Early Admission into reception?

[Housewife36]

Hi,
My son is only 2 but he's confident, social and above average for his age.
He's ready for school already (although I'm not ready to let him go)!
Problem is because he was born 11th September he won't start reception until the week before his 5th birthday.
I'm trying to find out what I can do to get him accepted, the week before his 4th birthday.
His sister is 3 1/2, in the few minutes he's in preschool with her, he's joining in the games with the other children and is accepted as part of the class.
His sister is also at the top of the class as she is reading.

Cheers

Not wanting your child to be bored is one thing. But a good nursery and a good school / teacher will work to each child's ability and push them when they are ready.

For example, I was told my dd is doing well at school and past her targets for her year group, even though it's only half-term. Her teacher divides the class into groups based on current ability (not that the children know that) so that the level of work is set at the right level for each group.

Also, I'm well aware that children develop at different rates, so it may well be that she's excelling at the moment because she is older than a lot of her class and loves school, but it may be that by the time they are all 10 or 11, things have evened out again.

Point is, you just don't know how your son may progress. Yes, he could be a genius, or it could be that he's just learning faster than his peers at the moment and come the time he is 4 or 5, the others in his age group will catch up.

In my opinion, the first few years of school are as much about learning to interact with your peers / forming friendships / learning to sit and pay attention or focus as it is about reading and writing and all the other stuff they do. And that is why he shouldn't start school earlier than planned, because those social skills are very well learned at nursery or pre-school.

I have got a clever Dd who is almost 3 so a Nov birthday. I have no doubt that she will be academically ready well before she goes but emotionally- no way.
She cries for me sometimes, gets very very tired by 6pm and struggles with some of the steps to dress herself. I am so glad she won't go till nearer 5; she will be much more ready as a whole child by then.
I have a summer born DS who is still a baby- regardless of his intelligence I am more worried about how young he will be when he goes.

Hi OP, I have the opposite to you :) my DS1 was born very very late August so just scraped into his current class & he is G&T but in many ways I wish he had been born a couple of weeks later & started school the following year.

He keeps up & excels at the academic side of things, he's on all of the top tables & is happy with the work. However he is always last in every race that he joins in with, he never wins on Sports Day, is never picked for football or sports teams as he just can't keep up. He's always the smallest & slowest. He is very emotionally immature, we walk to school with other classmates (they are in Year 6) & the other children walk sedately & talk together but my boy is the one bouncing around, shooting things & playing ninjas by himself. He's just not on their level socially or maturity wise & its heartbreaking at times as he's told me his classmates call him annoying. I hope that when he starts secondary next year he will find some likeminded friends.

But back to your OP, a lot of Reception is doing things that are not very academic, such as sitting on the carpet quietly for a time, toileting by themselves, putting on their coat & shoes independently, sharing, taking turns, being part of a team & its this stuff that the younger ones can struggle with. If your child is G&T then the school will pick it up & there will be something like a G&T club or the work will be differentiated a bit, starting a year early wouldn't change anything in this regard.

Find him a wonderful nursery then teach him to read & write if you like, take him to museums, art galleries, exhibitions, zoos & the like & get him interested in learning. Teach him to read for pleasure. If he shows interest in a subject then get to a library & get books out on it. If you teach him that learning is fun then he will be fine whatever class he's in, there's more to school than academics :)

Ds's birthday is 7 Sept; he started school 5 days before his 5th birthday. He is bright and able, and physically very tall and strong. He was more than academically ready for school at 4, but absolutely not ready socially or emotionally. He is in Year 2 now, and being old in the year has been great for him; some of the much younger children seem to struggle in comparison. DH and I were young in our years, and both secretly pleased for ds when he was born in early September.

Thankyou. I really want him to be happy at school and i have been thinking about birthdays and acceptance etc. I just want to be a good mum so your all saying brilliant things.
I am tempted to lay the foundations for him starting reception a year early (just before 4th birrhday) and if I and hopefully some teachers etc think he's slowed off a bit academically or socially or gut feeling bad idea or if he doesn't want to go, then he can be the oldest instead of the youngest (so start just before his 5th birthday instead). What do you reckon?

Are you in the UK? England? Are you planning on using state schools. Because I really don't think you can do this in English state schools. I don't know about the rest of the UK, but you can't in England regardless of the child's abilities.

You'd have to find a willing private school though, there is no such flexibility in the state system. Can you afford to fund this , for both of them, for 14 years ? It would mean perhaps having them in consecutive years. Tbh it is natural for a younger dc to pick up things earlier than elder because they are exposed to them and you probably do things like read to them both together. This may well change over time as their interests diversify.

I'm in England and definitely can't afford a private school. I've heard that about younger siblings although it doesn't work like that for everyone.

What do you mean lay the foundations?

I'd find him a decent nursery / pre-school. Why rush him.

you could send him to a private school with a nursery. They start rising 4 so your son would start the September the week before he turned 4 rather than 5 - they will teach them to read the year before Reception.

Putting him out of year though is a really, really, really bad idea IMO though. If he is exceptionally exceptional or just bright, he will waltz into any grammar school, independent secondary etc as one of the eldest in the year. Any advantage he may (or may not) have by the time he gets to 10 will largely be obliterated by making him compete with children almost a year older than him I think. Unless he truly is a genius of course in which case he'll be at university by then wherever he goes and it won't matter.

bear in mind that there is social and emotional intelligence as well as academic brilliance. Teenage boys need friends as much as they need anything. And children starting school need to be able to wuoe their own bum, not wet themselves, take their clothes on and off unaided and play nicely with other children. Will he be able to do all that in a years time do you think?

Please don't strike comparison between your two children. It is so great they are both bright, but to gainn idea of what one should be doing because of what the other is doing is unfair. They are two different children. He has years and years of school ahead of him, let him be his age and have fun. No matter how bright a child is, it is proven that free play based development is best for any child of any ability at this age. Boredom or him be under stimulated should be addressed if observed at the setting.

Yeah you got a point trying to figure out if he's a genius or not is really difficult. He is potty trained, can dress himself, talk and write his own name but then after a few drinks when he's 18 he might not be able to do any of that never mind get a job.

I think you lay the foundations by not starting him at school a year early but work on all the things he loves / can learn through play at home and nursery..

Encourage his reading, his writing, his motor skills and social development at nursery and home, not by starting school a year early.

There is a reason why parents try to defer a year for summer borns - it's in general because they can end up at a disadvantage later in education, not necessarily in the first couple of years in schoolS

Thankyou for your advice. I just was giving an example of something, it wasn't ment as a one child is better than the other (i was brought up as the smart ugly one and my sister was brought up as the beautiful one groomed to marry money...ouch). yes i agree playing is definately brilliant for their development and so much fun.

I know someone who did this, at the time I thought she was crazy. It's a very very different thing being academically ready and being socially and emotionally ready for school.
Several years down the line, she's now marvelling at how much easier her second child (normal school entry) is finding being at school and how much more progress they've made than dc1. Because dc1 wasn't anywhere near ready!

As the parent of two summer born dc I'd say you were nuts. It's hard being the youngest in your class for all the reasons midnightvelvet said. Always being the last, to turn 5, to lose your teeth, to climb to the top of the climbing frame and so on is dispiriting for a child

He's much better off being the eldest in his school year even if he's really clever. Just choose your state school well so that he has some peers who are also ahead. His preschool/nursery friends may not look like they are working ahead if parents haven't given over time to numbers/letters/reading, however these children usually make the largest jumps in infants. It's quite common to have small/medium sized groups of children working two or three years ahead of their age but remaining in the birth year group

Yes if he really is really bright, the school might move him up (although I wouldn't allow it personally) or he might get a scholarship or grammar school place. He's too young now. He should be playing and jumping in puddles.

I would worry about whether he'll be ready in terms of his social and emotional development, even if he does seem advanced academically right now.

DS1 is August born, just started school this year, and he's had problems with his relative immaturity compared to the other children. He's not coped well at all with the demands of reception - and I mean things like sitting still, doing work when the teacher says it's time, rather than learning about letters and numbers. The longer, more demanding days are tiring him out too, he was beside himself with tiredness tonight and asleep by 5:30pm.

DH and I strongly feel that a large part of these problems is down to him having started school when he's just not emotionally and socially mature enough to handle it.

Obviously your DS may be a lot more mature for his age than ours, but personally I would be concentrating on supporting his learning at home and finding a good nursery for his to go to, rather than sending him to school a year early.

My youngest dd has a birthday earlier in September than your dc. Yes, she'd have coped if she'd gone into Reception as she turned 4, but, by going in at 5, she flourished. I know which I'd rather my child did.

Just to give an alternative viewpoint. I was a precocious child with a September birthday, not through any encouragement from my parents, and my dm persuaded our infant head to take me a term earlier than she should have done. This was in the days when children didn't start until the term after they turned 5 so I started at the same age as both of my autumn born DCs but moved to year 1 at Christmas with the rest of the cohort I had started with. Despite being the youngest in the year, I remained the tallest and brightest in the year throughout primary and then went to a super selective grammar where I did very well. At each change of school I had to be assessed to make sure I could cope with it. No social problems anywhere and never felt different as I was only a few weeks younger than the next youngest. I dread to think how bored I would have been in the year below - I spent the whole of year 6 marking other people's work. However, I know two other people for whom the same was done; one had to repeat year 6 as they felt she was not mature enough to move up and the other felt that she would have done much better at secondary had she been in the correct year. So I would say that there are children for whom this is suitable, though obviously no way you can tell at 2, but I can't imagine any state school would do it these days (though as all the parents of summer borns are rushing to sign them up for putting Reception off a year, there are going to be lots of spaces for next year's intake).

foragogo makes a good point, OP - you may end up cancelling out any academic advantage he would have over his peers by pitting him against kids a year older.

From my reading about when summer born children can start school, it seems that, under the current rules, if a primary agrees to defer your child's place by a year, it doesn't follow through to secondary school school so a deferred child may miss Y6. By the same logic, a child a year ahead at primary may not be allowed to go up to secondary a year early & so would have to repeat Y6. How dreary would that be for an intelligent child, especially if all of their friends had left school as they were off to secondary school.

I just had a look at my local council's brochure about applying for primary schools.

The section on applying for an out of year place (starting a year later or earlier than normal) focuses heavily on applying for a child to start a year later than normal, particularly in relation to summer borns, probably as it's being made easier to keep summer borns back a year.

Some of the language could perhaps be interpreted either way, in that it refers to stuff like if a parent wants a child to be educated out of the year group, the LA must decide what year group the child should be admitted to.

But there's not one mention of specifically starting a child in school a year earlier than normal.

Have you checked with your LEA to see if it's even possible to get early admission into reception?

Good point, ThatsNot

The primary school admissions brochure I was just looking at gives no guarantees about a child educated out of the normal age group continuing in that age group into secondary school. They say they'll bear in mind the age group the child's been educated in, but the way it's written, they could still say that the child should join the normal age group year when entering secondary school.