Summer born babies - am I wrong?

[Sunflowermuma]

Hi all, I'm probably BU particularly as my friends plans don't actually have any impact on me but

I have 2DD D1 is 3 and May Born. DD2 is 6m July Born

My friend has 3 kids. DS aged 7Sept, DD 3Aug and DS 5mAug

Our two daughters are both due to start school in September at different schools, my friend told me this week how she is in contact with the school to have her daughter start Sept 2020 instead as she's summer born. I asked why as her daughter is already in nursery 5 days, has no health issues and certainly isn't behind on development. Her reasoning? She just doesn't want a child to be youngest in the year.

Her son is very bright and doing really well at school and she puts that down to his sept birthday.

I queried her and said someone has to be the youngest and surely if she doesn't have any developmental issues the school will just say no. She replied saying that she'll make something up as she'll do what she can to get her DD ahead. Again this made no sense to me as surely having another year at nursery won't be good for her and she may get picked on once the other kids realise? She got a bit snappy with me and told me to mind my own so I now feel bad for questioning her, I was polite and tbh just trying to understand her thinking

Do people really do this? I understand delaying for developmental reasons but just to make your child the oldest instead of youngest?

Thanks @sunshine6

@newmumwithquestions bloody brexit taking over EVERYTHING

i wished i had for my now 10 yr old. Was 8 weeks prem and came along on the 29th August!
He has struggled but is starting to get there now - it has been hard work and not helped that he is the tallest in his year aswell.

Some are ready and some just need some more playtime

@newmumwithquestions that is frustrating. I'm glad it's supposed to be debated, but I hope it's not going to be lost in the Brexit debacle. Having checked my LA website, apparently deferring is only possible under exceptional circumstances which you need lots of paperwork for at the moment. And even if deferred it wouldn't be a permanent deferral so they'd have to miss a year at some point.

@ReaganSomerset as your name suggests are you indeed in Somerset?

Depending on your LA you can automatically gain approval for deferred entry to Reception for your Summer born child. However, some LAs resist this and only grant it with proof of SEND. Because it is the decision of the LA they are able to make this choice. Some LAs will grant deferment but will expect the child to start in Y1 with their cohort instead. Parents should check their LA policy.

In addition, although it is in the gift of the LA to approve deferment to start formal education, if you are intending to send your child to an academy you need to check that they will honour the LA's decision.

If your child is granted deferred entry to education, you need to reapply to continue this arrangement when you would normally apply for secondary school - ie, when they started Y5 a year behind their cohort. You should also check that the secondary school is willing to accept the decision.

Although popular in recent years, there is growing evidence to show that when children become aware they are educated outside their normal age group, it can have a detrimental effect on their self esteem and we have recently received requests from parents to schools in our Trust to ask that children move up to their age group class. Our LA grants deferred entry to all applicants of summer born children. Typical around the age of 8 or 9 the requests start from parents to reverse decisions - Not in all cases but in some.

Firesuit - read the Advice for Summerborns published by the Dept for Education.
You do not have an automatic right to demand a Reception start a year later but if your child is born April - August you have a right to ask and the school has to explain why it would be better for that child to skip Reception altogether. It's pretty hard to say your child can skip a whole year but we'll fine you if you take them on holiday for a week during term time.

Children who are moved to a different age group CAN be moved later in life but agsin, the school would have to prove it would be in their best interests to skip a year of the national curriculum.

On Lawyers - they do not and cannot help unless your appeal goes to an LGO hearing. Even then most parents represent themselves throughout the process.

It's for rich parents??? 15/30 hours free funding still applies until the term they turn 5 - so for their "extra" year in nursery ot costs no more than being at a preschool.

Grammar schools and secondary schools around us said they couldn't see a situation where skipping a year would be advisable so would not do it. On the 11+ they lose the weighting that they would have had in their normal age group (summerborns have to achieve a lower pass mark)

No school or area of the country can say "we don't allow delayed start" that is illegal. It is however a postcode lottery. Some areas fully support all requests, some turn down almost all of them. Parents prepared to take on a year or so battle in the hardest areas won recently.

It's Advice abd an option. No-one is saying all 4 year olds should delay a year but it's an option for parents that feel their xhild needs the extra time to prepare for school.

I have two summerborns and am a summerborn and so is my DP. Did me no harm, was a pretty rubbish experience all round for DP and for my kids delaying for a year to start reception when they are 5 and not 4 is absolutely the right choice. For my friends with summerborns it isn't.

Can you do this in Wales? We start them in nursery at 3 that are in a school environment. DS2 is August 27th and I’m already loosing sleep about him being expected to do full days in reception in September. He won’t cope with it, he needs another 6months at least in nursery I feel

@ginpink No, Reagan is character from a book I read recently

🍷

If you know, you know. 👋🏻😂

@Firesuit

No secret process, but some LAs are showing misleading info on their websites, which they need to be picked up on.

The admissions code changed in 2014 to allow requests to delay their start in reception, with being summer born as a reason in itself - this is the code (see page 25) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389388/School_Admissions_Code_2014_-_19_Dec.pdf

It is only a request, but to say no they have to give reasons why it would be isn’t he child’s best interests to skip reception completely and start in year 1 (it is parental only decision whether to start at 4 or 5 in the first place)

I’m doing this with my 28th Aug born son and it is definitely the right thing for him. It’s not about him being the youngest, but that is is too young to start school. I just wish they would get on with it and make it simpler for parents.

It is a personal choice. My girls (both end of August) would have been bored beyond belief if they’d had to wait another year to start formal schooling. They’ve always been the youngest or near youngest through school and university. They were always at the top of the academic range and very competent socially. The younger was significantly physically smaller but that was never an issue. She’s significantly smaller than average still, aged 20.

Can I just ask those that are deferring summer borns what they intend to do when dc get to the point of secondary transfer? Presumably those that are deferring don't live in grammar school areas? Not sure how this is supposed to work.

I don’t believe....I teach and believe quite strongly that deferring for a year is absolutely in the best interests of some children. Not always because of their age/gender, but there's a definite pattern for some summer-born-boys that's almost become a cliche.

Oh no, I had decided not to defer, and now I worry I’m making a mistake! I think I will have a chat with the nursery about his progress. I would sooner decide a bit nearer the time, as I’m sure his speech and language will improve a lot in the next 6 months

I believe you just apply again in the same way, for an out of year admission. In theory a school could say they want your child to skip a year and move back to the cohort they should be in, but they would have to prove it was in your child’s best interest and when they now constantly bang on about ‘Every day Matters’ how could they possibly justify a child skipping a whole year? I intend on my son staying with his adopted cohort all the way through school and not skipping a year at all. He started reception this September gone after turning 5 in June and the school backed us 100% agreeing that he was just too young and not ready to start the previous year, no SEN or medical grounds and our feeder schools will hopefully do the same. I believe Grammar schools are now getting on board with this so it doesn’t hinder going to a Grammar either.

Ok, thanks, that's helpful. We are in Kent and I was under the impression, when I spoke to the LA, that under no circumstances would our dd be able to sit the eleven plus exam out of cohort. She could possibly transfer to secondary modern out of cohort, although there were no guarantees that she wouldn't have to go straight into year 8 or miss year 6. I was told that it would be down to the school at the time of applying.

@stuffedpeppers we are in a very similar situation to you, we figure we will assess where DD is when she is due to start school and go from there. Fortunately we have a few family members and friends who are primary teachers so will be asking their opinions specifically with regards to dd

m.facebook.com/groups/121613774658942?ref=share
This group has loads of really useful info on the subject and has people that can answer these questions. I have seen posts saying that they can do the 11plus out of cohort so it is possible.

I also really doubt any school would want a child to skip a year as they are all about hitting targets and high scores on exams so a child skipping a year would not be helpful to these at all.

Whilst it is understandable that a parent doesn't want their just turned 4yo to start school, I wonder what the end result of all this will be (years down the line)?
For it absolutely will be exploited by parents who want their child to be on top of their peers - academically, socially, in sport. Which they have more chance of achieving if they're older. It's also in the schools interest as they will get better results for the alleged year group.
Maybe the solution is to just not start school at rising 5, but at rising 6, and not allow any delays/deferrals (outside of sn).

Theressomethingaboutdairy
Kent here too, see my post above on grammars - they just lose summerborn weighting on the 11+ exam

Arethereanyleft

Startimg your child a year later doesn't help them become a genius it merely puts them on an even footing with September born children. But i agree with you on starting school later for all children. In Scandinavia where children start formal learning years later than here the academic resilts are much better.

Thanks for all of the advice here and for the facebook link. I can't see how children could be advantaged in sports, to be honest. Other than in school teams. My ds football team, for example, does not advertise for children in year 7, they have to be born between 1/9/06 and 31/8/07, as per FA rules. My ds plays with his friends, this could not happen if he was outside of his cohort at school, unless sports clubs will be forced to follow suit too? My only concern then though would be that you potentially have children in teams that are 16 months, rather than 12 months younger, so not sure how that could go ahead. Although, I am assuming that this problem will also be faced in the classroom environment.

Angela712 will children born say, in April, that have deferred have points deducted in the scaled score system or will they be treated as though they were born in September? Only because I was under the impression that the whole year group was 'evened up' through the eleven plus weighting system. So even November borns would have weighted points, although considerably less than an August born, for example.

An evenish footing with September born children, but potentially 15 months older than the youngest in the class, so actually worse than the historical 12 month potential.

If deferrals/delays weren't allowed, the maximum disparity is 12 months, if they are allowed the disparity increases to 15 months. So that's more unfair isn't it?

And what then, parents of children born in March campaigning as they're a year younger than their class? Then February.