Postponing school start date for child who isn’t school ready

[rockstarjuice]

(Not summer born) AIBU to do this and how do I go about it? Really not ready for school at all: have been trying to convince myself they are but they really aren’t.

@rockstarjuice this sounds so stressful and I hope you find a solution soon.

I’m halfway through the thread and a FTM to a nearly 2 year old so this might be completely normal, but something that jumped out to me was that your DS poos 3 times a day?

I was always under the impression it reduced to roughly once a day around 12 months, so wondering if there is something medical going on and your GP might be able to help?

Again, sorry if this is rude and it’s totally not meant to be!

To answer the question you actually asked, which was about sending your son to school later: if you want to keep his place at the school he has been allocated, you have the right to defer his start until he reaches "Compulsory School Age" or the start of summer term, whichever is earlier. So for your boy that would be January 2025. You do not need anyone's permission to do this. It's in the School Admissions Code.

However, you can send your child later than that. You can start him at whatever age you feel he is ready. I know that the idea of home educating seems a big one, but if you think about it, the distinction between sending him to school the moment he reaches CSA and sending him a little later is fairly academic. Sure, your legal obligation to educate him begins when he reaches CSA, but no doubt you're already educating him now, as any good parent would. His educational needs won't suddenly transform in January. He can still learn from talking to you, playing, reading with you, helping to count out the forks at dinnertime, In practice there is little difference between sending your little one to school in January 2025 or April or the following autumn.

The most important reason it matters whether you send your son later than January is the risk of him losing the place he's been offered. If your preferred school tends to be oversubscribed and you strongly dislike all the other local schools, you have a real dilemma. The school has no discretion to keep his place waiting for him beyond January 2025; if another child turns up who wants the vacant place then they must give it to that child. And if the consequence is that the school has reached capacity, when you later want to send your son to school, he'd have to go elsewhere or continue in home education.

So your child clearly didn't/doesn't go to nursery and then school with children with disabilities?

How do you know if he has SEN it's borderline?

I know a lot of adults and children with ADHD.

Those who were diagnosed as adults aren't borderline.

They just spent years feeling like shit and failures which subsequently left most of them with other mental health issues.

A friend was in your situation, OP. She's also a teacher! She ended up home educating her DS for the first few months, then a bit longer...then a bit longer...he's just in the middle of his GCSE's now!

They live in a very vibrant home ed-friendly city, with lots of opportunities and things going on for home ed kids.

I'm always astonished at how early kids go to school in the UK (Norwegian here). It's hardly surprising that some kids aren't ready, for whatever reason.

I wouldn't defer (even if it was possible, and I'm not sure it would be). I'm a SENDCO in a secondary setting and tbh you need your kid to be IN school for things to be noticed and picked up so they can be assessed. FWIW my daughters have both gone through primary with kids in their classes who wore nappies. My youngest is in year 3 and has two kids in her class in them, both with additional needs that have been diagnosed since they started school. I know that you're scared of being judged @rockstarjuice but I really don't think you will be.. as a SENDCO I definitely wouldn't and consider a big part of my job to be about helping parents and treating them with the same compassion that I do my students.

I assume that your son has been allocated a school place; please phone and ask for an appointment with the SENDCO and have a discussion. I think you'll find that it's not the conversation that you've been envisioning and that there will be experience there to draw on and they'll be able to make a plan that works for you and your son.

Good luck, it's not easy I know, but it's clear that you care deeply about your son and doing the best for him. The school will realise that, I promise.

@rockstarjuice Children in the class are oblivious. They might not be when they get older, but in Reception it really isn't an issue - most children have an accident at some point, some more than others.

So your child clearly didn't/doesn't go to nursery and then school with children with disabilities?

@Reugny why do you assume my child? I didn't mention anything about my child.
I know there are children with ASN who wear pull ups or nappies, that doesn't mean other children don't comment on it and aren't unkind about it. I'm an early years practitioner.

Was your child ready for preschool? Managed well in preschool? So he/she is ready for school.

The first 3 years is infants school and no serious education is really happening.

I bet you imagine it as a full blast school as they will have from year 3 or 4. With many hours sitting by the table. Because it is like that in many countries and that is why the school starts from the age of 6 or 7.

However, in UK Reception is only tiny bit more advanced than preschool. Most of the time it is playing, a lot of sitting on the carpet, learning first letters, etc

@Gretai
I'm always astonished at how early kids go to school in the UK (Norwegian here). It's hardly surprising that some kids aren't ready, for whatever reason.

This is because you make typical foreigners assume that from the Reception in UK start the same education as in year 0 in your country. But I am afraid you are basing your understanding of the educational system on your Norwegian experience. Don't be mistaken by the fact that they go to school and wear uniforms, Reception year which is year zero in the UK is not much different from the middle year of preschool in Norway. There is hardly any serious education happening. This is not the education they have at the age of 6-7 on the continent.

Reception is certainly not mostly play.
It is (at dc school anyway) nothing like nursery

Obviously attendance every day 9-3.30
More carpet time
Learning phonics
Writing (to be able to wrote in wpsentences by year end)
Maths (yes only to 5-20 etc but they actually did a lot more
Reading (books from oct half term - 2/week every week)
Pe from january twice a week
Outside play only sometimes
Directed to play with limited selection of toys and sometimes to rotate through tasks

My eldest spent a lot of reception sent out of the room either to parallel class (to sit on the floor) or the area outside class. Sometimes there were 4 kids+ sat in parallel class. All youngest in the year. Also there when there is free play with 2 classes it was chaotic.

I don’t think I’d defer in your circumstances, for a couple of reasons, first how easy would it be for you to get another job when you are ready to go back? Would yo go back if the issue isn’t resolve or would you home educate long term? You’d have to know what the long term plan is.

Second, there is no guarantee that the issue is going to be
fixed in January so if he had to start school then, would there be a place for him, or might you end up with a ridiculous commute to a far away school? If there is a place there’s now an extra barrier there as he could still have continence issues and he would be new into an established group.

It seems like maybe there’s a medical issue, even if there is not an SEN issue, but you’re already working with the health visitor and GP, and there’s nothing else that you can be expected to do there.

Do you think the primary school would be judgy about a medical issue? I get them being a bit judgemental about parents who haven’t bothered but that’s not the case for you.

I’d hope you’d get a very different reaction if you speak to them in advance about the problem and make it clear its medical you taking advice etc. maybe even get a doctors letter, rather than just send him in on day one with a pull up and expect them to handle it.

Nursery teacher and Sendco here. I'm so sorry you are having the stress and worry of this situation.

On a practical level check now with your preschool if they have space for him to stay for the autumn term, you can continue to receive funding until January but the preschool has to agree.

Has preschool referred to the local authority inclusion officer/adviser? If they have they in turn can refer to a specialist continence nurse who will be way better equipped to support than a HV. There are things that aids and medications that can help and 7 months until January gives you time to access them and a good shot at the situation being improved.

Yes that's right let's shame a kid for bring delayed that will teach them🙄

What on earth makes a complete stranger TELL someone what they're basing they POV on?

You are - in fact - completely wrong and your reply is both somewhat socially inept and arrogant. Do you talk to people like this in real life? "Typical foreigners assume..."

I have worked within both early years educational settings and I have lived and worked in the UK for decades. I know what I'm talking about. I simply commented on my years-old astonishment that UK children go into a school setting at such a young age.

I misspelled, it should be: a typical assumption made by foreginers used to other educational systems.

In Norway 3-5 years old kids are in preschool- correct? Imagine a scenario that pre- school merges with the school but still stays as it was... a pre- school. The only difference is that they wear uniforms and are in the school building. Would they be still too young? Not really.
And this is what it is. If they really started at the age of 4-5 education as 6-7 years old kids in Norway the kids in UK would always be 2 years ahead of their peers on the continent. But they are not. Because Reception year and year 1 are not very different to what in Norway is called pre-school. How do I know? Well, because I was raised on the continent and have lived here since '96.

Please don't take it so personally as it is not intended as an offence.

Saying to someone that their POV is "typical foreigners assumption" (or thereabouts) is offensive and reductive. Your comment TOLD me what I was basing my view on: you were wrong.

I have no idea why you're spelling out the twin educational models for me (unless...'foreigner'), as I mentioned, I'm fairly familiar with them🙄

I don't think we have anything to exchange views on from this point, and I don't want to derail the OP's thread, so I will wish you a pleasant afternoon.

OP, sorry no advice about deferring but if it's any reassurance I've been potty training my DC since last Easter and they've just finally got it, 13-14 months later! Up until a month ago it was multiple daily accidents (both varieties) but recently something just clicked. Still have a few wee accidents a week but seems to be reducing. So fingers crossed your DC will get it soon too🤞
ps I get so cross when people imply it's anything parents are doing wrong - for me, DC1 got it in 3 days, DC2 took well over a year 🤷‍♀️

Not sure why you find it offensive as I don't intend to say that people in Europe are worse at anything. Not at all. It is very common ( meaning typical) for people from the continent to think that it is too early for the school. This is because they think about school as hours by the class tables and learning only. Whereas it is just as the older years of preschool on the continent: learning letters and numbers while playing utmost. Mostly playing and playing

No need for using capital letter and drama.

How old was dc 2 when started

Many start To early and child isn't ready /doesn't have the hormone

So literally can't be pt

"Hormone" sounds like a load of rubbish. The age when children start using the toilet varies dramatically cross-culturally, which strongly suggests that it's primarily about habit, rather than being a set-in-stone physiological thing like the eruption of teeth.

I started holding my kids over the potty/toilet several times a day from when they were babies - not because I thought of it as "training," but because I thought of it as "practice/habit." So that the idea of sometimes peeing/pooing in something other than a nappy was something that was normal from the start, rather than being this massive change for older, stubborn toddlers to resist and throw tantrums about it. As time went on, they started using the potty more often, then indicating they wanted to go, then we ditched nappies at home, then outside the house around the second birthday. It was a nice low-conflict way of doing it. And it meant we avoided shitty nappies from early on, which really does make things more pleasant.

Some of my friends who did not do this, wound up with kids who would "hold" their pee/poo until a nappy was put on them, because they basically had no experience of "going" anywhere else and thought of their pants as a toilet. It was a real struggle that went on for a long time. Not all my friends who waited had this issue, but quite a lot did, and there was no way to predict which kids would be the ones who had issues transitioning.

I started early because I've travelled in many parts of the world where children start toileting independently quite early by our standards, and noticed that caregivers do this "practice/habit" thing from quite early on.

@user1477391263 hormone is relevant for nighttime dryness. A hormone that suppresses production of wee whilst sleeping is required, this hormone isn’t always produced for some children until they are slightly older

Hi OP, sorry not read the whole thread but just skimmed your posts.

just to say my son is back a year at primary (small village school). But we made the mistake of not doing this until he got into school and then we realised quite how far behind he was. He therefore has been “moved back” - that’s his perception, we don’t say that. It would have been better if he’d started school with the right cohort as it would have been less socially disruptive.

Our village primary teacher actually came to our house to meet him because we couldn’t go to the induction day and said he would be better waiting a year. But by then it was too late. That was in the summer but admissions and plans had already happened (I think in the January, from memory), so we went ahead with going to primary school.

I wouldn’t focus too much on the toilet training but it may be an indicator that he is behind in other areas. And what struck me about your posts is that as a mother you know something isn’t right, you just don’t know what.

having been in your position I can say you will never be too informed. You have an important decision to make. Gather your information. Start thinking about all the other areas of development. Talk to people: SENCO , primary school, HV, GP. SENDIASS Check out your local offer. You never know if you’re in a village the reception teacher might come to observe him. It is part of transition if children have been identified as potentially having issues.

is he at nursery/preschool? Have you spoken to their SENCO? Can they give you an indication of his development for his age? Most nurseries do (or maybe even have to?) make assessments. Some more light touch than others. It is just helpful to have the opinion of someone who has 20 others the same age in the same room. I would go online and look at the ASQ (?) questionnaire and the connors (for adhd). They are made age specific especially the ASQ is carefully split for different age ranges. My health visitor provided these to me about once per year from 2-5 years.

Not at all because he may have these SEN. I’m not saying that and I personally think it’s far too early to tell for most children. However the individual questions are about particular abilities which may give you an indication of if he is ready for school in other ways e.g. listening, sitting, social interaction.

Finally, try to remember This could all be nothing and only a very small proportion of children are really not ready for school. Good luck.