Can my summer born son do as well as an autumn born child in a 4+ Assessment?
/100% yes. If not better!
Oh there is so much RUBBISH out there about ‘summer born’ children.
Why do we have to label children anyway?
My son is not a label. He is a human being.
Stop labelling children unnecessarily!
My ‘summer born’ baby (oh and by the way your child is considered summer born if they are born between April-August), can and would do as well (if not better) than any autumn born child in his 4+ Assessments.
How do I know this? I know this because he is excelling in all 7 areas of the EYFS curriculum currently.
I am fully well aware that all children develop at different rates and I never ever compare children anyway. It is not useful.
So when I receive calls from parents who tell me that their child is not where ‘they need to be’ for a 4+ Assessment and they blame it on the ‘fact that they are summer babies’. They are just so wrong.
It has nothing to do with that.
If your child ‘is not ready’ for their 4+ Assessment, it’s because you’ve chosen to not prepare them to be ready for it. Sorry if that stings but it is my opinion.
Enough with these ridiculous excuses.
My son is definitely developing slower with his phonics than some of my students but that’s not because he is ‘summer born’, it’s because it took me longer to get him really and truly interested in learning sounds. That’s on me. I was rather lazy when it came to his phonics. I could have found more interesting ways to engage him but I didn’t. He didn’t enjoy learning phonics so I took a step back. Then I realised that this was really not a good idea if I want him to be reading in the next 12 months (which I do by the way!). Now, he is making tremendous progress and he WILL know his phase 2 phonics (single sounds) by the end of this month.
Summer born and autumn born will not be assessed differently and expectations will not be different so please do get that out of your heads.
Prepare your child and prepare them well for their 4+ Assessments.
That is all.
