Vast majority of grammar pupils are born in autumn - fact?

[herdream1]

A mum whose boy attends CRGS (year 8 ) and another mum whose daughter attends ColCHS (year 7) told me: 90-95 percent of their classmates were born between September and January. Is it true?

[Minesatea]

I have DC's at both Colchester Grammars, one autumn born, one spring born. A quick poll of their friends birthdays does not agree with this. DD has a friend with a birthday of 31st August, and DS has been to two birthday parties in the last two weeks. DD says there are alot of autumn birthdays in her class but certainly not more than 50% (They are not in the year groups you have quoted though).
Given that birth rates in this country peak between July and October, there should statistically be more early autumn and late summer birthdays than other months in a year group.

[djy76]

I agree with Minesatea my DD is Summer born but not the youngest and of her friends about 50% are Autumn term born..

[scary mum]

If it is age standardised that won't be true - that's the whole point if standardisation. I don't know if it is in your area?

[southbucks3]

Given that birth rates in this country peak between July and October, there should statistically be more early autumn and late summer birthdays than other months in a year group.

Dark winter evenings and Christmas and New year celebrations!

Son number one has lots of summer birthdays amongst his gs friends, I think standardisation in bucks seems to work well to even things out. Having one child each in early autumn, late winter and summer and watching the progress of all their friends, I definitely feel that by year 5 things are levelling off, year 2/3 is a different story.

Birth order apparently has some significance too?

[herdream1]

scary mum & southbucks3: the mentioned two schools do not age-standardise.

many thanks for the replies. It is a tricky question; if age-standardisation is a good idea or not. It depends on your child's birthday.

[scary mum]

If there are more autumn borns in your schools & an even spread in Bucks then I would assume it would prove that she standardisation works. Are the figures available? I know that they are (by birth month) for Bucks, but don't ask me to find them

[Minesatea]

With age standardisation does there have to be a minimum number of children for each birth month to get valid results? If for instance there were only 5 children april born could you get valid standardised results from this. For 11 plus entry obviously there are large numbers sitting but how do areas such as Bucks age standardise for other age entry, 12 or 13 plus, when the numbers will be much smaller. CRGS 's recent 13 plus only had 40 boys sit, is it possible to age standardise such a small cohort?

[kenyancowgirl]

I might be wrong, but I thought the point about age standardising was that it compared "you" against "peers born in the same month as you" vs "everyone else in the cohort." Hence (in my mind!) if there were 5 July babies and they all did fantastically well (as compared with 5 March babies and 5 October babies) actually, the July babies wouldn't fare quite so well in the age standardising, for being younger, as you might expect. I'm not sure if I'm making sense!

I doubt that 90-95% are October-January babies, though, even without age standardising as that doesn't even vaguely match with the normal distribution of birth rates. It's a funny one, age standardising as, at what point does everyone catch up? Certainly there is no standardising for GCSE/A levels/degrees. To standardise at age 11 seems quite arbitrary - are KS1 Sats standardised because I would have thought there is a difference there too?

However, if the 90-95% stat is correct then age standardising must be working as there is certainly a pretty even spread in our GS.

[southbucks3]

With age standardisation does there have to be a minimum number of children for each birth month to get valid results? If for instance there were only 5 children april born could you get valid standardised results from this. For 11 plus entry obviously there are large numbers sitting but how do areas such as Bucks age standardise for other age entry, 12 or 13 plus, when the numbers will be much smaller. CRGS 's recent 13 plus only had 40 boys sit, is it possible to age standardise such a small cohort?

Many of the schools set their own 12+ and 13+ tests now in bucks, I know rgs was not standardised last year for the 12+ The year at secondary school forces a level of maturity really, that maturity does not kick into action at primary, but I hazard a guess that by 12 things have mostly levelled out. Home environment will be less of an influence too, as the children find what their peers are reading, watching, talking about far more important.