Starting school early

[SkedaddIe]

I hope this doesn't come across presumptuous.

We are ttc our 2nd and want a summer child rather than an autumn child so that they start school younger but covid and post pill amenorrhea has really disrupted our plans. We ideally wanted a smaller gap between our children so they could bond and learn from and with each other.

Is it very difficult (in England) to start early for autumn children? And how would we organise it?

Dd 4 loves school and we really appreciated that the professionals are better at educating then we are! For example we felt a little bit bad that dd started reading at 2 by memorising words rather than being taught phonics and blending.

There aren't any good private schools near us but lots of good state primary schools and a very decent spread of grammar schools.

I think that our next child will also very likely be well above average at least and would benefit from the birth date acceleration just as my dd seems to. Plus 1 or 2 years acceleration feels to me like it is a good balance between academic and social development for bright children.

Why be such a nasty person to parents who have concerns about their children? If you don't have experience with gifted children then why are you here? Just to have a laugh at others' expense?

This thread is batshit. Asking questions about a child that it not even conceived yet but you just know is going to be gifted Uh-huh. What happens if you DC2 is just (whsipers)... average

I didn't think of position in the school year with my first who's a May birthday. Until I realised that 75% of his year group were born from September to December which correlated strongly to the top maths set and top sports teams at primary school.

I did give it a bit more thought so my youngest was born in November and one of the oldest in his year. I dislike the label gifted and talented but school would put him in this category. I've never contemplated putting him up a year or similar - perhaps I've been lucky that he's been at schools that have stretched him and we try to do this at home too.

But emotionally he's far better with kids his own age and I don't see it as a race to get as far ahead as quickly as possible.

Your womb must be exceptionally gifted

@kowari

If they were one born at the end of the intake year, I would probably seek to defer for a year. I would be concerned about their social and emotional level compared to children a year younger than them. There was a child in DS's year who was deferred, and mature for his age anyway. He really struggled to fit in with the mostly younger children.

I think there are pros and cons of both. A child born at the very end of an academic year cohort will either be older or younger than peers by about a year, depending on whether defer or go with original year group. The research evidence on this suggests being older is advantageous, but I think it depends really on the individual child.

For various boring reasons I was put up a year. I did well academically but it was pretty awful socially and emotionally. My teenage years were horrible.

If I look at my teenagers now and think about putting them up a year, it seems crazy. And it's not about coping with the work.

Really, even if your as yet to be conceived child were a genius, what would you hope to achieve by putting them up a year?

Ah, the G&T topic. Always some craic to be had. I never knew you could assess unconceived children as at genius level, you must have world class eggs and sperm.

Anyway, this would be a bad idea. The schools do not care about how bright infant children are on arrival. They care about motor skills, ability to play together/share/accept being told "No", toilet training, emotional regulation, being able to dress, recognizing their name when written etc etc.

@Notavegan

Your womb must be exceptionally gifted

It would have to be since I'm a man.

What do you mean your DD got a place at the original primary based on ability? If it was an academy then in state system so that’s not possible.

Wow 😳

Have you thought of the teen years, especially for a boy? DS has only hit a bit of a growth spurt and had his voice break after turning 14 in May last year. If we were still overseas he would be in a year with mostly 15 year olds and some 16 year olds.

@DrinkFeckArseGirls

What do you mean your DD got a place at the original primary based on ability? If it was an academy then in state system so that’s not possible.

We used to live in London we found an academy primary school set up to support dd.

We moved to out of London. We found a similar school out of London.

Both schools had educational needs as one of the oversubscription criteria,and it ranked above distance.

If the two LAs did their jobs properly and changed our address we would've been offered a place at the 2nd school. Instead we were offered the school in London (which we now would need a 5 hour commute to attend).

Our appeal failed because it is a 'class size' appeal. It needs more than "well she would've got in if the LA did their admin jobs properly"

That is unusual for primary school admissions but academies can do whatever they want for admission criteria. They get to make their own rules.

@Ilovemaisie

That is unusual for primary school admissions but academies can do whatever they want for admission criteria. They get to make their own rules.

No, they can't - they set their own policies, yes, but they still must abide by the admissions code.

The code says that children with an EHCP that names the school must be given a place in the school. If OP's daughter had this, she would have been given a place regardless of address.

However, it also says that (apart from existing grammar schools), schools cannot have criteria that uses any selection by ability.

I don't think there's any suggestion the OP's tiny genius child has an EHCP.

His child is super bright and has got no additional needs other than being enormously cleverer than her peers

In my experience schools (not just academies) sort out offers like this

1. SEND
2. Cared for children
3. Sibling
4. Special access (our reason was G&T)

4b. Special Information Form (religion music etc)

1. Distance.

Sorry if I gave the impression that dd somehow found a grammar style primary school. State primaries are not selective. They don't 'pick' bright pupils. Dd needs additional support and has independent evidence to say so.

She doesn't have SEND I imagine my dd would need to be a savant to get SEND for G&T and she hasn't published her unified field theory yet so I doubt she qualifies.

Ah. I see - thank you, OP. Not all schools have the "exceptional circumstances" criteria, mostly because (in my experience) it leads to having to make value judgements, rather than the "this is the measurement/sibling etc" solid facts of the other criteria. This means they are wide open to getting appeals on decisions made under this criteria, as the vast majority are denied (and of course parents always disagree).

So had the 2 primaries in question already told you explicitly your DD would be considered under that criteria?

Apologies Patricia you are right.
But I have never seen or heard of 'special access' before as a school admissions thing.

Just because your 4 year old loves school, doesn’t mean that they should have gone at 3.

I dont get this...I really want my son to go school as late as he can as he deserves to enjoy being little. They have their whole life to live and learn, why rush

Agree with PP in that 'what is the rush?' The last thing you would want is for your children to be accelerated up through the years and be ready for university at 15. That would be awful for their life experiences.
Just let them go to school at the proper time and excel as they will and supplement with extra curricular if so inclined and support them in being g&t. It's not a race.

I don't think uk primary schools are set up for gifted children in the main. My DD went to an excellent private day nursery up to the time she started reception and she could read and write probably at the level of the end of reception start of year one range before starting reception. She did not progress at all during that first year at school. When they've got 25-30 4 year olds most of which are learning to read and write the handful of children that already can sort of get overlooked in my experience.

But what if your child is not academically gifted and you have then made them one of the youngest in the class as well as not being bright huh?

This scenario is farcical for a child not even conceived yet. God help your child if it all doesn't go like the master plan you want.

@PatriciaHolm

Ah. I see - thank you, OP. Not all schools have the "exceptional circumstances" criteria, mostly because (in my experience) it leads to having to make value judgements, rather than the "this is the measurement/sibling etc" solid facts of the other criteria. This means they are wide open to getting appeals on decisions made under this criteria, as the vast majority are denied (and of course parents always disagree).

So had the 2 primaries in question already told you explicitly your DD would be considered under that criteria?

They didn't give any guarantees. I also spoke with both local authorities to see what is acceptable evidence. State primaries and academies go through a common application so it is first assessed by the LA who send the lists and any supplemental information to the school.

We had evidence from health visitors, 2 nurseries, physios (she walked at 6 months and bowed her legs) and a speech therapist (she had tongue tie and talked before her palate developed). There was a general theme of her mind racing ahead of her body so we had plenty of evidence that she was unusually bright and needed support and minor adaptations.

But as far as I know our exceptional circumstances could have still been refused at either stages by the LA or the school. I don't know anyone who has an EHCP specifically for G&T ie not for HFA or a related behavioural issue.

I assume that if our G&T evidence was refused we would have been 'bumped down' and assessed on distance to the school.

I think it's unusual for schools to NOT have an exceptional circumstances category what about child disabilities that don't qualify for an EHCP or parent disabilities? And yes it probably could be open to abuse but in our experience that would be very difficult as there is a double hurdle and a requirement for independent professional evidence. It would also be pointless as it's a very open secret that the way to abuse the priority system is to just rent a house close to your chosen school.

@passthemustard

I don't think uk primary schools are set up for gifted children in the main. My DD went to an excellent private day nursery up to the time she started reception and she could read and write probably at the level of the end of reception start of year one range before starting reception. She did not progress at all during that first year at school. When they've got 25-30 4 year olds most of which are learning to read and write the handful of children that already can sort of get overlooked in my experience.

We've had the opposite experience where we found a lot of nurseries weren't great for G&T. They made the right noises but lacked substance.