Delay school start this year

[Junebuggirl]

Hi,

I have a lovely almost 4 year old due to start school this September, place has been confirmed etc. I was talking to another parent whose child is the same age and they are delaying school start. Their child has no development issues she just said they'll do better being the oldest not youngest.
I've literally never heard of a child not starting school unless there was a real need is this something a lot of people do now?
Starting to feel worried now as potentially my child could be with children who delayed from the previous year and could be nearly 16 months older. It just doesn't feel right and I feel I could be letting my child down or setting them up for a tough journey. Is this the norm or exception? Should I seriously consider delaying my DC starting school for another year so they aren't at a disadvantage?

That is why the Government introduced the option to defer Reception start to age 5 for summerborns a decade a ago (for England): because of the huge volume of research demonstrating the benefits to children from starting school at 5 not only just 4. The UK is a huge outlier with starting school at such a young age. There are very good reasons most countries do not do so!

If you are in England that is not the case. Admissions authorities have to follow the national guidance and processes.

I would check with the school where you are because where I am my august born DD would have started straight into year one with all the peers she would have been with anyway in reception, except she would have missed out on the leaning in reception and gone in with no knowledge of phonics, maths and being the new girl not knowing anyone. She's just finished reception and has loved it! Has done really well and it achieving as expected, she went in not knowing any of her letters but done fine and really enjoyed the social aspect and playing in her lessons.

My kids are in school in wales where they start part time in school aged 3 in the nursery class. My son was 3 years and 2 weeks when he started and I had to get him aged 2-3 school uniform he was so tiny. He’s going to high school in September and is above average in all his subjects. Sports wise, he definitely took longer to catch up with some of his older friends but I think had he been deferred (which wasn’t an option at the time), he would have hated being in his local football team with the children in his birth year who wouldn’t be the children in his class. As it is, he is in a few sporting teams all with his classmates as they are all the same north year.

on the other hand, my second is a sept baby and although was more than ready to start school, is definitely not as academic as his brother and is currently achieving below average in reading and maths. So I would say it is totally child dependant and not always the end of the world to be a summer baby. I’m also a summer baby and have done fine- I never felt at a disadvantage to peers, just annoyed the year they all turned 17 before me and I wanted to learn to drive 😂

Mine is a summer baby and we will be applying to defer him this September. My older one has just finished reception - yes it’s play based, but there’s a lot of work, a lot of expectations. Things like sitting still in assembly, navigating the lunch hall and the playground, being in the nativity, there’s no way my second will be ready at just turned 4. And what I’m more worried about is at just turned 5 the year 1 work will be way too much for him.

But everyone has to make their own decision. It’s weird to “resent” the fact that there may be children 16m older in your class. Decide whether to apply for the referral based on your assessment of your child and their needs/abilities, not based on which other children may be in the class.

I'm part of an august / September antenatal group. None of the kids have been held back and those who are early September knew their kids were ready at the same time ours were but they had no choice. A lot of them were very bored in nursery.

My DD is 28th august and the youngest in her class. She's done really well in reception. Will have to see what happens in year 1 but I have a lot of parents say to me that they can't believe she's still only 4 as she's as physically able and confined as those who were just about to turn 5 when they started.

I don't think it is common at all. My dd is summer born and had a severe speech disorder when she started reception, but I felt she was ready (and I couldn't have afforded another year of nursery!) and she settled in really well, despite being one of the youngest.

DS2 went to full time school at 3yrs 8mths. We lived in Wales at the time, well over 20yrs ago, and because the school intake was tiny that year they were going to lose a teacher so they offered the 12 oldest nursery children an early reception place. We jumped at the chance, my mother thought I was awful.

The theory was that the children were just going to play and not follow the curriculum, but it didn’t work like that for some of them and by the Christmas DS2 was whizzing through reading books, literacy and numeracy. If he hadn’t have wanted to do it, he wouldn’t have because he was a stubborn little thing. His social skills came on in leaps and bounds too. He ended up repeating Yr2 because we moved area and obviously he had to fit into the correct year group, there.

He never suffered for going to school early, imo he benefited from it.

Read this

Lol. In reality they do have to agree, because the only legal grounds for declining the request would be that they prove it is in the child's best interest to miss the whole of reception, per the national process set out very clearly in Government documents. And then enter year one as a new child without any school experience or friends. And that they know better than the parents what is good for the child, having never even met the child. 🤣 It's quite obvious they would not be able to prove this is in any child's interest. Hence every time an LA has been obstructive and taken to a tribunal the parents have won: there is legal precedent now so even the LAs that were previously obstructive have stopped trying to block requests now because they know they will lose. This isn't new, the rules have been in place for a decade and well tested. If parents want to defer they can, even if the LA doesn't like it.

And particularly given all of the longitudinal research demonstrating that statistically it's highly unlikely to be beneficial to start earlier, hence the deferral policy being introduced in the first place! 🤣

It’s becoming more common because of the fact deferred children now mostly go into reception the following year, rather than going into Year 1.

There is one school local to us that is still trying to insist on tbt straight into Year 1 route to put people off (someone is having legal wranglings with them atm over it).

Out of interest what happens at secondary school age?

Especially if you are in a grammar school area? I think they are really strict about about age ranges, would this mean you would effectively not do year 6 if you wanted to apply for a grammar school?

I am a TA. I really wouldn’t worry. Teachers are very experienced with summer borns. All assessment results are adjusted for age so don’t worry in that regard either.

Round here they now go to high school with the children they’ve been through school with. The La guarantee that if they have a delayed start they stay with that cohort the whole way through.

Not a grammar school area though.

Which they'll lose! I guess some people are slow learners. Or just have such poor Governors/ trustees that they haven't researched the legal position and precedents. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They stay in their adopted cohort throughout education. 11+ is not an issue as the results are adjusted for age anyway.

Yep. He’s got away with it so far by pissing people off enough they say “I don’t want my kids to go there anyway” and give up and get a place elsewhere.

The Ht is an arsehole tbh. He’s brought in a £130 blazer right at the time most schools are trying to be more cost considerate with uniform options.

My DS is a summer born baby and I thought about deferral, but the reality was that he would go into year 1, not year R. He’d been in nursery since he was a baby and as it turned out he was more than emotionally and socially ready for school, and went with a lot of his peers from nursery. He’s 15 now and he has fully kept pace, in spite of being small for his age (a double whammy) and he looks tiny compared to some of his friends who are fully through puberty and look like big men now (one has a moustache!). Academically he holds his own, though he could work (a lot) harder than he does. He’s a typical teenager, and often more mature than some of his big lug friends who are about to turn 16 (in a month 😳).

Same situation exists at secondary transfer as for primary application: national guidance is in place that LAs must follow (and academies etc), the same rules apply i.e. To refuse to keep them in their adopted cohort a local authority would have to prove it was in a child's best interest to skip year 6 or 7 and leave all their friends... impossible. Therefore in practice impossible to refuse and if they try and are challenged they lose and then learn. More enlightened LAs just have it as a box to tick on the application form now as in Scotland, some dinosaur ones are behind but there is no legal way for them hold up a refusal in practice. I'm sure it'll become straightforward everywhere before long when the laggers cotton on to the rules.

The Ht is an arsehole tbh. He’s brought in a £130 blazer right at the time most schools are trying to be more cost considerate with uniform options.

That's shocking! Especially when there was new guidance from Government on that exact issue too, effective from Sept 22, stating schools must minimise logoed or expensive items.

My Dd has just turned 8 she’s the youngest in her class, I worried she’d struggle with the work or with friends before she started but she’s top group reading and her best friend turns 9 in a few weeks. Of course it depends on the child but being one of the younger ones doesn’t mean they ll struggle at all. If anything I think DD Would have been bored if she was the year below.

GCSEs? A-levels? Degrees? No, they are not.

It isn't about "will they be ok in reception?". Or even YR1 or YR2. It's about the impact socially, emotionally and academically all the way through. The impacts persist to adulthood. The data is clear. Hence the deferral policy having been put in place. People saying a child "seems ready" at 4 are taking a huge gamble because they have no idea how that child will develop and statistically it is much more likely they'll struggle with some or all of the above if they start school just after turning 4, than at 5. It's difficult to comprehend why anybody would take those extra risks with their child's wellbeing when they don't have to.

He’s the kind of HT who will take full advantage of how woolly the guidance is actually worded.

It’s full of “should consider”, “where possible” and “should”. There are very few “must” parts of it. It’s basically asking schools to think about cheaper uniform. It’s going to take someone fighting a school through courts to make some HT’s read it as a must do.

There are disadvantages that come later that never seem to get mentioned:

• Grammar school 11+ test results are adjusted for age by almost all councils (so being the eldest is a disadvantage)

• can stand out for being bigger/hitting puberty first

• when you are older you have to explain to peers why you are in the wrong year

• If your kid has a problem later (parent seriously sick, they get sick etc) then you potentially could hold them back at that point rather than them falling 2 years out of step. You kind of have a year in reserve if you need it!

Hold back if there are concerns, don't hold back if your kid is fine! I ummed and ahhed over holding my summer born back - very, very glad I didn't!