struggling with the work, whenever the birthday but they all seem to get through it with a few lost PE kits the main casualties

[Bizziemum]

Grammar school or not, I can't believe it makes that much difference, but I always felt cheated at school personally having been born at the end of May - what I potentially could have achieved given a extra nine months!

There is another way of looking at this. My two DS's both now at GS are summer born, one end June and one end July. They both excelled at primary and doing great at GS too. My view is that being what they are, being one of the youngest in the class has given them the competition that they need, something to kick against so to speak, would that have been the case if they had been born a couple of months later? - especially while at primary. So maybe it all evens out in the end. Anyhow, it's likely that if they're good enough to get in, they're up to it, irrespective of age. But then I'm November born and needed all the help I could get, so what do I know!

[sleeplessinhalstead]

Practical and organisational issues are more likely in year 7 than struggling with the work, whenever the birthday but they all seem to get through it with a few lost PE kits the main casualties

so true! this is the main complaint I get from DD1's teachers