Offered to defer my August born son but worried about private schools at 7+ or 11+ not accepting children who have been placed out of their cohort.

[Newtoparenting]

It seems a no brainer to defer my son so he starts reception a year later (he would not be skipping it). He is socially ready for school but doesn't seem ready for a non play based environment. He also gets frustrated easily and gets upset easily if he can't do something. I want him to have a positive experience at school. (I do not need advice on whether it's the right thing to do as only a mum/dad can know truly).

I am ONLY looking for advice on whether anyone has deferred their son at reception in a private school and still been accepted by a private secondary school at 7+ or 11+ (schools include Latymer, haberdashers, highgate, UCS, Whetherby, City boys, Northbridge, Merchant Taylors etc. What was your experience, could they take their exams with their adopted cohort or did any of these schools refuse to accept them. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you!

My understanding of age standardisation for 11+ exams (having recently gone through the process with a Sept born child) is that the oldest children in the cohort don’t have their scores reduced per se, they just don’t have many points (or fractions of a point) added.

It’s like a sliding scale, from those with a birthday of September 1st (no age standardisation added) to August 31st (maximum age standardisation added). But I don’t think a vast number of points are added across the board? Certainly not to the extent that summer born children are leapfrogging September borns into grammar schools due to their inflated scores.

Also, exam boards decide year on year whether to apply an age adjustment. I know the CSSE (Essex) for example, applied an age adjustment to their English paper but not the Maths last year.

Long story short, I don’t consider being “over age” is necessarily going to be a barrier to a child who is genuinely capable.

I don't know about cohort but at dd's private school there is an August born girl who went back a year. So after reception, I think, she did reception again when the parents realised she was too young for year 1. So if our private school allowed that then I don't think they would mind accepting another child that deferred but maybe it's different with other independent schools, especially the big name ones in London you mentioned.

For whatever it's worth, DD is end of August born. We didn't defer but I wish we had. If we had we might not have needed to put her in private school (she wasn't happy at the local state school and couldn't cope with the noise and the amount of children).

It seems to vary.

a friend in south west London said the privates she spoke to were amenable to out of cohort, and one of the privates in south east London said they’d consider an out of cohort at y3 or y7 but not reception. Other privates in south east said no out of hand. They say there is an issue with competing in independent school sports but I think this is ignorance rather than a real issue but worth chatting to the schools. Our thought was that our child was unlikely to get in to the private school as the very youngest and least opportunity to develop emotionally so it was moot. And if a school wasn’t up to date on summer born policy or the evidence around the detriment, then we didn’t think it was the kind of school we would want for our kid anyway. I think many privates think the detriment can be off set by smaller class size / better provision but that isn’t what the evidence says so I’d be inclined to be skeptical of any school that dismisses the clear evidence out of turn.

In terms of 11+, your child would just have their age factored into the scoring, but it’s a minor adjustment.

If the school accepts international students they are likely to be different ages in the same year group as they have come from different education systems.

We considered deferral last year for our August born DS, we decided not to in the end for various reasons but I feel it very much depends on the individual child.

You need to speak to each individual school you're considering if this is concerning you and ideally get something in writing regarding their position on deferred children. It makes sense regarding sports but maybe not a bad thing to be playing with the year group above, more opportunity to make friends with a new group of children.

Good luck, it's a hard decision, I still worry whether we made the right decision but you just have to go with what you feel will be best right now and for long term in the future

The deferral is only accepted for that individual school so if you transfer or when transition to secondary that school can decide whether or not to honour it. So there is no blanket answer here as each school will be different in their views. The other thing to consider is the sports element plus when the child turns 18 they could leave school without finishing. There is a thread running here where that is happening for the OP. The child is not allowed to play sports as he is too old and is now refusing to complete his education and cannot be forced too as he is 18.

I think the ones refusing to complete education is the vast minority, I was 18 throughout my last year of school and most turned 18 throughout that year and no one decided to leave at that age.

Yes but some sports separate by u15/u13 etc so added complication.

Our private school the elder 2 are at doesn't accept our of cohort im
Fairly sure.

We did state primary and private secondary. I don't remember anything more than play in reception really, odd bit of story readying and fun number games. Nothing strenuous. Have you factored in the boredom in a few months when they advance Beyond what nursery is offering? Can cause w different kind of issue tbh

@Muthaofcats just realised you resurrected this from April 🙈 it's probably resolved one way or the other by now

We were so close to doing it with our son and last minute didn’t as we decided to go private and we worried about sport. Thank god we didn’t do it as our ds is a rugby nut and rugby is very difficult to play out of age group and it would have been a complete disaster for our son. You may not think it is a big thing now but our son does a full term of rugby each year from year 3 right through senior school and they generally play a minimum of 3 times a week they may get away with the training with their year but matches would likely need to be played with their actual year and they can’t do that if haven’t trained with them and the training for different years unlikely to be at the same time and even if they could manage it they would hate being segregated from their friends.

Out of curiosity what did you end up doing OP?

this can’t be right because the delayed start for summer born policy only came in a few years ago so the first children who benefited from the policy have only just started secondary school. So if you’ve heard of an 18 year old being affected that must be an entirely different set of facts. It is true that children are not statutorily required to stay at school after they turn a certain age; but if it’s only the law keeping your child at school you’ve got bigger issues….

@Muthaofcats I'm not 100% sure but I believe requesting to educate your child out of year group has always been around. It was just the summer born legislation meant that local authorities couldn't legally say no to those children. All other children have to be agree by the LA/school at the time. But it was just a thread that came up on here a few days ago.

The age thing for 18 is the ‘academic year they turn 18’; rather than they can walk out on their 18th birthday. (DD has an early September birthday and was actually 18 before starting yr 13). However it is true that it is harder to enforce attendance after GCSE. Children who do not attend any post 16 provision are classed as NEET (not in education, employment or training).

Not relevant to OP post though.