To absolutely insist my child repeats a school year?

[Creamofthecrop]

My DD is 5 and currently in year 1. I felt mixed emotions this year as the law changed and parents can now delay reception if they feel the child isn't ready as I feel it is the right thing to do but that it wasn't an option for us - it was hold her back for a year, fine but they would go straight into year 1.

So my DD went into reception just 4 weeks after her 4th birthday and I There was a big difference between her and the others in my opinion - she was much smaller, spoke a lot more babyish. Some of the other children were kind to her but not in a friends way - more like they were looking after her. I heard one boy saying to his mum 'aah look there is Jasmine - she is a baby but she is growing now'. She got invited to about 6 parties in reception and ran around happily but nobody played with her in particular. She liked to make friends but never seemed bothered if she didn't. She learnt her sounds, could write some letters and numbers but nothing else. You would spell out C A T and ask her what the word was and she would say 'dog'.

In year 1, no party invitations so far. She can read simple words like mum, dad, cat, dog but nothing longer. The teacher laughed when we discussed her reading and said they are working with her to actually look at the words on the page rather than guess the words based off the picture. She is on the lowest ability table. You can read her letters but her words are ineligible. The teacher told me in October that she has a small group of close friends but when I ask her about her day, she has always played by herself. She told me the other day what a great laugh she had playing hide and seek. But when I asked if she had been the finder or hider, she laughed and said she was both as she counted to 10 and then found herself as she was playing alone. Today I asked her if she had anyone to play with at lunchtime and she said that none of the others would play with her and that she was by herself everyday. She was quite friendly with 2 children at latter reception but she never mentions them anymore and if I ask, she just says they are silly now - although she did say she didn't have any friends in reception but the teacher said she did and was very kind. But the interests she has, the others say are babyish. For example, she is obsessed with paw patrol and says some of the others tell her it is only for babies.

I don't feel she has any SEN issues, I have a child that does and she is so different - I just feel that she belongs in the year below. Can I insist on her repeating year 1 and would there be any social implications on her at this age if the school let me? Or would it be better for her to go back into reception now? I am considering moving her school if it would mean she could repeat the year despite having other children at the school.

It's not all August born kids, it's just the ones who need it.

Not always true steppemum. My niece repeated year. 5. She was prem and July born, should have been September. SIL has been trying to keep her back a year since reception and panicked when she got to year 6 last September as DN was no where near ready for secondary school. She moved schools last January (they moved house) and finally someone listened to her - the new head put DN in year 5 after meeting her and agreeing with SIL. She is now in year 6 and so much happier. Secondary school do not have a problem with her starting year 7 in September.

Don't do this unless you are absolutely, inarguably, 100% sure that you can have her in the year below in secondary. Missing either Year 6 or Year 7 would be an academic, emotional and social disaster.

I'm Chair of Governors at a secondary school. We would admit out of the normal year group if it was continuing as primary school - in fact we agreed to do that just last week at an admissions meeting for September

I think its difficult to tell if she has any social communication issues. My dd was in school early and found it hard emotionally. She still did the playing alongside other children but not with them [parallel play] It could be that your dd is still at that stage and find it preferable not to interact with other children atm. I would go and speak to the teacher about your concerns.

I am surprised people think secondary schools would have a problem with this. Surely they take their lead from the primary school and their intake is based on the number of children in that year at the time. Why on earth would they insist a child goes into year 8 straight from primary school just based on their DOB. There could be many reasons a child gets held back a year - illness, accident, SEN, etc.

Ds is August 26th so started in Reception a few days after he turned 4. He is now in Y2 and a very long way behind his peers in his literacy, not helped by glue ear. He is at private school so we could repeat a year if we felt it best and it has been discussed, but his maths, sports and friendships are on track. He has only just started ORT stage 5 whilst his friends are now all on 'chapter books'. I wish I had insisted he retook reception as it will be much harder to explain to him in the event, the older her gets.

If all august kids are held down a year, doesn't July born just become the new august and so on?

I get what you're saying, but I don't think all August-born kids would be held back. There are lots of summer born children who are more than ready for school at 4, both academically and socially - it certainly isn't a given that they're "behind" their older classmates. For some kids, there would be no benefit in holding them back. Other kids, however, are quite "young" for their age and would benefit from starting later. It makes sense to be flexible and let the parents decide what is right for their child.

OP, from what you've said about your dd, it does sound like she is really struggling. If you can let her repeat the year in a different school, why not?!

Your poor dd.

Mine is an October birthday and was nearly 5 when she started school. She was reading within a couple of weeks.

I am sure they all level out eventually but if you can push for a repeat year I would do it.

It's simply the way things go - unless your DD has additional needs which are yet to be discovered. My DD started reception 4th September having turned 4 on 27th August. I'm honestly not bragging here but she is excelling at school now, in year 3. After struggling for a while and not working to her full potential she is now 'top of the class' (not actually
Number one in her class just up there because her teacher wouldn't use that to describe any of the kids)
I wouldn't call her 'gifted and talented' like a lot of parents (whom sometime I think are simply delusional) it just took a while and some hard work to her her full abilities working. Reception isn't the year to be making judgments on a child's progress in my experience

Agree brokenbiscuit. I would have been able to hold both of mine back but wouldn't have taken the school up on it, because they were (just about) ready. And i'm sure there would be others who also felt the same way.
I do think its a really good thing that parents get to decide (as part of a process) whether their child is enters school a bit later. What's the point of pushing a 4/5 year old to e.g. read if they aren't ready? It could be 10 years before they do any significant exams, if they are confident in their ability and have learnt at the right pace for them, they could/should do much better ..

I'm not sure you know. DS was in this position last year (summer birthday). Couldn't write his name, draw anything representative, got nowhere with reading. He's now in yr 1 like your dd but in in the second half of last term has suddenly just 'got' things. He's flying with the reading and writing - literally he went from bottom to top groups in the space of four weeks! His spellings list for last term had words like 'I' and 'cat', this term it's 'chef' and 'christmas'!!!! And he is playing with other kids much more. Still not top of the party invites list, but getting better. Not to boast, just to indicate that sometimes when the problem is maturity (which it really was for him), they can make astounding progress extremely quickly. At the beginning of the year I was really wishing we'd pushed for him to start reception late (he was very premature and went over a school year, so we had a good case). Now I think he'll be just fine.

In my LA secondary schools won't take a child out of their year group into year 7.

We had a child who stayed down a year and she went off to secondary at the end of Year 5.

The problem secondary schools have had in the past is that if they have a child taking GCSEs a year late it messes up their statistics - they would have to show her as achieving zero GCSEs at age 16, which is or was the only age group counted for stats purposes, and when she in fact achieves them at age 17 they wouldn't be taken into account at all. However, it may be that that situation has changed and no doubt someone will tell us if it has.

Thanking everyone for their responses. Just making a decision on what to do next. I really feel and have felt since my child was 3, that strongly, she was in the wrong year group. And it annoys me that a 4 week timeframe can differentiate from him being average or below. On DD's parent's evening in October, the teacher did not even know that dd was born so late in the year so after reception, it's not taken into account like we would wish -

The LA I work in doesn't have any agreement in place for Summer born children to stay with their deferred year group. There's only one community secondary school, the others are all academies/free schools or voluntary aided faith schools. Some follow the LA admissions code but are consulting on changes for admission in 2017.
With the exception of summer born children who will now start in 2016 I don't think any of the schools in my LA allow for years to be repeated. They're very keen on children staying with their cohort.
The change has been put in place without the impact of it on the whole 11 years of compulsory education being considered. As mentioned above, the way schools recorded GCSE results will have to be reconsidered.

I'm in Scotland but my Ds was denied a deferred place at 4.5years old. He wasn't diagnosed with SEN at that point (ASD at age 9) but he didn't cope well with P1. We moved to a different council area and started him again in P1 at the beginning of the next school year. It was definitely the correct move for him. My Dd was also 4.5 when she started school, we didn't apply to defer her as she seemed more ready. Academically she's done brilliantly but socially she has always seemed to struggle. I would give it a go if I were you.

As a teacher, I think it is far better for them to repeat early in their school life, rather than spending their whole time playing catch up. Repeating in the first two years seems to have less impact socially than when they have strongly established friendship groups and there is more of a social stigma attached to it among peers.

My DS will be one of the youngest in his year, and socially he is quite immature so I need to make the decision for next year what to do. He is intellectually ready to learn, but will have a harder time socially because he is quite immature. I would not hesitate to have him repeat his Prep year (the equivalent of your reception year) if I felt it was necessary at the end of the year.

It sounds like it is much tougher to repeat over there than it is for us. I hope they are willing to listen to your concerns and not just try and push her through for the sake of their statistics.

they dont let you repeat a year in scotland but then we dont go to school until nearly 5 no reception year they are still babies then would have hated that

Would it be possible for your dd to spend afternoons in reception to see how she gets on and see if this is a better 'fit' for her?

they dont let you repeat a year in scotland but then we dont go to school until nearly 5 no reception year they are still babies then would have hated that

As my post 2 above yours, my son did repeat a year in Scotland and there was no problem doing so. The youngest children in Scotland aren't nearly 5, they're only 4.5 if they're a February birthday. They go straight into P1 from nursery and it can be too young for many of the Jan/Feb birthdays, even some of the Nov/Dec birthdays too.

My ds is born very late August two days before the cut off in fact. However he attended the school nursery first which helped him no end. Is their any breakfast clubs or after school clubs that can help her socialise.
I don't honestly think from what you've said that holding her back a year will help with her social needs that aspect needs to be looked at for sure.

We changed schools as we moved and my ds was a little behind in phonics in y1 what the school did was send him next door to reception to get up to scratch on his phonics. Is this something the school could accommodate? We have very small class sizes so I don't know if it's achievable in a bigger class size but always worth a ask!