Summer born child school admission

[Theapplewoman]

Hello, I would really need some help about primary school admission and what forms need to be filled when the child is born in summer and delayed starting school until he is 5 yrs old.
My child is summer born, May 2014. We decided to leave him in the nursery instead of sending him to school in 2018 while he was only 4 yr old. This year 2019 he will be 5 yrs old and will start school in September.
In the Councils website the school application form is called "Common application for starting school (Reception) For children born between 1st September 2014 - 31st Auguat 2015". My child does not fall in these dates (May 2014) and I do not know if I should fill this form anyway or some other form. And would he be in Reception or Year 1 if he was summer born and delayed until 5yr old.
Can somebody help me to figure out what forms I need to fill in? Do I also need to apply directly to schools? Do I need Supplementary Information Forms (SIF) too?
I am completely lost here.
I hope I have stated everything clearly in this message because english is not my first language and therefore I am sorry if it is difficult to understand. Thank you ladies for all comments in advance

As someone who was very anti-starting at 4 I would now advise against starting later. I tried to do this for our son, who was born in July and had delay difficulties (deafness, now mostly fine - this meant a delay with his speech). The headteacher strongly put me off and said that if we did delay his start then he would have to start in Year One and miss Reception the following year. That's a big jump, from Nursery to Year One, and all the gentle lead-up to proper school would have been missing, so that discouraged us from doing it and we reluctantly signed him up to start in the September shortly after he was 4. I'm so glad we did that now. He jumped on in leaps and bounds and is now one of top kids in the class, has no speech difficulties, and is very happy knowing his friends are all more or less the same age as him.

Check with your council. They all vary.

My guess is that you should have applied last year but then deferred the place until the term he turned 5. You’ll now need to contact the local authority and apply and see where they have spaces as he’ll need a year 1 place rather than reception.

Best thing is to contact the local authority and ask about the process.

You will need to call LA as my guess is that the online form has not been revised with delayed admissions in mind. Assuming you have already agreed to postpone with LA you need to submit a Reception application not use the In Year process which would be for Year 1 entry.

That’s not correct TwoBlueFish. Children can start aged 5 in reception.

You need to call your LA first thing on Monday. The deadline for reception places is a couple of weeks away and you might need to have some conversations with the schools involved too.

I sit on an Admissions panel at a local primary school but i only know what happens with our LA and school. You can either defer and start in Reception which would need to have been agreed with the LA and the school last year or you do an In Year application for Year 1. There is no guarantee that a year 1 place will be available if the school is oversubscribed.

Did you speak to anyone at the school or LA before taking the decision to delay his entry?

You can defer for a summer born but when is the cut off, does May count? Doesn’t seem that late in the year.

I would contact the LA admissions dept.

Just seen that our LA includes children born April to August. So not just summer then.......

@Tulipvase it's 1st April to 31st Aug across the board. Same for all LAs. Definitely not just summer born!

Summer term is after Easter.

Don’t you have to have permission from the LA to defer a place? I’d also be contacting the LA first thing Monday to discuss

The parent has the right to start the child at compulsory school age (the term after they turn 5).

The local authority decides whether the child starts in reception or year one. They must advise why starting in year one is in their best interests if that is what they decide.

Some councils automatically allow starting in reception at age 5. Some don’t. The OP needs to check with her council.

According to this you should have applied for a place last year and then deferred it. The school would then decide whether the child would go into reception or Y1 the following year. It’s no help to you but I am very surprised you did not look into this when you decided to delay entry. I guess you’ll now be applying for a Y1 place unless your child is very developmentally delayed and then I guess they may consider a reception place if they have one.

www.theschoolrun.com/school-starting-age

As PPs have said, unfortunately you should have contacted your LA last year to get them to agree to delay your child's place to start in Reception in Sept 2019 rather than Sept 2018. Hopefully they will still agree to this, but there is no guarantee and there is a chance that they will expect your DC to go straight into Year 1. Do get straight on to your LA asap to discuss this - I hope you can get it sorted.

With regard to what constitutes 'summer born', as it's from 1st April across the LAs I assume it refers to a child born within or after the summer term, as opposed to literally the summer season (as in June, July, August).

I suggest you join the Facebook group Flexible School Admissions for Summer born Children - they are a wealth of information and there's bound to be someone familiar with your local area (it can differ between areas).

You need to apply for school places now (I believe reception application cut off point is next week) - whether you go into reception or year one. If you want to go into reception you have to complete some paperwork and may also need support of the head teachers of the schools you're applying for.

We are doing this currently, but a year behind you (want to switch from 2019 to 2020 reception start) - I think they prefer for you to apply to delay before the "proper"start date but you are where you are & just need to get in touch with admissions ASAP.

Good luck