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AllKidsAboutTheSameAge daycare

Varied age school groups are published as making younger kids seem three times less capable (to adults). At big cities franchised daycare could create highly similar age groups
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I read a thing at the BBC that said that people that start a grade 11 months younger than their peers are seen as three times less capable.

It occured to me that a private sector provider of daycare at a large metropolitan area could offer daycare with age ranges just a few months wide, thus the kids would all be more equally advantaged. I think that parents would really value their little ones getting authentic social reinforcement as capable.

This is actually a technology as sorting kids to groups of the same age at large cities would be a new value product among franchised daycare providers. (US English use of the phrase franchised)

beanangel, Nov 22 2011

age at start of school affects adult impression of kids capability http://www.bbc.co.u.../education-15527145
The study says that among seven-year-olds, August-born children are more than three times as likely to be "below average" as September-born children. August children are also 20% less likely to attend a top university [beanangel, Nov 22 2011]

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       Sorry, definitely not. One problem with schooling is that it segregates for age, creating an artificial environment which does not resemble adult life, where there is generally a mix of ages. The fact that adults have a certain impression can be overcome. I was, as it happens, eleven months younger than my peers at school, but the solution to the perception is to do things like improving ratios and the like, not segregating them earlier. It's a social education too.   

       Having said that, it's supposed to be a good idea to have babies in the spring because they tend to be healthier.   

       Oh, and the other thing is that each child develops at its own rate, not in chronologically fixed stages like, say, an insect would.   

       However, i never vote against ideas, so no bone from me.
nineteenthly, Nov 22 2011
  

       Yes, I'd say it might be better to go the other way and group children by ability rather than age. I, of course, was more than 18 months younger than the oldest child in my school class and yet was one of very few to go to university, so I would say that.
hippo, Nov 22 2011
  

       Just for clarification - this is a school or a nursery?   

       Assuming that we're talking about school, I've been working towards a similar conclusion myself.
I vehemently disagree with nineteenthly. Children are not adults. The comparison isn't viable, because adults are not developing at anything like the same rate.
For children starting at 5-6 years old, there's a difference of up to 20% of their total age[1]. For this developmental period, there is a significant positive correlation between ability and age - for pretty much any skill you care to look at. An important part of learning is self-evaluation of ability, and those at the younger end generally lose out - setting them up badly for adult life.
If it's a mixture of ages you want, then that happens too - at playtime, assembly etc.
  

       [1] Where I am it's even more than that, since they start earlier.
Loris, Nov 22 2011
  

       Everyone vehemently disagrees with me, i'm quite used to it. Nurseries are a bit of a strange idea unless you have less control than you should have over your work and lack a support network around you. Unfortunately, that does seem true for most people. So, anyway, the thing is that if you are learning to do something, having older people who are more competent doing it as an example around you might help you learn it. That happens with language, for example. Age segregation seems like an odd thing to do to me. Children would work in factories or on farms beside adults, for example, and whereas child labour is not a good idea if the child or someone with a close personal concern with the child's own interests has no control, being able to learn by example is more feasible that way.   

       I was in the same position - born in late July, i was almost always the youngest child in my year, and at university. So that fifth of a lifespan difference applied to me at the start of primary school, and i spent most of my time wondering why things weren't challenging enough. And the thing is, it's not my intelligence because i'm sceptical about the whole notion of intelligence beyond major organic differences such as result from brain damage or inherited genetic differences like Downs, so it didn't work that way at all for this particular unusually young moron.
nineteenthly, Nov 23 2011
  

       This daycare would either have to be very large as daycares run to be able to have sufficient income to support as many staff as would be required to meet state child/teacher ratio laws, or be uncompetitive in expenses.
RayfordSteele, Nov 23 2011
  

       //Everyone vehemently disagrees with me//   

       Hah, me too, usually.   

       //Children would work in factories or on farms beside adults,//   

       Generally going to be more extreme than age segregation, I'd have thought - effectively almost complete sequestration.
Not that it's necessarily a bad teaching method though - one-on-one tuition can be very effective.
  

       Anyway, it's an effect noticable on average, rather than for any particular child. Probably it's noticable in things like sport and language or maths ability (the linked article supports this).
If you can foster a locally unique interest in your child like herbology, that won't be affected. They'll probably still get bullied, though.
Loris, Nov 23 2011
  

       Just playing with ideas here - many adults, one child? I.e. not just a couple of teaching assistants and a teacher, more like thirty adults, one child?
nineteenthly, Nov 23 2011
  

       I've always thought it's unsettling how greatly children are kept away from other children. The whole idea of splitting children into tiny little groups of 20-30 of them is to make them more manageable. That's not life. Plus, it ends up being very depressing for children. All their friends will be from this tight-knit group of people all born in the same season. I don't see why schools don't encourage children associating with people multiple years from themselves. When this does happen, it is during high school--in other words, right when people truly become introverted and territorial. Mixing of the ages should occur at low levels when children tend to be innocently happy with everyone.
Alizayi, Nov 23 2011
  

       Just to be idea focused I thought Id mention that this is a voluntary private sector opportunity rather than an overarching social structure.   

       If there were say 7 "a kids place" franchises at NYC then the franchise "a kids place" could offer parents the opportunity to similar age group the kids to provide prospective social benefit. Some parents might prefer location, others peer relations
beanangel, Nov 24 2011
  

       //more than three times as likely to be "below average"// is not helpful without more information. And what does //three times less capable// even mean?
spidermother, Dec 08 2011
  

       /Or have half yearly groups for the first 4 years/   

       That is bean's idea, if I do not misunderstand. It makes sense. The older we get the more alike we are developmentally. Loris said it well. I think the age structure of school was just extended down thru nursery but it does not need to be that way. Re ratios, that is an issue only for small schools. If there are 2 rooms of nursery school with 20 kids in each, you could make one the young room and one the old room.   

       I agree with letting everyone mix but not for the very little kids; the ones a year are two older are much larger and faster but not very well controlled. Even in grade school mixed recess can be scary for little ones because they are little, and it seems to me many grade schools have some sort of segregation.   

       As regards Beans observations about age and success people who want their sons to play sports have been holding them back a year for a long time. That will apply to academics too - the smartest kid in my girls 3d grade class is 2 years older than the rest of them. Maybe this sort of thing is appropriate in a society where children do not leave home until age 25.
bungston, Dec 08 2011
  


 

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