When it comes to children’s education, every day counts

Age makes a difference when it comes to starting school, Justin Thomas writes.

A child's age when they start school has a huge predictive effect on how well they do. (Fatima Al Marzooqi / The National)

A s you’ve probably realised this week, 2016 is a leap year. So, if I were born on February 29, I could claim to be about 10 years old. Just imagine how well I would perform in primary school. I’m fairly sure I could outshine all the other Year 5 pupils and rise to the very top of the class.

Of course, we don’t allow “leaplings” (people born on February 29) to take advantage of this age-related opportunity; it just wouldn’t be fair to the other children. That said, we still have a situation, in many classrooms, where the age differences between pupils can be highly detrimental. This is an issue that psychologists have termed the relative age effect.

In most nations there is a school age cut-off date. For example, if you are 5 years old on or before, let’s say, December 31, then you can start school. If you are born on January 1, however, you will have to wait a year. These children who have birth dates just after the cut-off will always be the oldest in the class; they may even be a full 11 months older than some of their classmates.

Eleven months is nothing once we are adults, but the differences between a child of 5, and a child of 5 years 11 months can be profound. This age gap can have huge implications. A review of 18 studies, spanning 13 countries, concluded unequivocally that the children who are the oldest in their year group generally do better.

The relatively younger children were generally found to have poorer performance on tests of attainment across the board – reading, writing and arithmetic. They were more likely to be held back and have to repeat a year. They were also more likely to be identified as having special educational needs.

At least two studies reported that the relatively younger pupils were more likely to experience mental health problems, as indicated by higher rates of referral to psychiatric support services. In at least one study, the younger children were also less likely to make it to college. Age matters.

Concerned parents, aware of the relative advantages and disadvantages of age, have opted to hold their children back a year so that they enter school later with an enviable relative age. Better still, some forward-thinking schools have begun opening two or more sections of a class and strategically placing children so as to minimise in-class age differences. Other progressive schools use age-standardised curriculums and tests that factor in months and not just years.

A few years ago, I was looking at indicators of academic performance at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. While looking at the student data, I noticed that a disproportionately large number of students were born in January. The numbers of students born in other months were fairly similar to each other. January, however, enjoyed a very obvious and statistically significant spike.

So why so many January babies at Zayed University? Is this too the legacy of a relative age effect? I think so. Historically, for government schools in Abu Dhabi, the school age cut-off date for admission to KG1 was December 31; this means that if you were born in January, you would typically be the oldest in the class, perhaps a whole 11 months older than a December-born classmate.

Given that entrance to Zayed University is based on high-school performance, we would expect more of the relatively older high-school girls, especially those born in January, to make the grades required to secure a place there. That is exactly what we found: a significant spike of January-born students, arguably reflecting the early advantage conferred upon them by being born just after the school age cut-off date.

Given what we know about the relative age effect, it is important that schools are proactive in implementing initiatives aimed at reducing the negative impacts of this phenomenon. Children who are the youngest in the year group should not pay the price for our failure to act on this large international body of research evidence.

Dr Justin Thomas is an associate professor of psychology at Zayed University and author of Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States

On Twitter: @DrJustinThomas