Primary school admissions - MNHQ needs your thoughts!

The fact that you have to pick me out on not using a space between the words summer and born just shows you have no 'argument' left.

No. It shows that I am a lawyer by training and that, when someone uses a legally defined term, I'd expect them to write it as used in the legislation. When they use slightly different wording, which their context implies has a different meaning, I won't assume that they are using the term as legally defined.

It's a profoundly silly measure dreamt up by people who haven't given any thought to what child development actually looks like.

Well, that you can address with the DfE, it is their report.

Yoni, I am from the country where the parents are given the full choice when to send the child to school. All parents and the age range is 1.5 years and no, there is no age effect at all. Sorry to disappoint.

Yonic - Indeed.

It makes a few interesting points (have only read the executive summary and the conclusion so far):

• it is absolute age that is believed to make the difference in later attainment: being older than others taking the same exam gives you a leg up.

• the biggest single predictor of low attainment is FSM. The biggest predictor of lower attainment is multiple factors (being a young, boy, on FSM, for example).

Bemybebe: all that graph actually illustrates is the ludicrousness of the 'good level of development' measure at the end of the eyfs. Of course the younger children are disproportionately likely to achieve a single measure of development applied to children who vary in age by 11 months.

It's a profoundly silly measure dreamt up by people who haven't given any thought to what child development actually looks like.

If you started children's formal learning later, you'd find the differences between the oldest and the youngest became much less significant. If you simply allow some parents to decide whether their child should start a year later, all it means is that you're assessing children who vary in age by 15+ months on a single measure. The youngest children will then appear even more unlikely to achieve it.

This is a huge problem because it is the children whose parents do not have the means or the knowledge or the inclination (or a mixture of the above) who will be the youngest. Those are the children who are at the greatest disadvantage already.

As others have said, campaign to have all children start school at 6 or even 7 (when the age difference will matter less). Don't campaign for those with the sharpest elbows to be given extra room to swing them.

I agree there is a problem of starting formal schooling too young.

I could get thoroughly behind campaigns that addressed this issue by:

A) extending the EYFS into Y1

or

B) changing the Aug/Sept cut-off to Dec/Jan or Mar/Apr

There is a slight problem with comparing other countries' CSA because that doesn't describe what children are doing before and after (formal "nursery" or play-based "school" perhaps) nor does it take into account the complexity of English orthography which does require longer and more formal teaching.

If you meant that my April baby should be able to start in reception at nearly 5.5 just on parental say so I think that's even more socially regressive

No penguins I'm not saying you should do that, but I am saying you should have the choice. Some April born children will be 'ready' in the September following their 4th Birthday some won't, that's why the summer born guidance and the option to request it is there. What we are trying to highlight is the inconsistencies across admission authorities due to the subjective nature of the code. Some admission authorities will allow it, some won't. This is not fair.

The fact that you have to pick me out on not using a space between the words summer and born just shows you have no 'argument' left.

It won't make it worse for any other children, as previously posted it will only make it better.

Thanks be, that's a very helpful report.

I have a late summer child; i don't see a way to change the system that doesn't give some age advantage to a group of children and that report implies the same; other countries show an age difference whatever the cut off method.

TeWi the question for you then is following. If I want my child to start school at compulsory school age, is it fair in your mind that she has to go to Y1 directly and be expected the following, having not spend a single day at school?

• read and understand simple sentences.

• use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately.

• read some common irregular words.

• demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

• use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds.

• write some irregular common words.

• write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others.

• count reliably with numbers from one to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number.

• they add and subtract two single-digit numbers and count on or back to find the answer.

• solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.

..........

So, should she go straight to Y1?? I am not "pushy" for not wanting her to.

Sorry haven't read the whole thread. I disagree with families moving some distance away but keeping their siblings priority for subsequent kids. IMO there should be a reasonable cut off say two miles over which if you moved away you lose the ability to gain spaces over another family who may live much closer but don't already have a sibling in school. Also if you actually move out of borough the sibling priority should not apply.

It's aimed at anyone who thinks it's fair to give their child a substantial advantage to the disadvantage of other children. Does that apply to you? I don't know.

Making things better for all children is brilliant and I will always be behind that. I'm aware that summer born children do have a disadvantage and a solution that helps them and causes no significant disadvantage to others like raising the start age for all children is fine.

Making things better for a small number of children because it suits your child, even though it makes things worse for children with disadvantaged backgrounds or pushes the problem onto children with a different birth date is the very definition of pushy.

DfE Month of Birth and Education

And if summer borns are being wrongly diagnosed with SENs, isn't that a case for better diagnosis criteria more than anything? (just as autism and heart attacks are typically under diagnosed in girls/women)

myrtlehh - Do you want to respond to my point that you've totally misrepresented the stats on SEN? Did you misunderstand when you said "Not 1, not 10, but 90%!!! That's nearly all of them!!!". And you are just comparing August to September, yes?

Clearly there is an issue with higher SEN diagnosis in children young for their year, probably related (as has been pointed out) to measurement and expectation. But if you want to quote statistics, do so accurately.

Also, the most likely children to be diagnosed with SEN are the poor and disadvantaged. Just the children least likely to defer on parental choice.

Hi myrtle

Was that research done on a cohort that had equal number of terms of education?

And if summer borns started later, would the cohort then just reverse so winter borns did statistically worse, being now the younger in the class?

TeWi Is the term "pushy parent" directed at me?

You can call pushy all you want, but every parent in their right state of mind would not want their children to be misdiagnosed. If pushing is what it takes, so be it.
Also, you are the one completely ignoring all the hard evidence that several studies have found on summerborns. You ignire that this campaign did not start just because of a crazy parent idea, but because it is PROVEN beyond doubt that summerborns are at disadvantage and discriminated against.
You might want to read some of the tons of research available before bulldozing your unsubstantiated opinions. Until then, I've got nothing more to say to you.

summerborn is not a defined term at all (though summer born is). All those talking about summerborns are talking as if they are the youngest children in the year, the statistics linked to by another poster were comparing August and September birthdays (not basically half the year to the other half).

If you meant that my April baby should be able to start in reception at nearly 5.5 just on parental say so I think that's even more socially regressive.

Rdutton, 5/12 of the year is too much for flexibility in the current schooling environment; it would make school planning impossible.

Campaign for the youngest in the year to be 4 by 31/3 before they start ie a 4.5 minimum starting age would be fine.

I don't need any evidence of probably hypotheticals! You DO need evidence if you are claiming certain things definitely happen because of the system now. It's been explained why your interpretation is wrong but you don't seem interested in that -

Maybe I am wrong about what would happen, but it's perfectly reasonable of me to refuse to get behind something that I think would be negative for children with SN, when there are other options that would make things fairer for all children not just a few summerborns with pushy parents.

Aren't a fair number of the stats about academic differences from a time when younger children were obliged to start reception later and thereby had 1-2 terms fewer of schooling before the differences were observed?

Any child born from April onwards can't start at compulsory school age and access reception automatically. That is 5/12ths of the birth dates in a year

A summerborn child, as defined in legislation is *April 1st - August 31st
*

So that is why summerborn campaigners are campaigning. So that group of children, the ONLY group of children who can't access ANY of reception at compulsory school age, can.

So no, not absolute rubbish at all.

I also campaign for the toomuchtoosoon campaign and am very much behind a later school starting age, I'm with you on that one.

If like you say we are stuffing the most vulnerable summerborns by what we are campaigning for eg. A later start (technically on time) for ALL summerborns, at compulsory school age in reception. Wouldn't campaigning for a later school start in general (with your way of thinking) also disadvantage vulnerable summerborns, it's the same thing...starting at a later age! You contradict yourself.

If the government, the DfE made it easier for all summerborn parents it wouldn't be an issue.

I think we all agree a later formal school start would benefit all children.

Coming back to the OP, admissions authorities and the admissions process is very very difficult for everyone, extremely difficult for parents of summerborns wanting to start their children at compulsory school age.

Yes, I do understand that there are laws .

This particular law is a long stop date.

If you want a system where every child starts after their 5th birthday, campaign for that. Though, of course, you will have to address how you deal with the fact that there is a hard deadline at the end of schooling of annual exams, so either there will have to be multiple exam dates or someone will have to lose some time somewhere.

Well Tewi, you say TAs would be busy looking after the older kids to challenge and stretch them. What is your evidence?

Then let's change The Law on CSA from term after 5 to September when 4 and be done with it.

Don't you understand that there are laws in this country?