To delay my son starting school and home schooling him?

[FakePlanet]

DS is due to start primary in September. He turns 4 in June so is young for year. We got the place we wanted but..I think i want to delay him starting until Sep 2024, so he will be 5, turning 6 during reception year.

Few things

He has been at a private pre school. They say they aren’t best placed to support his "needs"

Hasn't been diagnosed as still on list but now started private and the consultant says "no doubt on the spectrum" but did say he was confident he could go mainstream school.

He talks but like this "Bobby love mummy. Mummy Bobby best friend"

Reading feels miles away. We can't get through one book at bedtime without him trying to bite down on the pillows or throw toys or try to take his pyjamas off etc.

No concentration. Runs away a lot.

We have found a lovely school but the classes are near 30. The pre school tell me he can only really manage activities with 121 support or very small groups. I cannot imagine for a second him learning or be able to cope with 28 or so other kids in a room.

I just feel one more year would help. Pre school won't have him so would be me asking boss to have time/family/get a nanny a couple of days a week. I work full time and haven't spent as much time as I could focusing on development, getting him to stop hitting me etc felt more like a priority! But I could make progress in a year maybe

But am I setting him to stand out? He will the oldest by some months and he is quite big physically so will be much bigger than the small ones next year.

How common is it? Do people know of kids who do it successfully? Should I just stop worrying?

And the local authority told me to wait until he starts priamry to apply for an EHCP but starting to think that's the wrong advice.

Flumps advice is good and practical, but just FYI, making schools wait 6 months is an LA policy and is actually illegal. There is nothing in the EHCP process that requires a specific wait of that kind.

If I'd simply believed what my local authority said, and the school, we definitely wouldn't be getting an ECHNA...the powers that be mainly want to save money and push costs onto families instead. Sorry.

Have you ever had a child with additional needs?

It’s true that ‘delaying’ isn’t automatic. You need to get headteachers support, in my experience the LA is then a lesser hurdle. I’ve done this twice as moved school (and LA) and as soon as I had HT support, the requests (first to go into YR aged 5, then to stay in the cohort) were granted. For my son, staying another year at nursery was definitely the right choice but our situation is different in that he doesn’t have any developmental delays - he just wasn’t emotionally ready at the time. Good luck!

My sons autistic. He didn’t speak until he was five and was very toddler like when he started school. He was in a class of 32. We moved him to a private school with classes of 14 and he was able to blossom. He is absolutely fine dealing with school life now (he’s 10) but he’s exhausted at the end of the day and has ti be taken straight home which means I can not work unfortunately. Anyway that’s just ti explain that school can be really stressful if you’re Autistic , even if you’re high functioning and able to mask well.

if he’s autistic he will likely be emotionally much younger than other kids and I think delaying him a year would be something I’d definitely have considered in our case.

If you feel he has autistic traits, the diagnosis takes forever partly waiting lists etc and partly because they need to make sure he’s just delayed in some aspects of development as this isn’t linear. I’d get the ball rolling now if you think you need to.

The right to deferral is for any child born between April and August.

No, the right to request a deferral is there.
There is no right to defer in England. (Scotland is different)

Children legally don’t have to be in school until they are 5.

Schools cannot disallow a deferred start for a 4 year old if the child turns 4 between April and August.

The only thing a school can do is decide whether the 5 year old is placed into reception or Year 1 - and thankfully, most children go into Reception.

Yes, but it is only fair that people who don't know much about the system, who ask the internet for advice, are given the information about how things work.

No, the OP doesn't have to send her child to school until they turn 5 but people are trying to be sure that she understands that the LA don't have to hold open a Reception place for her child, and that they are perfectly within the law to offer any child who starts school a year late, a place in the "correct" year group for their age.
There are processes in place to request that your child defers, and starts Reception with children in the year below if you think that would be best for them, but there are a lot of parents who don't follow that process and are then left without a place at their local / desired school, because they assumed they could just apply as if their child were 4, when they are actually 5, and didn't realise that is the case.

Your childminder is confidently talking out of her arse.
I didn't homeschool but know entire families of now adult children who absolutely thrived on it having either never gone to school or been utterly miserable at it.

100% this. As a seasoned home educator (kids 17, 15, 12), the number of damaged neurodivergent kids broken by school that finally escape into home education that we know is astounding. Their mental health often flourishes once they are free, and people wish they had never sent them. Definitely explore the home education option. My kids are all neurodivergent and it has allowed them to flourish. Good luck with whatever you decide xxx

Hi OP just wondering what you ended up doing? It sounds like a difficult situation, hopefully you got some support from school in making a decision?

I’ve home educated all my children and they all have ASD. It’s been amazing for them . The school system didn’t suit my eldest at all so we deregistered and we’ve not looked back.

You can delay school start for summer borns can't you? I would in your situation do that, and then really push for diagnosis so you can get the support you require in school next year.

Your issue then is what you do in the mean time. I am not sure how you can home educate if you are working, but ref above I don't think you necessarily need to. I am not sure you can ask your boss for "time" to educate and look after your son, so assume you mean go part time? What will you do for childcare on the days you do work?

Be careful op as delayed a year often means they jump straight into year one and miss reception....they certainly do in my area as a friend found that out ...

Alternatively you could do PT for the full reception year if he’s under CSA for the year

This poll would be more meaningful if only people with kids with SEN voted - those not on this position aren’t best placed to comment.

I would give school a go. He will most likely get an EHCP within the state sector than in independent. State will garner some funding for a TA. Reception is a lot about learning to queue, follow instructions, share, listen, sit for short periods of time. Those are more valuable skills for your son than letters.

Before letters and sounds comes language. Aligned to that is movement and sensory processing. My advice as a SENCO and a SEND mum would be to throw all your resources on regular, good quality speech and language therapy and OT. The more you put in now, the fewer problems he will have later on. Emotional regulation depends so much on sensory feedback and language. Give him the skills for that and just don't bother with letters, etc. he can catch up on that later. I can absolutely understand your worries and often wished I could scoop up DS1 and go to a remote Scottish island and not be bothered by schooling. However, he is the man he is today because of us fighting for therapeutic support. I wish I had done that earlier.

What did you end up doing OP? In a similar situation

I home schooled my eldest two (summer born) children for a few years. It can work well if you are able to stay home and don’t need to work (or can do opposite shifts to partner), if you have a good support network including a home Ed group locally.

With a SEN child however, if you did want to get them in to school at some stage, you would need to make sure you had the EHCP done so support would be ready for when he did go. Your nursery may be able to help you. Otherwise you’ll need to get a referral to the Child development centre for advice and support.

The middle ground is to defer him a year as a summer born and keep him in a nursery for another year and see how he progresses. The nursery can probably give you advice on what they feel will help his progress most.

Zombie

Agree with this. The sooner he gets an EHCP the better. Good luck.