When you are born does matter: August babies perform the worst

Until you look at the hard facts, which hit you between the eyes like an Exocet missile, the theory that August babies get a raw deal in life sounds like so much hogwash. People have enough reasons to feel sorry for themselves without being handed another one. Why should children be accorded victim status because of when they were born? It is like a throwback to the Middle Ages, when it only took a crow flying in the wrong direction for the village idiot to declare that the end of the world was nigh.

I was born on August 7 and am proud of the fact. We alpha-male Leos don’t do self-pity. But then, as I say, you look at the facts, which were spelt out in meticulous detail in a 2007 Government-backed report, entitled When You Are Born Matters.

The report, by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), drew on administrative data from the entire state school population in England and showed a clear gap, in terms of education results, between children born in August and those born in September, sometimes only a matter of minutes later.

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