Seniors who turn 18 a week before graduation "young for their grade"? Yes or no?

[LNC]

Just wondering what most people would say.

 

Redshirting is so common now that my kids seem young, though technically in the right grade per our county.

[retiredHSmom]

My oldest was the same way. She turned 18 two weeks before she graduated from high school. She was exactly in the right grade per county rules but did seem "young" for her grade compared to her peers. She has done very well in college.

 

My son has a fall birthday and is exactly the right grade for his age per our county regulations but will turn 18 six and a half months before he graduates.

[regentrude]

No. I'd consider any student who has turned 18 by graduation to be normal. They'd be in 12th grade in public school.

 

Now, my DD will just have turned *17* by the time she graduates. THAT is one year early.

[Joker]

I was 17 and youngest dd will also be 17 at graduation. We both have summer birthdays. I don't consider graduating at 18 early even if it happens just one week prior.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Normal, not young.

[Guest Myfanwy]

That would be completely average here. We have a December 31st cut-off, so half the kids graduating are 18, while half are 17.

[BakersDozen]

Hmmm...I turned 18 a week after graduation and never felt young. Maybe I was, though...I got along much better with kids a year or even two younger than I was all the way through school.

 

My now-14 year old will be 16 when she graduates, but the girl has a maturity in all areas that I never possessed.

[LinRTX]

Both my older two girls turned 18 the summer after graduating. They were both on grade level according to school cut off dates. The oldest daughter would have been 4 her first week of school in K if she had gone to an actual school. I think I would have kept her home another year. She was so little. But since we homeschooled her brother already and she wanted to start we did.

 

Linda

[Crimson Wife]

I find it so weird when folks talk about redshirting spring birthday kids. California's cutoff until very recently was December 2nd, so a spring birthday kid would be not at all young for grade.

[LNC]

Ok, thanks. My kids don't feel young themselves, but go to bday parties the same month as their own and the friend is a year older etc.Redshirting is extremely common here. Our cutoff is Oct.btw.

 

[teachermom2834]

Here redshirting is very common and the cutoff is early Sept. So, turning 18 a week before graduation is normal by age range but so much redshirting goes on the student would be one of the youngest. It wouldn't be truly unusual. That student would just be on the young side. That is how mine are. They are often the youngest or one of the youngest for their grade but it is still normal. One of mine is very mature and the other isn't but they both seem fine in the grade they are in even though they are on the young side. I hardly know anyone at all with a summer birthday that did not redshirt. My birthday is in September so I went away to college at 17 and didn't think that was unusual. Where I live now, though, I can't think of any kids that will be heading off to college before except some homeschoolers who skipped grades.

[wapiti]

I turned 18 around the time of graduation. Although that was in the old days, the thought of having to stay home another year is horrifying. School was boring enough as it was.

 

Among my younger kids, I have two late May boys and a July girl. None of them will be redshirted. For my July baby, this means technically 17 at the time of graduation, and that's totally normal and in accordance with our state's Sept 1 cutoff (what's a month or two at that age, really? of course, she has another fourteen years to go....). While there's a little redshirting here, it isn't widespread.

[Lilaclady]

Things like this just make me pause. When the cutoff is September 30 and people start to redshirt all their spring/ summer kids how exactly does it help them? Do we want to start kindergarten at 6 now and start graduating kids at 19? Or should all parents plan to have their kids in January so they can all have the same birthday? I just don't understand.

[Matryoshka]

My older two dds won't turn 18 till just after they graduate - but they are still 2 months shy of the cut-off, so on the young side, but could be even younger.

 

I only turned 17 a few months before I graduated, but I was young for my grade.

[kerenlynne]

We redshirted both boys-May and June. June boy definitely needed it and the cutoff was in September. We moved to Colorado and in our school district the Cutoff was June so he wasn't older than anyone in his grade. May boy could have gone either way but since the cutoff was June we decided to give him time. Now we live in Texas and I think they are both back to being older than everyone else in their grade:)Go figure.

[Julie in MN]

Redshirting is so common now that my kids seem young, though technically in the right grade per our county.

 

Just wanted to say that I waited for my kids to start school until they were 5.5 to 6.25, but it had nothing to do with sports. I have zero interest in sports. I wait because I feel emotional maturity and symbolic learning are best handled at a slightly later age.

 

In my area, sports are done by birthday and it doesn't matter what grade you're in.

Julie

[AngieW in Texas]

My dd is one grade higher than the cutoff would place her. She and I both have our birthdays 4 weeks after the cutoff and my dh has his birthday 6 weeks after the cutoff. We were all in the higher grade. Dh was even skipped up another grade after that, so he was 16yo when he graduated and turned 17yo eight weeks after college started.

[lots-o-rice]

We have 3 Aug. Sept. birthdays. None were redshirted. We never really considered putting them in ps, so we just started school when they were ready. (our cut off is mid Sept.) My oldest has a friend who is 6 months older than he is and in a grade lower. My 3 are definitely the youngest within their friend groups.

People here redshirt their kids, so that in high school, when they are no longer playing rec sports with age brackets, their kids will be bigger and be able to compete better. Oh, sorry, they redshirt their kids because they are just not ready for kindergarten at 5. :glare: Around here, sports is the main reason. Actually, if my ds really wanted to play sports in high school, it would be safer (talking about football) to tell the school he is a grade lower, because otherwise he would be playing against kids 1+ years older than him, and he probably would be on the bench the whole time.

Now that I only have 4 more years with my oldest, the mommy part of me says I should hold him back. :crying: But, he is doing fine and will probably just go to college at 17.

[Laura Corin]

One of the problems here with being one of the youngest is that years ago, the head K teacher started insisting that the older kids go in the afternoon and the younger in the morning. Problem with that is that by the end of the year, the afternoon K would be 6 months ahead of the morning class.

 

 

That's interesting. My boys' school divides its intake between two classes: younger in one, older in the other. It's in order to manage them in an age-appropriate way, given that six months is an enormous gap when you are that small. The curriculum is the same in the two classes.

 

As pupils leave and join the school over the following six years, new kids are put into whichever class has space, so the distinctions begin to blur. When the children are ready to move into senior school at twelve, the classes are rearranged, so two classes become three with additional pupils from other schools mixed in.

 

Laura

[Candid]

Just wanted to say that I waited for my kids to start school until they were 5.5 to 6.25, but it had nothing to do with sports. I have zero interest in sports. I wait because I feel emotional maturity and symbolic learning are best handled at a slightly later age.

 

In my area, sports are done by birthday and it doesn't matter what grade you're in.

Julie

 

I think the "reshirting" language in this thread has mostly to do with academic and social maturity not sports.

 

Most sports programs are run by age for younger students and professional recruiters will certainly look at age.

[Candid]

I found a list of state cutoff dates: http://users.stargat...t-off_dates.htm

 

There's a lot of variety.

 

When my guys were young I read this book: http://www.amazon.co...little boy book The authors make a strong case for holding boys back. They say by the time children reach 18 girls on average a year ahead of boys in maturity. They also say they've never had the parents of a boy be concerned about having held their son back for that first year of school.

 

Around here it is well to do parents that hold young children back on entry into school. Margret points out the problem for less mature children entering school when they are younger. Not all children get trapped by it, but some do.

[Nscribe]

18 upon entering college seems to be the prevailing trend. I was young entering college, but the times were very different (people over 18 were loath to live with parents, legal drinking age 18-changed to 21...). College use to start in college, now with Dual Enrollment and AP, it starts in high school to some extent.

 

When I compare Dd to those born the same year and within a month of her it is hard to say there is a standard. Some are incredibly "mature" in their work habits/organization, some are very wise for their years, some are in the moment, some niave... The 18 year olds I know are also scattered all over the spectrums. It just seems that if the question is when to enter an endeavor that involves 100,000's of dollars, living indepently and engaging activities that determine what one will be, the question is less about a year of birth and more about a year of readiness.

[Murphy101]

Things like this just make me pause. When the cutoff is September 30 and people start to redshirt all their spring/ summer kids how exactly does it help them? Do we want to start kindergarten at 6 now and start graduating kids at 19? Or should all parents plan to have their kids in January so they can all have the same birthday? I just don't understand.

 

 

My dh was still 17 for another month and a half after he graduated. some were 18 (like me) and some were even 19.

 

We didn't red shirt any of our kids. We simply felt earlier is not necessarily better and frankly would put off starting until age 7 if given the choice. Whether they graduate at 17, 18, or 19 doesn't matter to us in the least and so far it hasn't mattered to our kids or anyone else either. Most don't even notice the age. They ask about what grade they are in and if they're excited about graduation. I don't think anyone has ever mentioned age to me about it.

[SkateLeft]

I don't believe that a student who turns 18 prior to graduation is young for their grade, but I suspect it really depends on the child's maturity level.

 

My daughter has a late summer birthday and has been grade skipped since kindergarten. She graduated at 16 and will turn 17 a month before moving into the dorms. She spent the past two years as a full-time dual enrolled college student and even in that setting, despite being so young, she didn't stand out to others as being young for her grade. (I think that's partly due to our parenting philosophy though, which is a whole other discussion.)

 

In our experience, universities are generally so diverse that it doesn't really matter.

 

We moved here from northern CA four years ago. Grade skipping was not uncommon in our community there. It was seen as a viable solution for kids who didn't fit the norm. However, where we live now, the cut off is earlier and many people red shirt kids with summer birthdays. The schools here offer far more flexible options than they did in CA though, so that's part of it I think. There are more paths for kids on the outer edges of the bell curve.

[LisaKinVA]

Normal. I have two winter birthdays and 3 summer (July 4, 19 and August 27). I never thought I'd red-shirt a girl, but she honestly is worse than both of my boys when it comes to being distracted/inattentive (although her penmanship is much, much better...lol). She may grow out of it...and we know it's not an LD, it's just a complete lack of interest in *anything* other than play (she had no interest in reading, no interest in writing, no interest in being read to...it wasn't a lack of "not knowing" concepts...just no desire to use them). At this point, it's just a piece of paper -- nothing is "final" until what would be the beginning of their 11th grade year. That's when we really have to decide -- and I expect that each one of our children will be a huge part of that discussion and decision (my oldest vacillates between wanting the extra year to do some different, interesting things...and wanting to graduate with his peers from church, but he is extremely likely to go away to school...out of state, and that will probably play heavily into the decision process...).

[Julie in MN]

I think the "reshirting" language in this thread has mostly to do with academic and social maturity not sports.

 

Most sports programs are run by age for younger students and professional recruiters will certainly look at age.

Interesting. I've never heard the term "redshirting" applied to anything but sports. The whole idea of it (at least traditionally) and the actual origin of the term had nothing to do with academics... glad to see more kids are waiting to start school, and some of us will have to get used to the term being used differently.

 

As for the OP's concern, I think she will still be in the majority if her child is on the young end.

Julie

[Jenny in Florida]

Assuming he continues on his current path, my son will turn 17 two months before graduating from high school.

 

We never worried much about assigning grade level when he was younger, except when we had to do so in order to get him access to some specific class or resource. For example, at church we've always kept him with his closest friends for religious education classes and activities, and it just happens they are all one or two years older than he is. So, when they all started high school, since he was already doing high school-level work, anyway, we opted to call that year "9th grade."

 

He's actually almost a year ahead of himself, anyway, in terms of credits. And he could easily be "done" by the end of 2013 - 2014 with dual enrollment. But I think his current preference is to stick around the additional year and formally graduate at the same time as his friends.

 

I didn't really do the math until recently, and it didn't end up mattering, since I left high school for full-time community college enrollment in the middle of my junior year, anyway. But if I had stayed to graduate with my class, I would have still be 17 at the end of high school, too. I have a late fall birthday and happened to start kindergarten in a district with a December cut-off. My parents were given the option to hold me back one more year, but opted to go ahead and enroll me. It was never a problem or even something I thought about much.

[Wildcat]

I agree with the others.

 

I prefer to look at my dc individually and make sure they 'fit' no matter their calendar age. I just figure if they are doing fine, then what's the issue with their age? When talking about high school graduation, we're usually only talking about lessn than a year to a year's difference. At that stage of things, for me it's just not a biggie.

 

When I graduated high school, I was 17.... I have a late fall birthday, so I was young when entering university. I did just fine and never felt out of place. For me, it's just more about the kid/person, than an actual age.

[Ellie]

Just wondering what most people would say.

 

Redshirting is so common now that my kids seem young, though technically in the right grade per our county.

 

 

Uh, no.

 

My bday is in July. I graduated in June, was 18 the next month. I never felt "young" for my grade. Never.

 

Mr. Ellie's bday is in September. He grew up in California, where the cut-off date was December 2. He graduated in June, and was 18 in September. He never felt "young," either.

 

Your dc are fine, especially since, you know, you're homeschooling, and since they are the only ones in their classrooms, they are not "young" for their "grade.". :-)

[swimmermom3]

I found a list of state cutoff dates: http://users.stargat...t-off_dates.htm

 

There's a lot of variety.

 

When my guys were young I read this book: http://www.amazon.co...little boy book The authors make a strong case for holding boys back. They say by the time children reach 18 girls on average a year ahead of boys in maturity. They also say they've never had the parents of a boy be concerned about having held their son back for that first year of school.

 

Around here it is well to do parents that hold young children back on entry into school. Margret points out the problem for less mature children entering school when they are younger. Not all children get trapped by it, but some do.

 

 

This is going to seem like a slightly odd comment about having 19 yo boys in high school, but it is something to keep in mind. At 18, your student is a legal adult. We have had two legal cases in our area in the past two years regarding students with under-age girlfriends. A good friend of my oldest son is an 18 yo senior with a 15 yo freshman girlfriend. His intentions are less than noble. If things go wrong in that relationship, they can go really wrong-legally.

[Candid]

Interesting. I've never heard the term "redshirting" applied to anything but sports. The whole idea of it (at least traditionally) and the actual origin of the term had nothing to do with academics... glad to see more kids are waiting to start school, and some of us will have to get used to the term being used differently.

 

 

I agree that's certainly the common usage, but I suspect folks borrowed the term.

 

Aside: It's one of the things I love about the English language that it is so flexible about recycling words; stealing them from other languages; etc.; whatever is necessary to advance meaning.

[Candid]

This is going to seem like a slightly odd comment about having 19 yo boys in high school, but it is something to keep in mind. At 18, your student is a legal adult. We have had two legal cases in our area in the past two years regarding students with under-age girlfriends. A good friend of my oldest son is an 18 yo senior with a 15 yo freshman girlfriend. His intentions are less than noble. If things go wrong in that relationship, they can go really wrong-legally.

 

Well yeah, my brother turned 18 in November of his senior year, not held back or anything so it could be a problem even not being held back.

 

With my two we have an August and September birthday so neither would get to 19 in high school.

 

Unfortunately this can continue, since my brother also went to college dating a sophomore. He did not have malicious intent and if anything she was more advanced than he was socially (and she quickly dumped him in favor of someone who was there all the time).

 

It is certainly a place where it would be wise to know what your individual state laws say.

[Crimson Wife]

"Redshirted" boys are actually twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college than non-redshirted boys the same age. Source is here. Now in some cases that may very well reflect a confounding factor like having a learning disability (since parents of boys subsequently diagnosed with a LD are more likely to "redshirt" their sons). But it suggests caution in deciding to "redshirt" and definitely to not do it simply to have the child be older.

[TravelingChris]

I will end up having only one who will be 18 in high school. My son was accelerated and my older dd has an Aug birthday so she graduated at 17 normally. My youngest has a Dec birthday and will graduate the May after she reaches 18. Anyway, in AL, you aren't an adult until you are 19. We had to give our 18yo in college all types of permission papers because she wasn't 19 yet.

[Finnella]

No. I'd consider any student who has turned 18 by graduation to be normal. They'd be in 12th grade in public school.

 

Now, my DD will just have turned *17* by the time she graduates. THAT is one year early.

 

 

I agree. I had just turned 17 when I graduated. If I hadn't skipped a grade, I would have graduated just after turning 18. I didn't start school at all early.

[LunaLee]

I don't think it's young. I didn't turn 18 until the December after I graduated, and my dd turned 18 2 months after she graduated. Neither of us skipped a grade.

[RootAnn]

Things like this just make me pause. When the cutoff is September 30 and people start to redshirt all their spring/ summer kids how exactly does it help them? Do we want to start kindergarten at 6 now and start graduating kids at 19? Or should all parents plan to have their kids in January so they can all have the same birthday? I just don't understand.

 

When I was at a graduation party a year ago, comments of the graduating senior's parents made me really stop and think about this. They had kept their son from starting K with his age peers ('red shirted') because they felt it would benefit him (academically, socially, and physically). They felt justified in their decision last year because he had excelled at sports, was popular (involved in choir & drama), and one of the valedictorian(s). They bemoaned not doing the same with their oldest and pointed with pride to their little flower blossoms who are in grade & middle school who were also redshirted.

 

Here's the thing - what does that extra year do?

 

I was never a fan of 'red shirting' - and it is common in my state for boys for sports-reasons. Now that I have my own boys, I've modified my position. I now think the parents should be able to decide (to send or to hold back). I realized my oldest ds wasn't ready to start kindergarten work -- even my easy & fun K work when he turned 5. He technically makes the cut off for my state (and my state has one of the earliest dates now). There's no way I would have sent him.

 

My oldest was four when she started her homeschool journey. I test her with the kids that started Kindergarten at the same time as she started here at home. She tests well in that group (& her CogAT with that group shows "gifted" where her ITBS scores do not). But her age-peers are a grade younger. She'd be "gifted" if I tested her at the level she'd be at in public school due to date cut-offs. I still have awhile to decide, but I'm in a quandry on what to do -- graduate her young or "use" that extra year for a part time job in the field she'd like to go in and extra classes at the local college? Would it be fair to her age peers that she'll (maybe) test better on the ACT/SAT because of that extra year?

 

The 'wisdom' is that the earlier you start academic work, the better prepared & further ahead you'll be -- hence, HeadStart & academic preschools. (I'm not a believer in this, BTW.) However, then we hold some of these same kids back. Does that give those kids an 'unfair' advantage? Or does it disadvantage them? I don't know...

[Ellie]

"Redshirted" boys are actually twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college than non-redshirted boys the same age. Source is here. Now in some cases that may very well reflect a confounding factor like having a learning disability (since parents of boys subsequently diagnosed with a LD are more likely to "redshirt" their sons). But it suggests caution in deciding to "redshirt" and definitely to not do it simply to have the child be older.

 

I love this article. That is all.

[RootAnn]

I found a list of state cutoff dates: http://users.stargat...t-off_dates.htm

 

That link has a lot of out-of-date cut-offs. A few states have been changing their dates to make them earlier.

 

This one looks to be more up-to-date: Kindergarten Entrance Age

 

And another paper discussing the effects of red-shirting: The Lengthening of Childhood

[MIch elle]

Keeping my boys back, who both have Feb. birthdays, would have been a disaster. They physically matured VERY early.

 

I would NOT have known this when they were in kindergarten! Beware of redshirting for many reasons.

[wapiti]

"Redshirted" boys are actually twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college than non-redshirted boys the same age. Source is here. Now in some cases that may very well reflect a confounding factor like having a learning disability (since parents of boys subsequently diagnosed with a LD are more likely to "redshirt" their sons). But it suggests caution in deciding to "redshirt" and definitely to not do it simply to have the child be older.

 

 

Thanks for posting this. It confirms something I often wondered about, the lost year of working (part what I call a "theft of time"):

 

Despite evidence that older students have an academic advantage in elementary school, our results suggest that redshirting by parent preference or school recommendation is not an effective strategy for improving high school achievement, graduation rates, or college enrollment. Combined with the work of Angrist and Krueger (1991), this suggests that the most important effect of age at school entry may be that older students lose a year of participation in the workforce rather than that younger students are disadvantaged in early elementary years. Thus, the true competitive advantage may favor students who enter school at a young age.

 

Either way, typical public schools do not do a good job of accommodating late bloomers - who may even be twice-exceptional, whether later discovered or not - or encouraging their subsequent developmental leaps forward. Development isn't always as linear as PS requires.

[Wheres Toto]

I turned 18 the summer after I graduated high school. The only time I noticed that I was on the younger side was when the majority of my classmates started driving.

 

My oldest has a Spring birthday and graduated 2 months after turning 18.

 

We were told by my son's Early Intervention evaluators to not send him to kindergarten until he was 6 (late August birthday). While I agree that he was not ready socially/behaviorally for the expectations these days, he is academically advanced. This is basically what led us to homeschooling. Being bored in school didn't seem like it would help his behavior any. :glare: We are currently calling him the grade he would be in if he went in at 5 years old, although the only place it matters is Sunday School. I don't know what will happen at graduation, that's a long time from now.

 

I do have a friend that started her daughter with a September birthday in Kindergarten at 5, at the recommendation of her K4 teacher. She did fine in K and 1st but is struggling a lot with behavior and workload now that she's in 2nd.

[Julie in MN]

"Redshirted" boys are actually twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college than non-redshirted boys the same age. Source is here. Now in some cases that may very well reflect a confounding factor like having a learning disability (since parents of boys subsequently diagnosed with a LD are more likely to "redshirt" their sons). But it suggests caution in deciding to "redshirt" and definitely to not do it simply to have the child be older.

I agree the struggling kids would be a huge confounding factor.

 

My son started school at 6 years 2 months, he graduated well, took another year off (Army Reserves), went to college and graduated in exactly 4 years with honors, and I know others who similarly benefited from being older and knowing what they were going to do in college.

 

My younger sister started school at 4 in California, graduated young, had no confidence that she could do anything since she spent 13 years in school trying to keep up, and it took her 10 years post high school to realize she actually was as smart as anyone and go back to become an RN.

 

I've been around enough kids to feel very confident that extending childhood and hands-on learning, putting off formal "school" (which is just an extension of learning), does NOT cause kids to drop out or become failures.

 

Not the OP's issue, but I hate to see this idea creep into folks' minds.

Julie

[Candid]

"Redshirted" boys are actually twice as likely to drop out of high school and less likely to attend college than non-redshirted boys the same age. Source is here. Now in some cases that may very well reflect a confounding factor like having a learning disability (since parents of boys subsequently diagnosed with a LD are more likely to "redshirt" their sons). But it suggests caution in deciding to "redshirt" and definitely to not do it simply to have the child be older.

 

I can't tell by glancing, do they distinguish between children held back and children admitted late?

 

Edited to add: Okay, I skimmed it enough to see, kind of but not totally. I also noted that they say that redshirting may not have a negative effect on upper income or white children. Further they focus on the year of not being stimulated.

 

Since probably our most prestigious private school actively redshirts most young children that apply to go the school, I'm betting that the drop out rate doesn't hit the well healed.

 

In our case we regraded at fifth grade when we changed churches with my oldest (September birthday, in our state he would be red shirted in other states he would not). He continued on in his school work. The benefits have been getting ahead in math in particular. BUT the thing that really was amazing was how he went from a little guy who knew he didn't like how the social dynamics were working in his group to being a leader who set those dynamics. When he went up to middle school, he stood up as a sixth grader effectively to the eight graders in a very chaotic free time period in the church's middle school room. I don't think he would have done that with a year less of age.

 

[/size]

 

That link has a lot of out-of-date cut-offs. A few states have been changing their dates to make them earlier.

 

This one looks to be more up-to-date: Kindergarten Entrance Age

 

Darn, I was hoping to see if the changes went uniformly in one direction or the other. It appears most states use September 1st as the cut off. January for Connecticut is way out of the norm. California has moved its cut off date back to make it later.

 

And another paper discussing the effects of red-shirting: The Lengthening of Childhood

 

In looking at this paper it seems the main disadvantages the authors are concerned about is how other children are disadvantaged by redshirting.

[qtkimi]

I turned 18 a month after graduation. My oldest ds will turn 18 right before graduation and my youngest will not turn 18 until 3 months after graduation. My birthday is in June. oldest is in May. and my baby's birthday is in August so all toward the young side for the grade.

[musicianmom]

My oldest dd will graduate at 17 and so will my son, whom I am refusing to redshirt. He'll be the youngest, and he'll have to deal with it. Somebody has to be the youngest. I might even let dd5 skip a grade later so she can graduate at 17. Two reasons: 1. I graduated at 16 and lived to tell about it. 2. My mom taught high school for decades and saw way too many young adults in her class who really should have been getting on with their lives instead of sitting in a desk having to ask a middle-aged woman for permission to use the restroom.

[Laura Corin]

For comparison, Scotland has a kind of inverse redshirting system. This from Wikipedia:

 

In general, the cut-off point for ages is the end of February, so all children must be of a certain age on 1 March in order to begin class in August. All parents of children born between September and February (i.e. still 4 years old on the school start date) are entitled to defer entry to Primary School if they believe their child is not ready for school.

 

This naturally leads to a very large spread of ages within one class. Calvin has a Christmas birthday, so could have started school in Scotland at age 4 3/4 or 5 3/4. Hong Kong (where we were living when he was small) has a similar system. On the advice of the school, he entered as a young pupil in his year; in his current school in Scotland he is also young for his year. He will be 17 1/2 when he leaves school.

 

I know of at least one mother at the boys' current school who has taken the difficult decision to have her daughter repeat a year of 'high school'. The daughter was young for the year and was in the middle of the class in academic terms. In the end, the family couldn't see a benefit to this, so they put her in a class where she was still within the normal age range, but would be more likely to shine academically.

 

Laura

[creekland]

I graduated at 17 because I had a summer birthday. I never felt there was a problem. My two older guys had spring birthdays, so graduated at 18, but not by much. Both did well. Middle could have EASILY been bumped up graduation-wise and moved on sooner, but we felt no need to do so (there's plenty of time for adulthood). He's doing fine.

 

Youngest has a Dec birthday, so ended up a year behind where I'd have put him if I could have... (he's correct with our cut off date - will graduate at 18). He could have been going to college this year instead of next. I think he wishes he were going this year... academically and maturity-wise, he could have been. Course-wise he has one more year.

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

I would say normal.

I graduated HS the same month I turned 18 and this was from a public school many moons ago.

[texasmama]

My oldest child graduated yesterday (private school) at the age of 17. She will turn 18 in late July and will go to college about two weeks after her 18th birthday. I could have chosen to hold her back a year before placing her in kindy, but she passed the evaluation readiness tests of the private school, and I believed she was ready.

 

ETA: TX cut off date is end of August/September 1...I forget which. :) DD's bday is July 29.