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 I think you’ve been very brave. It’s sucks to come ask about a specific issue and for people to focus on “fixing” the wrong bit of the problem.

I would ask what do you think will be different in January? Or is there a high possibility that you’ll be in the same place with even less time? In which case should your LO just go in September?

I think it's naive to think children won't tease others for being in pull ups, especially considering most are told things like 'nappies are for babies' 'pants are for big boys' etc during their own toilet training journeys.

OP has already mentioned it's a smaller village school, so that's even more heightened.

This is just a hands down, nasty as fuck post.

Do you feel good about yourself making others feel like this?

OP has not given any of the information needed for you to even come to half this conclusion. So take yourself out and have a word with yourself in how you treat other people who are asking for help. God forbid you might ever need it.

It isn’t that she wasn’t getting it. It’s that you weren’t doing it properly.

Also I’ve trained two children with Oh Crap, neither of them have ever had juice, and still only drink water now.

Look OP, I worked in primary at the time (I now work in high school) the staff in primary are generally much more understanding of these sort of issues (sorry they are as they are used to dealing with small children). They probably won't bat an eyelid.

As regards delaying starting school, you could ask for him to start in January. It is your league right, but some schools can be a bit funny about it and will push back to have them start in the September. I only know of one mum who managed to get her child to do half days for the first term and school accepted it because they had to but they did make it clear they weren't happy.

You can't just talk to the HV once about it you need concentrated intervention. A GP visit is a good idea to rule out any medical issues, while DS had no issues with wee, Poo was a problem with him due to medication and allergies which took me a while to work out. Constipation is a problem one of my friends kids had and it doesn't present how you think in young kids either.

If you have a school in mind - maybe you could ask for a meeting with the head or send to chat about things. Maybe they could advise if it would be better to wait or to just get on with it. Our teachers are already having these sorts of meetings.

You won’t even get your child proper help, of course it’s true.

You aren’t shielding your child, you’re neglecting him.

Do I need to spell it out? You literally no information on what OP has done with her son and what the year of potty training has entailed. Yet you feel somehow justified in smacking down these cruel (unjustified) judgements based on whatever information you 'think you know'?

Please enlighten all of the other posters here of what OP has specifically done wrong based on what she has written. I'm all ears.

I potty trained my twins, simultaneously, at 2yrs old with Oh Crap, so you can forget it if you think this is coming from a place of defensiveness.

My Mum volunteers in a reception class and when one little lad poohed his pants recently the teacher was in the toilet cubicle helping clear him up. One of the governors was observing the class and had to muck in, they couldn’t find spare pants or trousers to fit and the school secretary was in there too.

She was having to phone his parents to let them know and asked them to bring in clean trousers. They had to call a TA from another class to actually teach the rest of the class.

It took 3 members of staff 25 minutes to clean him up and another TA to stand-in and watch the class. She said the teacher was at breaking point and on the verge of tears.

If he’s not ready, you can’t send him OP.

I don’t know if he’s delayed or not. No one had said anything so I have to assume not. It is all very strange.

I'm surprised you don't have any idea yourself whether he has any delay or not? You're relying on third parties to tell you if your own child has some concerning or delayed traits?

You're being remarkably defensive about your attitude and passive about him - don't know whether whether there are any learning difficulties or a physical disability going on, not bothering asking for further referrals because they'll take too long, not discussing his needs with the school because they'll judge you.

That’s ridiculous. Children commonly have accidents in reception and you’d expect them to have a stock of spare clothes, and in any case I’m sure OP will send some.
he may have a medical/neuro/developmental reason for this and shouldn’t be denied education because of that.

my dd had accidents in reception. I generally sent spare clothes but if ever it happened twice in one day or I hadn’t, they had ample at school. I also told the staff to please not worry about soiled pants and just chuck them away. Staff were unphased, or at least were kind enough to appear that way to me, I was apologetic of course.

thankfully she stopped doing it frequently but they still happened occasionally into year 1 and even 2. They carried on at home after that, she has ASD.

I think we’re being unfair.

@ForAPicnic has trained two children. Her knowledge is clearly extensive.

@titchy lef me rephrase then. At the moment I don’t believe he has additional needs and preschool have raised no concern. BUT as you probably know that in itself doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any. So I don’t want to blithely say he doesn’t have any either.

Realistically he can’t use wraparound care without being trained so we’ll have to consider other options anyway.

But he is your child. You're an educated person presumably capable of navigating services. Be pro-active. Someone posted a link to things children his age should be able to do - and you said he couldn't do any except put socks on. You could have checked his milestones yourself. Raised concerns. Asked GP about overflow diarrhoea and got medication.

Hi OP, Contact the school now and tell them that he either starts in January or he starts in September but with a very limited part time timetable because he is developmentally delayed and possibly has some emerging SEND.

See how he gets on and if he is still really behind in January ask the school to put an additional needs plan in place for him and apply for an EHCP if you think he is still very behind and needs one. You can do this yourself and don't need the schools permission for any of the above.

Realistically if he genuinely doesn't know he is weeing or pooing now, at 4.5, things won't be any different at Christmas unless YOU do something different.

You can accept a place and not send him until January - it’s only the term after they turn 5 that they are compulsory school age they have to go - if you still don’t want to send him in January you’d have to give up the school place and state that you are doing elective home education if you still didn’t want to send him. If you chose not to send him in January but then wanted to send him later you would have to reapply as an in year application for a place and hope that they still had a space as you would have given up your place.

I think late starting part way through the term can be quite hard on kids as they miss out on some introductory phonics (so are likely to feel noticeably behind the others) and probably more importantly are likely to be the only new kid at the point they join rather than joining when everyone is new.

What you can do (and we did) with a kid who wasn’t ready for full time school was to start him part time - it’s entirely your choice to send a kid part time up until they are compulsory school age (so January in your sons case) but you can continue this arrangement once they are compulsory school age if you and the head teacher are in agreement that it is in the child’s best interest to do so. At this point it would be called “flexi-schooling” which I’d recommend googling that term if it’s something you’d like to look into. Part time school can mean doing fewer days per week or shorter days.

Id suggest proactively asking for a meeting with the schools senco to discuss your concerns before doing anything as radical as handing in your notice. Then at least you’d know what the schools plan would be before you take a decision. Sencos should be happy to meet parents ahead of their kids starting school.

I’d also suggest asking the gp to refer for general developmental assessment if you think there is an understanding issue as well as a physical issue (the lists are very long but it’s better to be on the long list rather than still waiting to be on the long list) also even if you’ve not got any actual diagnosis being on a waiting list for diagnosis can help you access extra support from school etc.

Good luck for next year.

Indeed except sometimes you genuinely just hit a brick wall.

At some point he’ll presumably get it: he won’t be completing A levels in pull ups after all.

Can he not just go in pull ups? DS was hard work to train (now 10) he went from nothing to dry 24hours a day basically over night. Would he change his pull up if he had an accident or require staff to help?

yes, he’ll have a cheque in his hand too for the teacher to cancel

@titchy

tbh I don’t know any children his age who could manage a zip

a child who soils themselves and thus (sorry) gets shit everywhere is not going to be able to clean that up, it isn’t a plop into the toilet affair

so here we are

You don’t know any 4 year olds who can do zips up? That’s what nurseries teach them. My dd is summer born so isn’t yet 4 but she starts school in September. She can do her coat zips up, and if she had to she could have a good attempt at cleaning herself if she happened to have an accident. At 4 they are pretty able to do most personal care themselves including getting dressed and putting coats and shoes on.l, they’re not toddlers anymore at that age. If your DS is struggling with these things then have a meeting with the teacher to discuss his needs and see what they can do.

How does his eyfs look? As he would be into 40-60 by now.
They assess using the ks1 replacement in reception now. So that might give some development feedback (i assume they tell parents)

Tbh your nursery seems very passive too. As usually they are getting kids ready to transition by now.

I personally dont belive 1/4 kids are starting not potty trained. When my dc started 7 years ago there was only 1 dc in nappies and he was repeating reception so 5 already and moved at 6 to a special school.

Theres no logical reason kids starting 4 years after covid would have toileting issues, the nursery they missed was years ago now.

Having said that on a few posts ive seen people keeping dc at home rather than sending to nursery as wfh.

It is hard to train when they are at nursery as you dont want them soiling there

Obviously I only know veeeeeeery slow ones

I genuinely haven’t a clue what 40-60 means. Obviously we have a shit preschool 😆

Have preschool mentioned any issues other than this? At 4 most children would be embarrassed by nappies and accidents, my dd is distraught if she has an accident anywhere especially if others know about it, and there’s no way she’d be seen in a nappy. Have nursery mentioned him getting upset when he has one? I’d think that would be the first step, him knowing he shouldn’t have nappies on and being embarrassed about it.