Season of Birth and Success in the Secondary School

Abstract

THE investigation which formed the basis of this article was designed to examine the possibility of a connection existing between the time of year at which a pupil is born and the results at school as indicated by the VRQ, immediately prior to entering the secondary school, success in the 'O' level examinations of the GCE, the completion of a five-year course of studies in the secondary school, and the composition of the top and bottom streams by the end of the third year in the secondary school.The results described relate to a group of pupils who, over a period of ten years, entered an all-boys comprehensive school in an industrial city and whose achievements in the areas defined above were found to be significantly related to the time of the year at which they were born.Those children born during the autumn term and having, therefore, had a longer period in the junior school, were found to be advantaged compared with those born in the spring and summer terms, the latter being in a situation of greatest disadvantage.

Birth Date and Sex Effects on the Scholastic Attainment of Primary Schoolchildren: a cross‐sectional study

“…In line with the reviewed research (Jackson, 1964;Jinks, 1964;Freyman, 1965;Pidgeon, 1965;Barker Lunn, 1967;Sutton, 1967;Thompson, 1971;Donofrio, 1977;Davis et al, 1980; Kinard & Reinherz, 1986;Russell & Startup, 1986;Bell & Daniels, 1990) the present investigation provides confirmation of the birth date effect in education. In addition to most of these researchers' results, however, the study shows that, when length of exposure to schooling is controlled for, the age position effect (i.e.…”

“…Effectively, this means that the average age in each stream decreases from the top to the bottom stream. In a study of how pupils in one comprehensive school performed at O levels, Thompson (1971) found that autumn-born children were advantaged compared with spring-and summer-born, with the latter (i.e. the youngest) being in a situation of greatest disadvantage.…”

The Effects of Season of Birth, Sex and Cognitive Abilities on the Assessment of Special Educational Needs

“…These lower achievement levels are indicated by the under-representation of summer-born children in selective schools (Freyman, 1965;Sutton, 1967) and by poorer scores in reading, writing and mathematics tests at primary school (Mortimore et al, 1988). The summer-born are over-represented in lower sets or bands (Giles, 1993;Jackson, 1964;Jinks, 1964;Pidgeon, 1965;Thompson, 1971) and in groups with special educational needs (Pumfrey, 1975;Peagam, 1992). Carroll (1992) noted the relatively poorer school attendance of these younger children and Sharp et al (1994) found that they had scored signi® cantly lower than Furthermore, the effects of season of birth appear to persist to the end of secondary education and beyond.…”

Reception class structure and the performance of summer-born children in key stage 1 assessments: A small scale study in a London borough

“…Bell and Daniels (1990) found that summer-born pupils were more likely to be members of low ability teaching groups in secondary science as well as more likely to be entered for CSEs than 0 levels in science subjects than autumn-born pupils. Jackson (1964), Thompson (1971), Hedger and Raleigh (1992), Marston (1994) and Sharp (1995) show that the performance of 16 year-olds in GCSEs is associated with their birth date. Autumnborn children obtained higher average results than children born in the spring who in turn out-performed summer-born children.…”