Anonymous wrote:We did not hold back and started pre-K at 4 in public which worked out very well: We applied to a bunch of private middle schools (not in this area but in New England) for this fall and most recommended that DS repeat middle school due to Covid (no school for a year, only private tutors over zoom) and the lack of rigor at his previous schools. So he will be 14 in 7th grade which is what we wanted for him too.

These schools have a large boarding component and many kids are repeating grades due to the pandemic so he won’t be an outlier either

Anonymous wrote:
YES it matters! Every one of these threads -- of a parent asking for advice for a child in independent school -- gets derailed by public school posts. It's not a matter of better or worse or math curricula or whatever. It's simply a question of the typical age spread in a class room which is NOT. THE. SAME. in independent schools. Your young-for-grade child will have a decent peer group in public of other young-for-grade kids. S/he will not in independent schools. Your "old" for grade kid is not old in independent schools. Those with an axe to grind against redshirting keep hijacking these discussions, and it's so annoying, and unhelpful for those considering where their child will fall in the age spread for an independent school.

My summer birthday kid did a "pre-first" year, as is nearly universal in their independent school, and isn't the oldest by a long shot. If OP's kid is a summer birthday and enters what would be "on time" for public school, s/he well may be the only kid in that age band who did so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an Aug daughter and she first was enrolled in a public kinder and then private kinder.

All kids are difference and few redshirt girls, but I am so thankful we did. DD is doing great in every aspect of elementary and is thriving as one of the older students in class. She’s confident and doing well academically without it finding it too easy. We made this choice bc I was a very young child for my class and always felt like I was trying to keep up. Also, I’m a teacher. Older students tend to have less issues with executive functioning and overall do better in the classroom. Good luck, OP!

This may be a tangent, but if out of a classroom of, let's say, first graders, the only first graders who are really excelling and keeping up in terms of executive functioning are the ones who were either held back a year or the very oldest in the grade... then maybe it's not the children who are the issue, it's how the grade is being taught and how the children in the grade are being expected to act.

-Mom of a boy who started K a few weeks after turning 5, because he was smart and tall and social and ready, and is in the "advanced" ELA and math groups, who has to keep hearing from the teacher how he has trouble getting his right supplies out at the right times (this is something he needs to do himself without prompting throughout the day apparently) and how he has trouble sitting still 40 minutes into the 50 minute direct instruction ELA lesson. Like, no shit lady. Make kindergarten expectations more age appropriate and then get back to me.

The expectations are unreasonable if they are judging 5 year olds against 6-7 year olds who were held back and too old for the grade. Your child was developmentally appropriate but those teachers were not good teachers and were unreasonable. A 6 year old who is held back is less mature than a 5 year old going on time as they are held to a 5 year old standard which isn't developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old. Your kid who is older isn't smarter or more mature, they are older. Smart kids will do well in any situation.

Spoken as someone with an incredibly shallow definition of “smart” as well as what it means to “do well”.

Tangent-mom, was this a public or independent school?

Does it matter? Come middle school pubic is generally much more advanced in math. Privates have other advantages, but not where its important.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an Aug daughter and she first was enrolled in a public kinder and then private kinder.

All kids are difference and few redshirt girls, but I am so thankful we did. DD is doing great in every aspect of elementary and is thriving as one of the older students in class. She’s confident and doing well academically without it finding it too easy. We made this choice bc I was a very young child for my class and always felt like I was trying to keep up. Also, I’m a teacher. Older students tend to have less issues with executive functioning and overall do better in the classroom. Good luck, OP!

This may be a tangent, but if out of a classroom of, let's say, first graders, the only first graders who are really excelling and keeping up in terms of executive functioning are the ones who were either held back a year or the very oldest in the grade... then maybe it's not the children who are the issue, it's how the grade is being taught and how the children in the grade are being expected to act.

-Mom of a boy who started K a few weeks after turning 5, because he was smart and tall and social and ready, and is in the "advanced" ELA and math groups, who has to keep hearing from the teacher how he has trouble getting his right supplies out at the right times (this is something he needs to do himself without prompting throughout the day apparently) and how he has trouble sitting still 40 minutes into the 50 minute direct instruction ELA lesson. Like, no shit lady. Make kindergarten expectations more age appropriate and then get back to me.

The expectations are unreasonable if they are judging 5 year olds against 6-7 year olds who were held back and too old for the grade. Your child was developmentally appropriate but those teachers were not good teachers and were unreasonable. A 6 year old who is held back is less mature than a 5 year old going on time as they are held to a 5 year old standard which isn't developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old. Your kid who is older isn't smarter or more mature, they are older. Smart kids will do well in any situation.

Spoken as someone with an incredibly shallow definition of “smart” as well as what it means to “do well”.

Tangent-mom, was this a public or independent school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an Aug daughter and she first was enrolled in a public kinder and then private kinder.

All kids are difference and few redshirt girls, but I am so thankful we did. DD is doing great in every aspect of elementary and is thriving as one of the older students in class. She’s confident and doing well academically without it finding it too easy. We made this choice bc I was a very young child for my class and always felt like I was trying to keep up. Also, I’m a teacher. Older students tend to have less issues with executive functioning and overall do better in the classroom. Good luck, OP!

This may be a tangent, but if out of a classroom of, let's say, first graders, the only first graders who are really excelling and keeping up in terms of executive functioning are the ones who were either held back a year or the very oldest in the grade... then maybe it's not the children who are the issue, it's how the grade is being taught and how the children in the grade are being expected to act.

-Mom of a boy who started K a few weeks after turning 5, because he was smart and tall and social and ready, and is in the "advanced" ELA and math groups, who has to keep hearing from the teacher how he has trouble getting his right supplies out at the right times (this is something he needs to do himself without prompting throughout the day apparently) and how he has trouble sitting still 40 minutes into the 50 minute direct instruction ELA lesson. Like, no shit lady. Make kindergarten expectations more age appropriate and then get back to me.

The expectations are unreasonable if they are judging 5 year olds against 6-7 year olds who were held back and too old for the grade. Your child was developmentally appropriate but those teachers were not good teachers and were unreasonable. A 6 year old who is held back is less mature than a 5 year old going on time as they are held to a 5 year old standard which isn't developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old. Your kid who is older isn't smarter or more mature, they are older. Smart kids will do well in any situation.

Spoken as someone with an incredibly shallow definition of “smart” as well as what it means to “do well”.

Tangent-mom, was this a public or independent school?

It's baltimore county public, I'm just so frustrated that my kid who was (and is) by all accounts ready to start kindergarten is being made to feel less than, because he can't always meet the expectations of his not-very-nice teacher. I get that covid plays a big role- they are sitting watching the lesson on a projector as the teacher is split between in person and virtual kids- but the lessons are so long, and there seem to be so few breaks, that it just sets him up to fail sometimes. And a big part of it is his teacher- who doesn't mince words when kids struggle with executive functioning (I hear her snap at kids who are virtual to sit still, stop playing with their pencil, "am I going to have to send a message to your mommy asking her why you are so distracted today?", etc and I hear her say things to the in person kids such as "this is the SECOND TIME I have asked you to get out the BLUE FOLDER, Timmy. I need all of you to listen more carefully it makes me sad when no one is listening to me!"

Anonymous wrote:Someone has to be the youngest in a grade. But when parents do this vanity "gift of time" then it skews, and then others do it, and pretty soon, you have a kindergarten class full of 6 year olds.

WTF, that is a crazy race to the bottom.

What happened to the badge of honor of kids skipping grades and graduating high school at 16 or 17?

19/20 year old college freshmen? That is insanity.

Anonymous wrote:

Were you at an independent school? I’m thinking no. In independent schools starting 7th at 13 is completely normal and does not at all mean that you will be older than “almost all the other kids”.

OP, the classroom and balance is NOT THE SAME at public schools, so before you take anyone’s experience as instructive, make sure you’re comparing apples to apples. Public and parochial school experiences are not relevant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two spring birthday kids.

We started them both on time.

Both have kids more than a year older than them in their grades. Kids with drivers licsenes in 9th grade, bar mitzvahs in 6th etc.

I cannot imagine having a 19 year old high school student under my roof. They would be bursting at the seams to get out and be much more rebellious than kids normally already are.

Plus, the message I would have sent to my kid, "sorry deal, I didn't think you would be able to be on par with your peers so I gave you the gift of an extra year so you could compete with a younger cohort"

Yes, THAT is a winning message.

Spring is obviously different from summer. Late June, July, and August kids won't turn 18 while they are in high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an Aug daughter and she first was enrolled in a public kinder and then private kinder.

All kids are difference and few redshirt girls, but I am so thankful we did. DD is doing great in every aspect of elementary and is thriving as one of the older students in class. She’s confident and doing well academically without it finding it too easy. We made this choice bc I was a very young child for my class and always felt like I was trying to keep up. Also, I’m a teacher. Older students tend to have less issues with executive functioning and overall do better in the classroom. Good luck, OP!

This may be a tangent, but if out of a classroom of, let's say, first graders, the only first graders who are really excelling and keeping up in terms of executive functioning are the ones who were either held back a year or the very oldest in the grade... then maybe it's not the children who are the issue, it's how the grade is being taught and how the children in the grade are being expected to act.

-Mom of a boy who started K a few weeks after turning 5, because he was smart and tall and social and ready, and is in the "advanced" ELA and math groups, who has to keep hearing from the teacher how he has trouble getting his right supplies out at the right times (this is something he needs to do himself without prompting throughout the day apparently) and how he has trouble sitting still 40 minutes into the 50 minute direct instruction ELA lesson. Like, no shit lady. Make kindergarten expectations more age appropriate and then get back to me.

The expectations are unreasonable if they are judging 5 year olds against 6-7 year olds who were held back and too old for the grade. Your child was developmentally appropriate but those teachers were not good teachers and were unreasonable. A 6 year old who is held back is less mature than a 5 year old going on time as they are held to a 5 year old standard which isn't developmentally appropriate for a 6 year old. Your kid who is older isn't smarter or more mature, they are older. Smart kids will do well in any situation.

Spoken as someone with an incredibly shallow definition of “smart” as well as what it means to “do well”.

Tangent-mom, was this a public or independent school?