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.

In my sons school classes are split into two. The younger Y1s are grouped with the older reception and the younger reception with older nursery. This continues throughout the school. That being said my son is a July baby and excelled on his SATs results. Maybe by the school opting to do it this its helped bridge the gap in ability. I wonder OP judging more on social skills if your DD could he assessed for SN. She might have a form Austism or Aspergors.

Personally, I would say yes, hold her back if you can. My DD is August born and very similar to yours. She is now 10 and in year 6, the year she takes SATS. The school, which is a middle school is now saying they will keep her back a year if she does not perform well enough in them.

She would not have minded at 5, but at 10/11, it will destroy her.

If you are able to then for all the reasons you have described then I would.

Because we changed systems (Dutch to English) DD1 went from being the youngest in the year to the oldest (different year cut off). As the youngest in the year she was 'slow', 'immature', 'struggling'. As the oldest in the year she was 'mature', 'responsible', 'top of the class'.

We also saw a girl from DD1's class held back a year (Dutch system where it is normal) in year 3. It was the making of her. In her birth year she was much as you describe your DD, smaller, far less grown up. In her new year she fitted in perfectly.

Both me and my db are August babies. Him the beginning. Me nearer the end.

I struggled socially- always did. Friends were mentally that little bit more mature. Did better when one year they mixed the classes so that the older of year 6 were in one class and the younger of year 6 and older of year 5 were in another and then the younger of year 5 was in a class.

Db-struggled academically and socially. Parents were told it could be down to any number of reasons. But he caught up well by ks2. He had a little bit of 1:1 intervention which was organised through chats with DM and school.

sorry dotdot .but our council dont let you repeat unfortuneatly falkirk council maybe other areas different but then our school policy,s are rubbish .my son autistic and they still said no

Our DD is a very late August and is with her cohort in Year2. She wasn't even reading phonics sounds the summer before Year1 but has picked up a lot since then and with lots of home encouragement is now middle of the class for reading. She was also slow to make friends and so I enrolled her in after school groups to widen her network. We are very lucky that she's in a very small class size (19 in Year1) which I think also helped.

I'd say investigate holding back so you know you've done everything. I knew DD was coping if a little slower to learn some skills (and that she'd be bored as the oldest in reception) so we were fine to simply support her in Year1. She totally holds her own in Year2

I would agree with others about trying to find out what happens at secondary.

I would however still proceed with great caution. My local authority will not have any secondary schools within the next three years (if all goes according to plan). They will all have become academies. As such there is little way of knowing what the policy will be.

I think you need to find out if you can do this at this point.

The applications for the class you would like your dd in have already been submitted. What if that class is full.

Also find out how it works at secondaries in your area. She could end up missing a year further down the line and end up with a year group she hardly knows.

I can understand your worry, and tbh I think children start school far too early here. You can see the huge difference between many of the just 4yos joining reception and those who are closer to 5.

However, I have taught in quite a few counties/London boroughs and every single one had a policy of not allowing repeating years even if the parents are desperate.

The only example I can think of was a child with quite server additional needs who did an extra half year in reception while she waited for a space in a specialist setting to open up for her. That was a bit of a battle fought by the ed psych and as a result ofsted graded the eyfs at the school R.I.

Hmm, hard to know.

My youngest is a July birthday and one of the youngest in the year. He also has HFA. In year one he mostly played alone at lunch and break. I know this from reading the ed psyche's report which described him as being unable to pick up other children's signals, always being on the outside of groups and not knowing how to break into them. (yes, I cried reading it!). He could only read individual words, and those with difficulty, sounding out even short words.

He is now in year 6. He's in the top (extension) stream for grammar and maths, and second set for literacy. He's got three really close friends who are the liveliest and most popular kids in class. He's friends with almost everyone, gets invited to more parties than my other children did and is generally functioning so well that if someone didn't tell you and you didn't start a conversation with him about cars, planes, or the causes of air crashes you wouldn't know he was autistic or one of the youngest in the year.

Children mature in fits and starts and some children don't catch up until juniors. This is especially true when it comes to social skills, and also, weirdly, reading, which can happen all of a sudden.

Teachers laughing? I would move her to a different school.

I went to school a year early because my mother couldn't cope with me I was ready to go. Had to get letters from GPs etc. to confirm I could go early. All was fine, until I went to the next school, where they refused to allow me to continue a year ahead and put me down a year.
I thought that my class seemed really young and the work very easy, and I just didn't quite fit in. Nobody had told me that I had gone a year early, or that I had been moved 'down' a class.
If you are going to do this, would it be possible to move her school, so she isn't conscious that her classmates have moved up and she hasn't?
It took me until I was in my 30s to appreciate that, due to the second school's decision, I have done a year extra school! Grrrrr!!

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

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

please, please take note of this.

I agree that she would have benefited from repeating reception, but at the moment it is not allowed for summer borns to enter the academic year below, and until it is, there is no provision for it at secondary level.

There is a lot of discussion on the education boards about the benefits of moving year groups, and one of the pivot points is always that it is not recognised at secondary.
Of course, your LEA may be different, there may be policies in place to allow for this, you may have a local secondary who will happily take this on, but unless you KNOW for SURE that she will be able to move up with her year group, please be very careful about keeping her back. Going from year 5 to year 7 is much more detrimental than staying where she is.

my daughter is a july child. she started nusery at 3 which is in the same building as the school. then at 4 she went into reception to the class next door. she now 5 and in year one. a few months ago she would sound out d-o-g and i would say whats the word and she would say stick. her teacher says its quite common. everything i ask her about her day she says i dont know. she has friends. she prefers to play with the boys. but i recon shes ok with friends because she went when she was 3 and moved up with the same children. academicly i do think shes a bit behinde. but she enjpys school and is happy thats the main thing.

Is there a big gap between your DD and the next youngest child? In my DS' class there is a bit of a bulge if summer burns (3 July birthdays and 4 August birthdays), which probably makes a big difference to the dynamics of the class. What's the spread of ages like in her potential new class? Fairly evenly distributed or a lot of children who are much younger than your DD?

I wish this was a more straightforward option. Both of mine are August birthdays one at the start of Aug and the other at the end. I think they both would have benefitted from either an extra year either in reception or Y1 just to get a firmer foundation in the basics, or deferring a year and starting YR just after their 5th birthday.

Sounds like it would do her good.

My dd2 is an end of July baby and although academically she was doing ok in reception, socially she was way behind. Because of the way the numbers worked out at school, 5 kids from reception were kept in that class rather than going up to year 1. I was a bit 'humph' about it at first because I was worried that she was being labelled as one of the less able kids but it was absolutely the right thing for her. She is doing year 1 work but there is less structure than in the main year 1 class, and she is really benefiting from being the oldest rather than the youngest. Her reading has come on amazingly well and she is really confident.

PerspicaciaTick has a point about class range.

One of my DD is days before cut off point. We were worried - she has a hard time in nursery till a girl with a birthday just other side of cut of date started. But she did really well at school - brilliant experienced reception teacher and she wasn't the youngest - there were a few younger and many round her date. She has needed extra academic support but there are other contributing factors to that.

DS was just counts as summer born - but despite going to school nursery struggled more. His class was oversize with much less experienced teacher and had more difficult range - lots of Autumn born many with quiet loud personalities, very small number in between and then lots of summer born especially boys who do to me seem to be more disadvantaged than many summer born girls. I think he was compared more to the older children - certainly played more with them but struggled more socially and academically. He made little progress in reception and he luckily had a great teachers in yr1 and 2 and with a lot of support at home spent most of yr 1 and start if yr 2 playing catch up. It helped it was two form entrance - so they mixed classes end yr1 which seemed to help DS socially.

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.
I would seriously look at changing schools if there is no additional support given for younger children in the year. If that's not an option I would move heaven and earth to hold her back a year.

It's completely normal in Ireland, all the way through school in fact or at least it was when I was growing up. You could be held back at any point bit of incentive to work hard and there was no issue about starting secondary school in your new year group.

I have a summer baby. She is noticeably "younger" than her peers but is coping. Just. She's exhausted though and we make an effort to ensure that after school and on weekends she has a chance to recover. We've been told by the school that they will be the first to tell us if they have concerns and we see clear evidence with TA's etc that younger children in the year are given more support. We've been told that by 7-8 the difference is negligible but it really does sound like you have a good case for it now.

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Sorry wrong thread - not sure how that happened .

My experience as an Aug child myself (26) and my daughter another August child (15) that was also a premmie.

I was babyish when I went to school - but I also remember it, it took me a while to settle but I recall by around year 2/3 things started to fall into place. I think the age exacerbates this BUT this is not uncommon for any age child.

DD was small for her age and struggles to make friends, still does a little and her confidence is low on this front even now and we have secondary coming up in Sept. It is concerning but also heartening to note that her bestie is going to a different school. I think we will have issues with this in the first week but it will be a testing time for her. But we gave her a choice - the schools are fairly equidistant from us and bus goes from the end of the road. However one is academically far better and has a sixth form, also better facilities and more modern - the other is behind the times, leadership isn't great, no sixth form and a bit of a rep locally at the moment. We went to see them and she chose the one we prefer, although we did not put pressure on to do that.

What I am trying to say is that children mature and change and learn at different rates - schools know this and there is room even in a class of thirty to allow for this. We have been lucky she is in a mixed year group (I deliberately chose a tiny school of 90 when she started) so in fact comes out as the middle age range not the youngest in the class. If they can cope with a 2 year span in a classroom they can cope with a child's educational needs at the bottom and top of the range in one year. The social side will come, your job is to build her self confidence - outside activities can help with this and can also help her to build her own friendships. I wouldn't make her repeat a year.

The law is changing but not yet is is very likely it will and then children will stay in the same cohort right through to to the end of year 13.
Op if you live in Liverpool you won't have a problem with your dd repeating a year.
If not please go and see your Mp.

I'm not generally a fan of delayed entry to Reception (IMO it just creates a situation where children can be 17 months younger than their peers, instead of 12 months) However, I do think we should allow children who are struggling at Reception level to fall back a year and repeat Reception. After all, that is exactly what Reception and EYFS is all about; preparation for formal learning. If by the end of it a child is not ready for formal learning, the year should be repeated.

If your specific situation I would probably look to change school (geography and attendance permitting) as it will have the added benefit of removing any stigma and of your DC getting bored as topic work is re-covered.

Hopefully this will make you feel better. DD1 Spring born told me every day a reception to Year 1 that she hadn't played with anyone that day. I went into the school and spoke to the teachers I was that concerned, I even went in and watched for myself. She was always playing with someone. Same when I asked her what she did att school "nothing" so don't read too much into that
DD2 youngest child in the year. Was behind during reception Year 1 etc, but now had very much caught up with everyone else. Yes I do wish I had had the option to hold her back a year too early on, becausse then I think she would be top of the class rather than middle, but my point is don't worry if she is behind now, she is bound to be, but she will catch up