Guest post: “A later start can be the best thing for many children.”

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My summer-born daughter Olivia is the oldest child in her school year.

Nearly four years ago I told Mumsnet all about our ‘fight’ to start her in reception at age five.

Olivia is now in Year 3 and enjoying school.

But other parents up and down the country are still fighting for the same right, with their children being made to start at age 4 or enter Year 1 at age 5.

This is despite assurances from the Schools Minister Nick Gibb in 2015, that ‘summer-born children can be admitted to the reception class at the age of five if it is in line with their parents’ wishes’, and the promise ‘to ensure that those children are able to remain with that cohort as they progress through school, including through to secondary school.’

A later start can be the best thing for many children. Olivia enjoyed her reception year, but the jump to Year 1 was a bit of a shock and she found some of Year 2 hard. I’m so glad she had that extra year of development behind her to face those challenges.

No one could pick Olivia out in a crowd; she fits in perfectly well with her class cohort and is thriving in Year 3.

Despite all the warnings that she’d be ‘on the wrong register’, be ‘the odd one out’ or ‘have to take her SATs a year early’, we haven’t encountered any problems along the way (although she did receive a birthday card with the wrong age on one year, but that’s about as tricky as it’s got!).

Olivia even thanks me for what I did.

I have always talked about it openly (and proudly) and explained my reasons to her. She tells me that she couldn’t imagine being in Year 4 right now. ‘I’m right where I belong, mummy,’ she says.

The truth is, Olivia knows more about the law than some staff who work in admission departments, and even some school heads. She often corrects adults who tell her she ‘should’ be in Year 4, saying, ‘I could be in Year 4, not should.’

Of course, every child is different. That’s why choice and flexibility is so important (but only if it’s fair for all). Some summer-born children will enjoy school from age four and do very well, while others won’t. Whatever choice parents make should be without judgement.

Every time I read about the summer-born issue it ends in confused debate, so I wanted to finish by debunking a few myths and ensuring everyone knows the facts.

What is the law? Do you know your rights?

The School Admissions Code requires councils to provide schooling for all children in the September following their fourth birthday, but a child does not reach compulsory school age until the term following their fifth birthday.

So, for a summer-born child (defined as born April 1st - August 31st), that’s a whole year later than when they could first enter school.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Summer-born children are still the only group of children who don’t have automatic right of access to reception at that point (compulsory school age); parents can only request that their child starts in reception.

Some admission authorities have a policy of automatically agreeing all requests while others will only consider requests if parents present very strong evidence of special educational needs or developmental delay.

It’s important to know that it’s your decision when your child starts school, whether prior to compulsory school age or at compulsory school age.

The admission authority for the school has to make a year group decision based on the best interests of your child at that point (i.e. compulsory school age). The discussion should not be about ‘school readiness’ or how they can meet your child’s needs at age four.

The question an admission authority must answer is: ‘What is in this child’s best interests at compulsory school age, reception or Year 1?’ It must then clearly explain the reasons for its decision.

Incredibly, it has been nearly four years since Nick Gibb’s assurances and promises, and in that time many children have been forced to miss reception or start school before their parents wanted them to.

There needs to be a consistent approach across the country, and soon.

For further information regarding the admission of summer-born children, please see the Summer Born Campaign website and join its Facebook group.

Rosie will be returning to the post on Wednesday 22nd May to answer some user questions

Stuck you can pretty much ignore the results from that bbc link.
A) phonics screening check is not difficult- it is taken 2 years after learning phonics so all kids have a chance to catch up by then
B) it is intended to check schools are teaching ohonics correctly
C) only 40 very easy q my SB in cohort got 100% so couldnt have done better anyway
D) in some areas requiring evidence it would be cgildren prem/delayed deferring so might naturally score lower especially if the delay is speech as th that might affect learning phonics.
E) you need to wait till the ks1/2 results for these children and ideally would only compare using non sen children ie they deferred for other reasons.
F) as in the article you cant compare to how those children would have done a year earlier.

Logically they should have done as well as sept borns if not something else is going on and also if not then we are double penalising SB if they are intrisically less bright etc and also making them youngest.
The results chart by month born goes down every month from sept on (nationally).
I do however see the issue re apr/may borns non sen non prem as they are significantly older than even sept borns.

MC parents have already been getting advantage by planning to have sept borns and so it would be more likely a SB might be from a family where they were more chaotic or unplanned.

Ah, yes. Because it's so easy to time conception that the only reason you'd have a summer born is because you were either too thick to do the maths or too thick to use contraception.

Haha obviously not. But there are mire births in sept etc. Some parents have planned it like this (i certainly did going back 10 years). As you say unfortunately it doesn't always work, but for many it does i think on average maybe 3-4m trying so you would end up sept-jan ignoring prem etc or twins.
What i mean though is it possibly is already the WC who might have more SB so those kids are disadvantaged with a non deferral system anyway. MC and UC can maybe afford private. But the cost difference for deferral is actually very small. You can still get the 15/30h funding. 30h at preschool here is the same almost as school hours. And anyway if you have been 'unlucky' enough to have had a Sept born you would have to pay that year/funded. The SB is just being shortchanged against siblings/by parents/the gov. If they go on time they lose actually a whole year of preschool. They only get 3 terms rather than 5!

Would you be happier for them to all get funding from 2 to try to even that out!? It is like a whole 9m vs the sept borns.

I agree the solution is not ideal. It is a step towards acknowledging the disadvantage. I thunk if it were just academic that would be one thing but it affects confidence, enjoyment of school, social and sports too.
Everyone thinks that sept born dc is so bright but they are doing less than a aug born in year above.

Can a child repeat reception if necessary? I've seen it in my home country but not sure about Britain.

For someone who said thank goodness all children have to start in September I wanted to ensure all parents know that this is untrue. Many schools state this but it is not correct.
Similarly someone asked what do autumn or spring born children get.
Every child has the right to wait to start school until compulsory school age, which is the term AFTER they turn 5. So whichever of these dates happens on or after your child’s 5th birthday - 31 Dec, 31 March or 31 August. So an autumn born child can wait to start until the January term and a spring born child can wait to start until summer term. This is an automatic right and your child cannot lost their school place for doing so. Many schools claim this is not allowed but the compulsory school age act guarantees this right. Section 2.16 of the school admission code also gives every child the right to attend part time until they reach compulsory school age.

For someone who said thank goodness all children have to start in September I wanted to ensure all parents know that this is untrue. Many schools state this but it is not correct.
Similarly someone asked what do autumn or spring born children get.
Every child has the right to wait to start school until compulsory school age, which is the term AFTER they turn 5. So whichever of these dates happens on or after your child’s 5th birthday - 31 Dec, 31 March or 31 August. So an autumn born child can wait to start until the January term and a spring born child can wait to start until summer term. This is an automatic right and your child cannot lost their school place for doing so. Many schools claim this is not allowed but the compulsory school age act guarantees this right. Section 2.16 of the school admission code also gives every child the right to attend part time until they reach compulsory school age.

Elishiva- the report you showed supports summerborns delaying a year. The evidence in your link shows that missing a full year of school and starting in year 1 without having attended reception is a disadvantage. Waiting a year and starting in reception has shown to be nothing but a benefit. Similarly there are only advantages to waiting to start later such as 7 in other countries. The biggest indicator of academic success, later life success, happiness and mental health, is the amount of free play a person has as children. Free play without adult intervention or trying to get them to learn something specific, just free play lead only by children.

Aurthom, you are right everyone can delay their child's start until after their 5th birthday, however spring and autumn born children would miss out on time in reception whereas this campaign is about only allowing summerborns to start reception a year later thus not missing out at all. Therefore a late march baby would have to go into year one and an early April baby would get a year in reception

Sorry the march baby would have just one term of reception before year one whereas the April baby would have a whole year and be 17 months older than other children

When I went to primary school (30 years ago) the system was that every child started school at the beginning of the term in which they were due to turn 5. So Sept-Dec birthdays started in September, Jan-April birthdays in January and May-Aug birthdays in the summer term. The summer term starters then spent two terms in reception, moving up to Year One the following January, and thereafter remained with their cohort (so they did two terms of reception and two of year one). That seems a much more sensible system to me as no child is forced to start school at 4 plus a few days (which I agree feels way too young) but you avoid this issue of potentially huge age ranges within a year group. Does anyone (teachers perhaps?) know why this doesn’t happen any more?

Maybe because, hardly surprisingly, missing a term of reception and also one of yr 1 would hugely disadvantage them!!
But anyway i wasnt aware of that exactly i thought they just started later in yr r and went up to 1 at normal time.
Anyway just missing some of yr r obviously does disadvantage kids and doing part time . (Maybe depending on what exactly you do with that time eg if a parent is a teacher etc but anyway the dc would probably miss out on getting to know classmates.
Also not only are these this disadvantaging SB they are therefore advantaging the WB dc.

Also not only are these this disadvantaging SB they are therefore advantaging the WB dc

Just wanted to point out this is particularly true if you encourage SB to start midway through year because then the autumn born group get to start in a much smaller cohort, with more individual attention and also to be socially bonded and settled by the time the SB turn up. I would imagine this advantages them hugely.

I can only speak from my own experience, and I appreciate my peer group might have been an anomaly, but the summer term starters in my year (of which I was one, and ended up with a first from Oxford) really didn’t seem to be disadvantaged by this system, either academically or socially. Of those I am in touch with/know of, academic and career success seem to be evenly spread with no obvious trend of those with winter birthdays doing better, and friendship groups were mixed - of my two best friends, one was a November birthday and one March. Maybe the early years of primary were just a bit more relaxed back then and so missing a term of reception wasn’t a big deal - nowadays there seems to be so much more pressure.

Aurthom The report recommends against a policy of delaying school start for summerborns (page 71).
It recommends age adjustment for formal assessments and improving teacher awareness and understanding of the age related effect.

Also just to point out that when the Sept-Dec cohort started, the summer term starters from the “year above” were still in Reception so the winter borns weren’t in a tiny group. Perhaps the termly changes in the make up of the class helped children to be more open to making new friends?

This makes me so angry. My August born son is now in Yr 5 and still struggles at school. His spelling and hand writing is poor and he still doesn't read for pleasure despite being read to from infancy. His headteacher swore that a NQT in Reception would be able to adjust to meet the needs of all children in his class so there was no need to keep DS back a year. He was wrong.

We have a July baby girl now. Depending on her needs I'll be finding a school that lets me keeep her back a year if I feel that's appropriate for her.

They changed the curriculum in 2014 and now the bands etc kids are reading at seems to have moved down a year.
All the push to achieve at ks2 sats probably leaves some behind.
Schools now set in primary some even from yr r.
Reading can now be picked up easily with little effort with the phonics approach.
A bright child can still be fine. It is just you really dont know how they will do (at 3.5yo) because they could know all their numbers but not be ready to do number bonds etc. Then later for add/sub, multiplying. Likewise be verbally good but not be able to recognise phonics/blend etc.
I like to see it as a sept born could be delayed by a year but still not bottom of the class. Whereas an aug delayed a year could be the level of a 3yo. They have to be 6m advanced to be average. Vs a sept born being 6m delayed.

Where we live it's relatively easy to have a child's school start date put back a year, or for children at the older end of their cohort to start a year early. Add that to it being a normal practice for children to repeat years, and quite widespread mixed-year schooling in the first years of primary, and it's fairly typical top have age ranges of two years or more within opne class 8although the majority will fall within a year). I've never observed it to cause any problems. I have one dc who was at the younger end of his year and one who was one of the very oldest and that difference was not a factor in their development - what does make a real difference there, though, is average school starting age being 6. My middle dc had been in school a month when he turned 7 - this sounds horrifying to UK ears (where early years often seem a bit of a race tbh), but I have no evidence that my dc are 'behind' their UK peers in any way. My 3yo dd was born on the cut-off date in this state, which means if she starts with her regular cohort she will be literally the youngest in the year. I am not concerned at all because we and her nursery will simply keep an eye on her development and have her put back a year very easily if we feel she isn't ready.

Apologies for typos.

*MC parents have already been getting advantage by planning to have sept borns and so it would be more likely a SB might be from a family where they were more chaotic or unplanned.

Ah, yes. Because it's so easy to time conception that the only reason you'd have a summer born is because you were either too thick to do the maths or too thick to use contraception.*

Do you really think it's that simple to time conception?!! Some people may suffer multiple mc and then go on to conceive at a different time of year to what they hoped for. If only life was as cut and dry so that we all knew exactly when something will happen?!

From the ONS in 2015
'8 of the top 10 dates of birth were towards the end of September – with the other 2 being early October. Part of the reason for this increase in births could be due to couples planning to have children at the start of the school year. 1

If births were evenly distributed throughout the year we would expect on average 1,800 births each day. But the average number of births on September 26 was around 2,000.'

On looking jul and aug are higher than i would have thought but i guess some dc are prem etc.
Obviously not everyone can or does plan but it may be enough to show an effect and possibly with summerborns being able to choose the effect may change.

Helix, it could also have been couples who had some time to themselves with spare alcohol over Christmas. Damned lies and statistics and all that......

I think the general received wisdom is that the big spike in births in September isn't parents diligently planning to have an autumn born for educational advantage, it's the increase in unplanned pregnancy during Christmas and New Year drunkenness.

I just did a google search and found this, which is v interesting and suggests a bit of both. To pick one country I know about: Belgium has quite a similar pattern of births, but their school year runs 1 Jan-31 Dec and they do have less of a September peak and more of a January one than we do, but we're also too similar for it all to be about school timing.

To be fair, we did initially start trying for a baby to be born in September 2016, with a very vague thought for school timings (and much more of a thought to 'we'll start trying in the new year', when for some reason lots of us are programmed to start new 'projects'). By the time he turned up in July 2018 I didn't care very much about birth month.

I don’t understand the argument against this that it is unfair to March birthdays as they’ll then be the youngest. Yes, they would be, but by September they would already be almost 4 and a half, and that extra 6 months at that age is massive. They will naturally be so much more ready for school than an August birthday who would only be 4 and a few days. So, they would never have the same disadvantage as an August born whether they are the youngest in the class or somewhere in the middle. I can see there may be an argument that April birthdays are not much younger and so might not need it but, unless there are some SEN, I doubt many parents of April born children would defer their entry. I think it would be mainly June/July/August birthdays who would be deferred.

Kitsandkids, I think if the average age of a reception child was older then expectations would just rise, putting the March children at the same disadvantage as the August children are now. I think instead of raising the starting age, the classroom environment and expectations should be changed to meet the needs of 4 year olds.