Interesting item on the Today programme on BBC radio 4 this morning on how a large study of childhood cohorts shows that children born in August systematically under achieve all their lives compared with children born in September. This is because of the structure of the school year. I didn’t follow this completely as I only heard some of it. However, Matthew Syed (author of Bounce) gave the example of top footballers. The vast majority apparently are clustered in birth months where they were amongst the older boys in a school year. They were bigger, stronger, more likely to be picked by PE instructors and sports masters, more likely to experience success and status, more likely to develop to the extent that they will be selected by club scouts, and so it goes on. Conversely, younger boys are more likely to experience mediocrity or failure and so on. It is the case that in any one school year their will be children nearly a whole year apart in age. I need to find the study reported and see how this translates into academic achievement, if it does.