Debate: The last word – Season-of-birth effect

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By John Coe — Information Officer for the National Association for Primary Education

As I discussed last month, research shows that summer-born children are at a disadvantage. So how can we give them equal opportunities?

The season-of-birth effect – it’s important. The younger you are in the school year, the less chance you have of success. At the extremes, August-born children are twice as likely to be poor readers than autumn-born children. And this is not a phenomenon which is confined to the early years. We might expect it to disappear as children get older, but not so; it persists right through to sixth form and beyond.