Season of Birth and Success in the Secondary School

The investigation which formed the basis of this article was designed to examine the possibility of a connection existing between the time of year at which a pupil is born and the results at school as indicated by the VRQ, immediately prior to entering the secondary school, success in the ‘O’ level examinations of the GCE, the completion of a five‐year course of studies in the secondary school, and the composition of the top and bottom streams by the end of the third year in the secondary school. The results described relate to a group of pupils who, over a period of ten years, entered an all‐boys comprehensive school in an industrial city and whose achievements in the areas defined above were found to be significantly related to the time of the year at which they were born. Those children born during the autumn term and having, therefore, had a longer period in the junior school, were found to be advantaged compared with those born in the spring and summer terms, the latter being in a situation of greatest disadvantage.