My birthday is less than 5 days from the cut off point - i.e. I was pretty much universally the youngest in my year. My sister's birthday is in a similar place too, as are 4 good friends of mine. We were all introduced to schools as the youngest in the year, stayed pretty much that way throughout and are all doing fine now, the majority of us having got good degrees at university and in mine and one other case, went onto do a postgrad as well.
Equally, I know people with birthdays early in September who did shockingly at school, despite being the oldest in the year. It entirely depends on the individual and the parenting and teaching involved - but based on my experience, definitely *shouldn't* just be done as a matter of course if your child will be one of the youngest in the year.
*THAT*!!
I was talking about this the other day with a guy at work and reached the same conclusion.
In fact overall we reached the conclusion that.
(where cut off date is 31st august)
take two kids, one born 23:59 Aug 31st, other born 00:01 September 1st)
kid one starts school at age 5, (on September 2nd)goes through school.
second kid starts a year later, (on September 2nd, but he's already just had his 6th birthday the year before).
neither of those children are going to get bullied, based on either being the biggest or smallest in the class, (because schools have good anti bullying programs)
neither of those kids are going to not be taught, (no child gets left behind), each will receive extra tuition if needed.
assuming that the school is good enough (and they both learn and work at the same rate), both will receive the same education.
fast forward to when they leave school.
the 2 minute older child will have already left and started earning a year before.
they may well be close as dammit to the same age, and may have exactly the same qualifications. but the fact that child 1 has finished school a year earlier will always meant that he has a year more experience, he'll always be preferred for jobs based on his experience.
he'll always be a year further ahead,
his retirement fund will have a years extra wages in it.
his overall lifetime remuneration will always be one year greater than the 2 minute younger child.
at retirement age, (which for both will be the same day) the kid who started one year earlier in school will invariably have a bigger pension, be retiring from a better job.
the long and the short of it, (in my view) is:
if you want your child to excel in a career, the sooner they start school, the sooner they are away from school, the faster they are on a career path/ladder.
if you want your child to be the biggest/olderst/most developed socially, for their first year of school, then hold them back a year, they may always be the biggest and oldest, but the socially development advantage will soon disappear!