The academic performance of those born at the end of the year

Educational achievement is the result of various factors, and it is quite curious to think that being born at the end of the year could condition a child's academic development.

In Spain, children born in December are inevitably the youngest in their classes, while those born in January are in the opposite situation. Children born early in the year can be up to eleven months older than the youngest in a class, and this is reflected in their evaluations. Data shows that difficulties increase as the school years progress, but are more evident from the beginning of Primary school.

Educational systems do not take into account the developmental age of students, but the chronological age, even though the school year runs from September to June and evaluation criteria are the same for everyone, without exceptions or adaptations.

The fact that children are born in December or January does not mean they have fewer abilities due to temporal reasons. What happens is that when all children are grouped together, differences in mental maturity are observed between them, especially at early ages such as 3 years old.

Is there a solution?

The solution to this situation should be provided in the child's early education years. Ideally, children with these characteristics should have the opportunity for a more personalized education during their early years, meaning strategies based on guided play, selective administration of stimuli, and problem-solving based on each child's needs.

Another solution is to flexibilize the minimum school entry age in Primary school, organizing classrooms by age, or even forming them in age groups. In Germany, studies show that children who start Primary school at 7 instead of 6 achieve better reading results and end up extending their secondary education for a longer period.

This type of personalized intervention is much more productive than a standardized and formal teaching model to neutralize the "birth month" effect. Furthermore, the age difference among children in the same class would be only six months instead of a year as it currently stands.