Summer Born Children - Deferring school start

[Lubelle80s]

I have been reading about applications to delay school starts for summer born children - having them start reception class a year later rather than simply missing reception and starting school in year 1.

I have read that local authorities tend to be reticent to agree to the applications and I'm curious to see if anyone reading this has been successful?

August born dd was deferred easily enough- definitely best for her. I'm a primary teacher- you can pick the summer borns out until about year3 when they start to even out.

Sutton Grammar says "Parents may request that their child is admitted outside their normal age group." However, top selective private secondary schools seem to be very strict about birth dates of applicants.

We are applying for a few top selective private secondaries and have had zero issues. You can call admissions departments to check if you have concerns. In general I think private schools are more likely to be flexible precisely because they are independent and can make and break their own rules.

DD is 31/8 (born 9 hrs later she would have been in the year below).

She was always incredibly confident although emotionally she struggled sometimes but left primary with almost perfect sats scores. Now in year 11 she is predicted grades 8/9 accross the board.

Never struggled phsically, she was a national champion in her main sport at 11 and represented England at 14.

Looking back, she would have been bored rigid if we had deferred her. I am not sure she could have done any better than she has already done so there would have been no benefit whatsoever.

I looked at KCS and St Paul's boys sites and they both seem to be very prescriptive about which the birth dates they accept. WUS has Registration Age Checker.

Did you try calling them?

This. A thousand times over. No way was she ready for school.

No, I did not. But their strict requirements and the prospective of calling every time my DS want to join any sports etc. put me off deferring school start.
I do not understand why the government cannot make CSA policy clear to everyone.
Actually they confuse everyone( https://www.gov.uk/schools-admissions/school-starting-age ) "If your child starts in the September after they turn 5
Your child will go into year 1. Contact the local council or school if you want your child to start in reception instead. They do not have to agree."
Why cannot they just say "Your child will go into Reception"?

In my experience all website quote the standard rule ie if you’re born between X and Y date, you go into Z year. However as mentioned independent schools have broad discretion on the year of entry and I can’t imagine why they would refuse to accept a summer born child in a lower age group, in particular one born late in the academic year. We applied to 3 independents and they were all happy to accept the out of cohort application and didn’t give us any hassle whatsoever. One of the schools is City of London, so of a similar calibre to the schools you mentioned. For us it is worth it, despite some additional admin.

Thank you all for your excellent and varied feedback. This has been really useful. If our daughter had arrived just a few hours earlier then she would have been in the lower year so I think this will be something worth fighting for.

I’ve acted on the advice and double checked the position with local private schools re admissions and also scholarship / bursary eligibility and it seems that being in the lower year group won’t affect that which is good news. I won’t be able to get an answer from the state secondary unfortunately as it will depend on too many factors nearer the time. Good to know we have options though and I’m very thankful that we have that privilege.

We were hoping for her to go to the state primary in our village so let’s hope they accept our application to defer reception.

Very good point made about the sports team issue. It’s too young to tell if she will be sporty but it’s something I’ll keep in mind. Both secondary schools I’ve spoken with have said she will have to play for the year above which doesn’t seem a great hardship but would involve a lack of sport in the final year I suppose. I guess that’s a balance we will need to factor in as time moves on.