Deferring a May born child

[Kingfisher4]

I have a daughter born 29th May. She is currently 3, due to start school next year.

I am currently thinking about deferring her, but only if she is able to start in reception the following year.

Would most people think that is crazy? She is not developmentally behind as such, although she is not fully toilet trained yet. I have been trying for months, but she still has more than one accident a day.

My reasoning is more based on how I feel about the education system in general. I don't mind reception as it's still very play based, but I hate the idea of 5 year olds going into key stage 1 and starting formal education so young. I have 3 older sons, none of them summer born, so have never been able to make this decision.

That’s interesting. So deferring means there’s no chance of 3 years in KS 5? That is something to think carefully about. I know two children who had to repeat year 12 due to illness, and five who repeated them due to failing year 12 and swapping subjects. That’s just amongst my friends, neighbours and family. That should not be dismissed lightly.

Presumably it would be allowed in FE colleges, just not schools. A FE college doing A levels will follow exactly the same curriculum.

Yes, the registration has to be for dc who are in the year for the age group, some of whom will be 11 and some 12 at any given point of the year,
BUT they have to prove their age, and the fact they were born between 1st Sept and 31st Aug, so someone who was born the previous May can't play in the U12s, even though they will be 12 for 8 - 9 months of the season.

This thread isn’t about you and your decisions @Somuchgoo

its about the op and her non- delayed May born child and whether people think she should defer or not.

Yes, I would have thought so. Where I live though, the school is walking distance, the college a train ride away to a city. It’s worth considering.

@Somuchgoo - overwhelmingly people on this thread have said "except in exceptional circumstances". People are commenting on a parent who has a child with no learning difficulty, and no delays, thinking about placing her out of year group. I'm pretty sure she would have mentioned if her dd had spent 18months ill, and in hospital or having treatment, or had been born at 30 weeks or any other reason why it would make sense to consider this.
I am really sorry your dc has been so ill. That must be awful. But it isn't what this thread is about.

Thanks @CarpetKnees that’s what i meant but you made it clearer!

... you're not the only one on here.

This is what I’d be considering, on the back of there being no other reason other than your beliefs about 5 being too young to start school.
I was reading a thread a few days ago about post-GCSE 16-19 education. Someone mentioned that you get three years of funding if needed. So, if you started A levels but couldn’t carry on and needed to defer, you get that extra year. Or if you need to take time out before you start level three studies. If a child has deferred, they are already into one of those three years when they are in yr11.

As per my PP, it will be the same in FE colleges as well.

It's not the parents' job to justify anything. They have the right not to start their child until the following September and it's not your role to get a say in whether you think that's the right thing to do. The only authority you have is to justify why - when they do start school a year later - missing the entirety of reception is in the child's best interests.

That is a very difficult thing to do as reception is so fundamental - you'd essentially have to argue that a child is exceedingly gifted and doesn't need the foundations of reception. As such a refusal should be rare, and not at all based on whether you personally think they should start 'on time' or not.

Many admissions panels, including yours apparently, often don't understand this.

That's presumably quite rare. And not at all a reason to start your child too early in reception and have them struggle in the early years just on the tiny off chance they'll need 3 years in KS4. If that eventuality does come about there are other ways to deal with it. All is not lost.

Ok, so I have done a lot of thinking since I started this thread, and I thank you all in helping me to think things through more concisely.

Firstly, I wasn't expecting it to be such an emotive topic. Some people seem angry because they assume that I'm from a wealthy advantageous background, and that I'm somehow trying to push that advantage even further with my own child by ensuring that she becomes top of the class in terms of age (and therefore ability). But, in reality, I'm at the bottom end of socioeconomic class, and couldn't give a rats arse if she is a high achiever or not. I'm not that parent.

But, I see that my daughter does already have some disadvantages. Being summer born, possibly sen (not on the radar as yet, but the signs are there), and having parents with disabilities and from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. It's only natural that I would seek ways to counteract some of that disadvantage if I can, especially if the research supports this. This doesn't mean I wish to disadvantage anyone else. I guess it's similar to those parents who send their kids to private school, pay for private tuition, or private neurodevelopmental assessments. Are we saying that they are trying to disadvantage other kids, or just trying to give their kids the best chance in life?

That being said, I don't think I can fully make a decision right now, because she does still have time to mature. I have a parents meeting with nursery coming up, and will have this discussion with them, including sen concerns. In the meantime, I will enroll her for school next year (because you have to anyway), but start the process of deferment and applying for a delayed start with the LA, and by contacting each school respectively. If she gets accepted, but I find that actually, I think she would be better off starting reception next year after all, then that's what I'll do. And if in the future I do go ahead with a delayed start, but regret that decision because she is miles ahead of everyone else academically and socially, it would be far easier to reverse that decision, than the other way round.

So you struggle with parenting, get on with toilet training.

With a May birthday and not SEN if you delay start they’ll start in year 1.

There is no right to defer reception start. There is the right to request to defer, and the LA will make the decision.

I assume the LAs are already wising up to pushy parents who want to defer because they can’t cope with their kid being the youngest.

I note that according to the gov.uk website, an application to defer should be supported by evidence from professionals such as speech and language therapists, paediatricians or early years teachers.

The parents have a right not to send them until they're 5 - that's not up to the LA to decide. The question the LA must decide is WHEN they start at 5 (because that IS the parents right to do that) why it's in their best interest to miss reception and go straight into Y1.

Why is missing reception best for children? Is reception year not important?

I know. That’s why I was speaking for myself. Your post that I was replying to certainly suggested that many people were being very negative about deferring. I wanted to make it clear that there are genuine practical reasons that it can cause problems.

The Reception year is very important, which is why most of us on this thread are saying the OP would be foolish to remove her child from it.

You seem to be completely missing the fact that 'the norm' in England and Wales (sorry, I'm not sure about NI) is for children to start school the September after they turn 4. The decision to remove their child from this BY THE PARENTS is what is being discussed here. It isn't the LA saying the child can't go to Reception.

It isn’t at all rare. Not in today’s climate of mental health issues. I know 7 children who’ve done this, in my area alone.

It is the norm - but not the law. They don't lawfully have to go until the term after they're 5 and it's completely the parents right to enforce that.

It absolutely IS the LA saying the child can't go to reception, that's what the summer born guidance is all about. Once the parents have decided their child isn't going until they're 5 (which is their lawful right), the onus is on the LA to admit the child shouldn't miss reception and therefore accept them 'out of cohort', or justify why it's in their best interest to skip it. As you have helpfully said in your post "The Reception year is very important" and so they'd be acting against the child's best interests to insist they go straight to Y1.

It's a very common misunderstood point, you're not the only one.

Best to protect their mental health right at the start then and don't have them continually feeling like they're catching up and not ready.

Defer is an official term approved from the parents request by the LA and school for their child to delay their entry to Reception to the next year. Separately a parent has the right to start their child’s education the term after their 5th birthday. They don’t have the right to determine which year group they enter.

A parent needs to request a summer born deferral at time they would normally put in a primary school application (when the child is 3) not after the child has turned 5.

The examples and information I have offered are from the point of view of someone who has extensive school admissions experience who also led on summer born so it is your right to disagree with me but i’m not wrong.

At the heart of our decision making is what is in the best interest of the child. No decision is taken lightly and most parents applying are doing it for the right reasons, provide substantial evidence for their case and have support of the school.

Defer is an official term approved from the parents request by the LA and school for their child to delay their entry to Reception to the next year

Delay is the term for this, defer means to postpone their entry into education later in the same academic year but still into their chronological cohort.

They don’t have the right to determine which year group they enter.

You are right about that - that is the LA's decision to make, but as mentioned you have to show it's in the child's best interest to go straight into Y1, given that the decision has already been made that they'll start at 5 years old.

Out of interest, what justification do you give to have a child miss reception, in those cases that you refuse admission? What best interests for the child are there to go straight into Y1 without the foundation stage?

Despite the published guidance, there are many admission authorities who are still misapplying it, and so this misjudgment of authority happens quite a lot.

In my experience, I received more calls stating they want to defer but once we go through explaining the process, I think they realise it’s not as simple as it seems and the official requests from those who don’t really have a justified reason aren’t that many. We can alleviate many of the concerns and point them in the areas where they can get guidance to overcome their fears.
I have seen a rise in the number of cases where it is definitely in the child’s best interest to defer and can see the parents have put in a lot work, done their research and provide supporting evidence. Whether this is because they are more aware or just more children needing this, I don’t know. Many of the children deferred I can see ending up in a SEN school but such is the process and pressures, this is another avenue to help those families who need this.

Completely agree with you. I think it’s been interesting reading the views from people on here. Clearly some don’t have the best understanding of this policy and some proud and some telling me how I did my job wrong! Summer born deferrals in my opinion should be exceptional rather than the norm.

My little boy like i’ve said is a mid August birthday but will be starting school in September so I’ve seen personally how the new funding policy has affected nurseries and actually increases fees for parents and so we shouldn’t put further pressures on these services.

The child in question could still have the entire foundation/EYFS curriculum delivered in another setting - after all, reception is Early Years, not KS1. In England it’s generally still heavily play based and free flow, to the extent that there are now school settings that mix the preschool and reception year. At that point, surely it’s moot if the child goes straight into y1, as they will have been exposed to the appropriate EYFS in any setting, not just school. So my question would be, if they are happy with EYFS in a nursery/preschool setting, why are they unable to cope with a school based setting, which can (by legislation) cope with either part time or no attendance at all until statutory school age?

I do think the current outline of how the process of joining reception outside of cohort sounds good, though I have limited experience of how it works in practice. If you’ve got the evidence to show it’s beneficial for your child, then fair enough, but it shouldn’t be just because a parent says so.