Academics from the Institute of Psychiatry and Imperial College School of Medicine carried out a survey of 10,000 children aged five to 15, mainly in England and Wales. The researchers, Professor Robert Goodman and clinical research fellows Julia Gledhill and Tamsin Ford, said the results of a 'strengths and difficulties' questionnaire showed that being among the youngest in a school year was associated with more emotional and behavioural problems, arising from 'the disadvantages of immaturity rather than from seasonal variance'.
They said the risks could be reduced if schools made greater allowances for the youngest children in each class and concluded, 'Increased awareness by teachers of the relative age of their pupils and a more flexible approach to children's progression through school might reduce the number of children with impairing psychiatric disorders in the general population.'
Pat Wills, national chair of Early Education and head teacher at Claremont Primary in Blackpool, which employs a trained counsellor to help children with emotional or behavioural difficulties, said her staff had the dates of birth of individual children to hand. 'This acts as a prompt so they can see at a glance if a child was born in September or is much younger and born in June.'
She added, 'It's really a question of matching the individual needs of a child. We do find that this immaturity because of their birth date does tend to even out at the end of primary school.'
