How disastrous is missing reception year?

[scotlandmamatoone]

DH and I are currently living in Scotland with our very nearly 2 (late august birthday) year old. In Scotland, she would start school school in August 2028 in 3 years time.

However, we plan to move to England in spring / summer 2028. In England, she would have been due to start school in September 2027. Due to an ongoing work contract, there is really no way of moving to England ready for her to start school then.

This means, when we move, she will be ready to go straight into year 1 (or perhaps if we're able to, to have a few weeks of reception?). I have heard that deferral is possible but have also heard from people that this means she'll miss a year of education down the line(?) and also that deferral might not be accepted if not applied for when she was initially due to start school - but obviously we won't have a house to apply from at this point!

I'm feeling a bit worried about it all. Currently she is potty trained, has very advanced language skills (not a brag, just some background) and is very comfortable at nursery, but obviously at not yet 2 it is very very difficult to predict how school ready she'll be and how detrimental missing a reception year would be! Does anyone have any similar experience? I know absolutely nothing about schools and hadn't really anticipated having to think about it so soon .

Missing Reception year is quite vital but it depends on what she would be doing Scotland. In reception they will learn to read and write so will go onto Y1 being able to do those things quite fluently. If she can't, she will start off on the back for and if may be hard to catch up certainly won't be great for self confidence. It's also a lot of sitting and working whereas Reception is more of a bridge from playing/ learning through play.

As a late August birthday anyway, I would definitely defer her. I know many children who have done this. Also many children who have come from abroad (even much older children eg. Y10) and go down a year in order to give them the best chance. Don't always agree it's the right thing, but it is fairly common. In this case I think it's probably the right thing.

I have a late August born and while he is starting in September this year, I know a few his age who aren’t. They’ll all be going into reception next year and have had no issues with this. I’m pretty sure they are just applying in the usual way next year rather than having applied this year, and deferring the place, so I doubt it will be an issue, even if you don’t have an address. One applied this year and didn’t get the school they wanted so are going to do a second year of pre-school and reapply next time.

I wouldn’t miss reception though, this is really important for reading and writing I think.

Any summer born child has the right to go to school and start in reception the September after they turn 5. It can be tricky as different local councils have different procedures and some are better than others. There’s a really good group on Facebook where people share advice and experiences which I really recommend joining (it’s called summer born admissions or similar)
I would definitely say to try and avoid missing reception as it is a vital year for getting them used to school before the proper work begins.
Ive done it this year with my little one and he starts in a couple of weeks, I’m so glad I have as he was nowhere near ready last year.

Any summer born child has the right to go to school and start in reception the September after they turn 5. It can be tricky as different local councils have different procedures and some are better than others. There’s a really good group on Facebook where people share advice and experiences which I really recommend joining (it’s called summer born admissions or similar)
I would definitely say to try and avoid missing reception as it is a vital year for getting them used to school before the proper work begins.
Ive done it this year with my little one and he starts in a couple of weeks, I’m so glad I have as he was nowhere near ready last year.

Don't skip reception.

Join the Facebook group "Flexible School Admissions for Summer Borns (England)" - you'll get good advice there.

Delaying entry is a bit of a faff but most schools (with the exception of some academies) will accept it, especially if the alternative is missing reception.

Any summer born child has the right to go to school and start in reception the September after they turn 5

NB (and without wanting to derail the thread) this is not true. A summer born child has the right to start school in the September after they turn 5. The admissions authority can then decide if they join reception or year 1. They have to make the decision in the best interests of the child though, and that generally means starting in reception.

My dd missed reception, similar situation as where we lived started later. She attended part time preschool and I home schooled her the reception curriculum - she was far ahead of her classmates as I misinterpreted the curriculum online and taught her key stage 1 too

I would think the preschool curriculum should match the school entry time. In that, a place where children start school a bit later would have a more advanced 2nd year preschool curriculum than a place where school starts a bit earlier. If the Scottish preschool does writing and literacy then it might be OK but I think you'll have to do a bit of research to see exactly what is on each curriculum and where there is a gap.

And no, she won't have to miss a year later on (although you will have more hoops to jump through when applying for secondary school).

Can’t you homeschool her for a year?

@mamagogo1 that made me laugh - perhaps you can come and homeschool mine?

Thank you for the advice all. For full disclosure, I've run the scenario past a few english teachers who are friends / family and they've all ranged from very negative about deferral to neutral but thinking it probably won't be allowed in our circumstances. They've all also agreed reception is very important but their advice is more on changing our timelines which we just can't do unfortunately. I will definitely join that group on facebook. I'm just so worried we'll get a no down the line and I'll have messed everything up for her - we really had no clue about the different school systems when we had DD and just thought she'd do a year of reception up in Scotland before moving...

In 25 years of teaching I’ve never known a child moved down a year. This never happens in state school without significant special needs (and then only in a special school). Kids wouldn’t get funding.

I think missing reception year is a really bad idea. It is an essential year for forming the foundations in so many areas. Also everyone is new and forming new friendships etc. Even if your child is bright and would happily learn lots of things at home with you, starting with a group of children who have already formed friendships gives her a significant disadvantage socially. In your position, I would either be moving heaven and earth to be moving spring/summer 2027 so your daughter starts school with her cohort, or the other option is that summer born children can defer so that instead of starting just after they are 4, they start just after they are 5, so you could look into that.

@andanotherproblem I try and do lots of bits of learning with her already and she can do shapes / colours / counting 1-10 / recognition of quite a few letters and numbers so I'm really hopeful she'll be reading (and writing?) by school age but I definitely don't think I can replace a whole reception education (or the socialisation!). It's very much a case of I don't know what I don't know (as presumably obvious by my lack of understanding of the school system )

As your DD is summer born you can look at delaying her entry into reception by a year. Or you can apply for her to go straight into Y1...as long as a school has places.
My DD is an August birthday and went straight into Y1, (various reasons) at just turned 5. She wasn't reading/writing but soon caught up and was pretty much top in her class within 2 years. It does depend on your child but if they are quite capable and 'ahead' don't bother with reception, as they could be really bored. (This was the case with my DS, who is September born and incredibly bright - reception just wouldn't meet his needs. He went up to Y1 for numeracy/literacy lessons. Had he not, we would have pulled him out and homeschooled before putting him back in Y1!)
Basically, when you are thinking of moving contact the council/schools you are interested in and have a chat with them.

@stichguru this was definitely my thinking, I can't replicate social side of school at home.

@Thelondonone thanks for your input - this seems much closer to what teachers I know have said.

Moving 'heaven and earth' to move sooner just isn't possible jobs-wise I'm afraid. I guess at a push I could move with DD sooner but this would have massive financial implications and also be pretty miserable for all involved! We also need to know where DH will be working to settle down so would likely end up having to move her after reception year anyway. We've obviously messed this up but can't undo that now .

I may be a few years out of date (DD is at uni now), but seem to remember the second year of nursery in Scotland (if they do that in your area) is very similar to reception. We moved the other way round and DD had done reception in England before we moved to Scotland, where because of her birthday she was also able to do P1 in Scotland. She was of a very similar level to most of the other children in her class who had come up from a second year in the nursery.

What is nursery for a 4/5yr old like in Scotland? I cant imagine its hugely different to reception. Do they do phonics/ early reading?

I got a deferral and my June born, no SEN child started school age 5 and 3 months. The process was a bit fiddly but not too hard. I followed guidance for the group. Anecdotally if you say you plan to return to Scotland you are more likely to get agreement to put her into reception so she will be in the correct year when she returns to Scotland. Once she starts reception you can always change your plans and decide to stay in England.

Reception is the same curriculum as preschool in England, not sure if Scotland have a different curriculum. There will be slightly more structure in Reception and more advanced teaching of phonics but it is mainly continuous provision. Some schools in my area have preschool mixed in with Reception.
I don't think it would be disastrous, there are plenty of phonics resources available online. If you keep her in preschool in Scotland and do some work at home on reading, writing and simple maths I'm sure she will be fine.

Deferral is increasingly common / possible so I wouldn't fret too much for now. Equally if she ends up going straight into Y1 at just turned 5, as long as she's been in some kind of group setting and is used to the idea of listening / learning / following instructions I don't think it's a huge deal. Children move schools, countries and systems all the time, and as long as it's not in secondary exam years everything shakes down okay the vast majority of the time.

Reception is not that important. It really isn't. Trust me.

Nursery and Reception are very different. By the end of Reception they’ll be writing sentences that can be read by others, reading, doing simple calculations.

Do they do the above in 2nd year of pre-school in Scotland? That isn’t the case from the small sample of Scottish parents I know. Do they teach phonics formally daily?

No, they don't really. There is an element of it but it's not a formal type of thing like reception is in England. Most children will start learning to read, write, phonics etc in Primary 1. Nursery/preschool in Scotland is mostly play based.

Missing reception year would be problematic. By the end of reception they can read and write simple sentences. They start phonics teaching in nursery which is year before reception.

Join the facebook group Flexible school admission for summer born (England). I have choosen for my summer born to start reception year school the September after she turned 5 rather than 4. You do need to get permission from the school for them to enter reception - some school will be very willing to allow this, some need a little push but a few will be a hard no.