Has Anyone Regretted Deferring A Reception Place?

[cheshirecat777]

Just that really. Anyone deferred a reception place and later regretted it? Specifically where they deferered entry to the next years reception class and later regretted it? Not talking about deferring and then needing to enter yr1 nor about starting reception yr part time or later in the yr as in this case they are not as relevant

Its not essential for us but DC has late summer birthday and was slightly prem so would if born at term have been in the following yr.

It makes some sense to defer but I wonder do they catch up in juniors anyway and then get bored and so on. I think decisions to defer at reception are fairly straight forward but i am now thinking about the rest of the school career and whether deferral can perhaps hold children back. as they progress through school

I have posted on a similar subject eg peoples opinions on deferral in my circumstances recently so thanks to all that gave opinions now

This is a slightly different issue in that i am asking for any longer term experiences as children move through the school system.

ECBC - yes all my DC have been premature and i dont think on its own its always a reason to defer but in my youngest child's case its more that the prematurity effectively altered the school year she was born into

I wish I could have deferred my DS. We always hoped each year that he would catch up but it just seemed to become a bigger gap for him. He’s 15 now and left school and just seems so young, another year might have made all the difference.

This is an interesting thread.

DD1 is early August. I considered deferring her but DH was totally against it. They didn't support the idea in her school either. She'll be starting reception now in the September. Let's see how it goes.

My biggest concern is her speech delay. Otherwise she's doing great. She absolutely loves puzzles! So she can sit down for a task for quite a period of time.

Wish her luck!

MerinoCool so sorry to hear that. I thunk the law changed fairly recently to make deferral easier and its such a shame that so many missed out in previous years

grey13 hope your daughter does well sure she will .....for me even the difference between early and late aug is quite big when they are only just 4 and though the difference around prematurity is i am sure grown out of i think at just 4 it is still there.

I think it depends on what you’re classifying as premature, 37 weeks and over is classed as term. Your child’s circumstances sound very different to a child born at 26 weeks.

The best thing to do Is to speak to your child’s nursery they will be able to give you advice on whether they think your child is ready for school or not.

My 32 week adhd, dyslexic ex preemie plays a lot of sport and is bright. Being in the year below wouldn’t have been the right step.

@cheshirecat777

There isn’t going to be any difference between babies born a week or two apart

My friend deferred, then her 2 local
Primary schools wouldn’t give her child a place so she had to go to one she didn’t want. I would check with the school you want your DC to go to!

DC was 34 wks and I have other prem children including a 32 weeker and there was def a difference between the development of the 32 wk born one. I agree for me prematurity is not any concern of over 36/37 weeks and I dont think my child has an issues related to the prematurity other than them being v v young for the prescribed yr they should typically (ir if not deferred) enter into

we have spoken to nursery and we flagged the issue with them of deferral - they had not considered raising it with us. I think they gave us the typical advice of it may benefit her but is not entirely necessary. Which I agree with but its the ongoing issue of the deferral going forward and peoples experiences in these types of situations i was keen to hear of

I think others have clarified that the deferral-without-a-battle option is still fairly new; whenever I see threads like this there are people saying, oh make sure they won't have to go into senior school with their original year. That is something that will need to be properly sorted out and confirmed in a couple of years time so should be solidly established by the time anyone deferring a child now is facing senior school transition.

I can speak from the perspective of now having two teenagers, one October born (girl) and the other July (son). Admittedly my side of the family has had a lot of summer birthdays and are accustomed to children doing well being young in the year. My daughter was 2 weeks late and had she been a week or two early instead I would have tried very hard to get her into the year above - we went independent so it might have been possible. All her nursery friends were starting school. Through her school career there have been a couple of opportunities that she might not have managed had she been a year ahead; but equally she grew early and some aspects of senior school have dragged a bit, so I think overall it would have done her good to have started earlier. (except that it would have meant she would have been in the group who have just "missed out" on sitting their A level exams lol).

My son was also ready for school so we wouldn't have considered deferring. Mixed experiences in his first few years, which sort of settled with time. Then he grew early. When his voice was starting to change when he was only 11, were we ever glad he was young in his year not old! He continued being able to sing in his (serious) choir till 12.5 but only just, so finished two terms before he had to. We weren't to know when he was starting school that our children would be early maturers, but in retrospect were very lucky that the boy was the summer born one!

I think though that it is right to make the decision with the child you have in front of you at the time the decision needs to be made.

issue right from day 1 when the other kids told him his Thomas the Tank Engine lunch bag was babyish
My son is a late july baby- he is 23 now and this still stings. He was bullied very badly for his thomas rucksack-which he loved. what kind of world is 5 too old for Thomas?? he was in year 1- just turned 5. I feel he was forced to grow up so much more quickly than he was ready for.

He also happened to be in a very old year-most birthdays were september to december so he was a long, long way behind.

I think he would have benefitted so much from deferring entry but wasn't an option allowed at the time.

I agree with PP's-bet very few regret deferring but lots regret not...

You don’t often hear people worrying kids born in early September will be too old for their year and get bored / feel out of place. So I’m am not sure why people are so concerned about kids born a couple of weeks earlier in august having these issues. Your dc might only be a couple of days older than the oldest child in the ‘right’ cohort if you defer which is no difference at all.

DC1 was deferred when he started primary school. He’s August born, premature, was very socially and emotionally immature when he was coming up to normal school age, and was subsequently diagnosed with ASD.

Deferring was the right choice for him, he was completely unable to cope with the demands of Reception at just turned 4 - he still struggled with this at just turned 5, and had real problems getting started with reading, writing and so on.

The big problem came when we had to move to a new school in a new LA.

The new LA insisted that, as they hadn’t agreed to DS1 having a deferred Reception start, DS1 must be placed in his “correct” year group. They did say that individual head teachers could choose to put DS1 in with his adopted age cohort, but none of the heads at schools with places would agree to this because the LA hadn’t agreed.

So DS1 ended up jumping from midway through Y2 to midway through Y3. Clearly this was not ideal, but we still think the deferred start benefited DS1, as he was more able to deal with the move to Y3 (in terms of maturity etc) than he would have been able to deal with Reception at just turned 4 at his original school.

But given the skipping a year thing, I’m not sure I’d feel the same way now about the deferral having been beneficial if it had been a borderline decision on our part.

I have regretted every single day for the last 3 years not deferring my summer born boy. He wasn't ready for school, has been behind since day one, is small for his age etc. I just know he would be so much happier and doing so much better had we been deferred.

We were pressured into not differing, lots of promises about how he would be fine and catch up etc. But he hasn't and I now think we have condemned in to a school life of being behind rather than being fine.

DD starts Reception in Sept just after 5th birthday (she too was pushed into 'wrong' year due to prematurity).
Absolutely cannot imagine her having been OK with it emotionally this time last year - even if we have an issue with high school (although many other deferrals will have been through it by then so I would hope not) I would rather she have an enjoyable, confident start to primary.

I deferred my boy he starts reception this September aged 5. I am extremely happy with my decision.

I have the opposite - a September DD who would have been in the year above if she'd arrived on time. She's noticeably more mature than her friends and stands out in a way that she probably wouldn't in the year above. I think she'd also be a bit less bored in the year above. Academically she would be absolutely fine in the year above, but she may do marginally better in her current year group when she gets to GCSEs. I probably would have started her at school a year early if it had been possible. She was very clearly school ready at nearly 4, more so than many who did start school when she had to stay at nursery. But I think all of that was really obvious at the time, so if your DS doesn't seem completely school ready and would still be with children who are developmentally like him at nursery then I would defer his place.

I kind of wish I could defer DS. He's not emotionally or socially ready for school. But he's January born so it's not possible.

We've deferred DC1 but not DC2 (21 August and 2 August respectively).

They're so very different but this feels right for each of them.

I only hope they agree when we look back in 20 years

A really interesting range of responses here. I might have missed one, but most people seem to be saying
a) glad we deferred
b) glad we didn't

but no one saying c) we did defer and we regret it (except one where the system made the child skip a year, not because the child was unhappy in that year).

Wonder if that means most kids seem to adapt to the year they're in...?