Please sign this petition regarding when summer-born children start school [headline edited by MNHQ]

[Sootball]

Yes I'm posting for traffic. But this is important. It really is. Because very few people know that the UK government are currently consulting on whether to change the guidance for allowing summer born children to defer a year.

And yes I know many start school at 4 and are ready, they have no problems, that they are the top set. But the research evidence does now show that socially and emotionally the summer born effect lasts for some into adulthood. This is simply about allowing those children who are NOT ready for school, whose self esteem and confidence will be impacted to wait a year.

If you care or have faced this issue then please can I ask you to take a moment and respond using this link >www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-the-school-admissions-code

Even if you are not sure what to write I have been advised in a box 5 the following will suffice Parents who wish their summer born (April 1st – August 31st inclusive) child to enter Reception class at compulsory school age must submit an application for the relevant academic year. The application must be treated equitably with children starting school prior to compulsory school age, and the child can remain with that year group cohort for the remainder of their education.

AND THANK YOU

"Unless there are specific needs that have been identified by professionals"

I disagree- I think parents are the best to judge over this.

I am sure you do disagree, as you chose to delay your DS.

Personally, I worry that many parents would choose to delay entry, not necessarily in the best interests of their DC (as in social or educational needs), but to ensure that their DC were the oldest in the class and therefore at a potential advantage.

And that could be dangerous thing.

could be a dangerous thing. Bloody phone and sausage fingers!

but if they can't cope with the school work they are just held back at reception level surely?several children my daughter went to primary school with stayed back in reception till they were better equipped although i don't think they were all summer born they all benefitted from the extra year so isn't the "petition" a bit pointless if schools can already do this?

The more I think of this, the more I think it's seriously misguided.

I don't think widening the age gap of peers in a class is a good thing at all. Especially in the younger years. I think that LEA's do right to not consider it tbh, the more they start, the more the floodgates may open.

If your dc is not ready for school at 4, fine, keep them off. Start them in R after Christmas, or Easter. Or start them in Year 1.

"but to ensure that their DC were the oldest in the class and therefore at a potential advantage.

But in practice that doesn't happen.

If they're not ready, defer and send them to year 1. There has to be a cut off somewhere.

My eldest is an August baby.

I find the pushy parents are those who want to send their kids to school as early as possible, not to delay.

downntheroad- that's not deferement, that's just delaying school entry.

My eldest is July born, my youngest is February born so either way, they could be at a disadvantage. My July born is one of the youngest of his cohort, if this change happened my February born would now be too.

No thanks.

I think the options available are suitable and I don't see anything else working really well in the state sector.

A decent school- such as the one my DS1 goes to- will differentiate work depending on pupil ability and will also help to bring on emotional maturity. Neither of which are exclusively found in the younger of the year group.

There has to be a cut off somewhere

THIS.

So what if universal rules were brought in that parents of those born April-August could delay for a year and start in Reception. And then over the coming months/years, the take up of this is huge.

Then you have a class full of Reception kids, many of whom are a lot older than they used to be. So expectations for these Reception kids (many of whom are actually of Year 1 age) gradually rise. They are bigger, older, can do more physically, have the skills to understand more complex instructions from the teachers, so forth.

Then you have the March borns as the disadvantaged because they just missed the chance to delay for a year. So then their parents want the cut off moved to January to even the gap of their own kids.

It has the potential to be a huge, snowballing mess.

I'm on the fence here

I think parents (actually ALL parents, not just those of summer borns) should have the choice to apply to defer entry.

BUT I think they should have to show some reason for the deferment. Unlike Bunnyjo I don't think it should necessarily have to be diagnosed SEN as that is such a high barrier, but there should be some particular demonstrable reason why their child will struggle to start reception as a 4 year old, more than other 4 year olds would.

For example

• they were premature and shouldn't really be 4 yet by corrected age (so eg they were born in August but should have been born in October)

• they have had a serious illness which has slowed their development - no SEN, just behind a bit

• their nursery report says they are not at the level of their peers in some ways

• they have had a difficult start eg been removed from parents/in different foster homes etc

This would ensure that children who are ready at 4 do start then and aren't held back just because their parent wants them to be the eldest in the year.

But why does there have to be a rigid cut off? Children vary so much in their development, academic, emotional and social abilities.

The deferement option in Scotland works very well and give a degree of flexibility.

This "huge snowballing mess" just doesn't happen in practice.

Of children born in the two months which would make them the youngest in the class 45% of parents deferred. Meaning 55% did not, instead choosing to send their younger children to school.
In practice this usually means that in a class of 25 there will be one or two children who have been deferred.

Hardly a "huge snowballing mess".

Mine was a summer born child and was perfectly happy and ready to start school at 4 and 3 months. His birthday has neither hindered or held him back in any way.

It might be suitable for some, but a whole year seems excessive. Surely they are then going to be significantly ahead of other children starting with them, thereby creating the opposite situation.

Possibly deferring to Jan may be doable, but then their classmates will be ahead!

You're not suggesting this is compulsory, are you?

I think we are all approaching this problem from the wrong angle
Given the leaps we have made in understanding child development, shouldn't we be looking at the provision in schools and making sure it is appropriate for the children's needs?
So the real question is not is my child ready for school but instead is school ready for my child?
Its the schoolification of early years that is the problem

The current research on summer born children is based on children who have had 2 fewer months education.

That is interesting, I don't realise that and it changes things a lot. We can't go about changing systems based on irrelevant research.

Combust22, you say that in practice, it doesn't happen that children's starts are deferred because of parents wanting to give their children an advantage, but that's because it isn't a reasonable option for most parents at the moment.

But if LEAs had to consider every case made by parents, and professional advice was not essential, then that would change. Especially in selective areas or where there are super selective grammar schools that parents want to use. It's inevitable, and it would undoubtably lead to disadvantage for some children because there are too many summer born children that do perfectly well and are even top in their standard year group.

I'd have been able to do it with my own late August born who has SEN, but was also top of the class all the way through primary and is now about average in his SS grammar school. That can't be right.

In an ideal world, there would be more flexibility. My DC's school operates as manicinsomniac describes her school - a non selective private school, they move DC between year groups according to their needs. My autumn-born DC1 was moved from nursery to YR, so in fact started just before he was 4, and has stayed with that year group. It was and remains the right decision for him, although he will repeat Y8 purely because I am not confident that he has the social and emotional maturity to thrive in a new, much bigger school being the youngest in the year by a couple of months. A number of his peers repeated a year somewhere along the way (mostly YR, Y4 or Y7), if parents and school felt that it was the best thing for them for academic, social or other reasons.

My (slightly earlier) autumn born DC2 has stayed with her "proper" year group. Not because she is academically any less able than DC1, but because it is the right place for her, and a peer group in which she is happy and thriving.

Sadly I suspect extending this sort of flexibility into the state sector would cause chaos in predicting school numbers and in meeting the needs of every child, as well as inevitably being abused by a minority in some way or other. It only works in the private sector because the school can say no, and if the parents disagree, well they are free to take their money elsewhere. State schools don't have that luxury.

This will not help children with signficant long term sen. They need early intervention not their parents being told it will be better to wait a year because by then they may have caught up /be ready.

This is my concern as well.

Ds is disabled, he is globally delayed, has no speech at all and has mobility issues. He turned 4 in July and started in reception 3 weeks ago.

We did have the option of delaying entry for a year, but our concern was that despite his delays he is popular and brighter than his lack of speech would lead people to assume, and we didn't think that preschool would be able to maintain all the various interventions he needs in order to progress.

I would be concerned that more parents with children with additional needs would be persuaded to delay their children for a year, rather than provide the support that their child would need in order to start school at the same time as their peers.

(Interesting to read what combust says about Scotland though - I didn't know that. Maybe it could work...)

Here in ROI most schools have a cut off of 31st March. Yes you still have the issue of youngest in the class, but at least that means that children are at least 4.5 before starting and they are more socially mature.

My DN was 4.3 starting about 10 years ago and DSis regrets sending her because she has confidence issues - DSis is a teacher and she agreed that at least 4.5 is a bit more mature.

DD would have been in school the day after her Aug 26th birthday this year if we had the same system as the UK.

DS on the other hand will go when he's 4.7 as he's Feb

Combust, I think if 45% of parents who are allowed to defer decide to do it, then yes it does create a huge problem.

Schools are used to just-turned 4 year olds starting reception. Expectations are set accordingly. If 45% of the youngest start to defer, then whoever is the youngest of the class, instead of being 12 months younger than the oldest, will be 16 or 18 months younger. Someone upthread pointed out quite rightly that if we start allowing this, expectations will change in schools and these younger kids will struggle even more. Likewise if your typical class usually has 4 or 6 summer borns and this number drops to 2 or 3, their "youth" vis-a-vis the rest of the class will stand out more.

I think we should seek solutions that work for the biggest number, not just allow some savvy parents to play the system.

Anyways, this is all theoretical as tiggytape has explained that this is not at all what the consultation is about.

But the proof is in the pudding.

The system in Scotland works very well. Usually there are only one or two deferements per class. Some parents think they are giving their child an advantage by sending them to school as early as they can.
Many 4.5 year olds are ready for school.

I appreciate what you are saying primaface, but in practice there are very few problems.

I wouldn't support a rule which allowed 45% of parents to defer their summer born child. That's too many - the remaining summer born children would then be very much in a minority, the standards expected of the class as a whole would rise (especially as the class would actually be older overall due to last year's deferred summer borns) leaving those remaining undeferred summer borns even more at a disadvantage, etc.

I would support a rule which allows deferment in exceptional cases as I say above. I would expect there to be maybe one "exceptional case" every year or two. Not 45% of each year.

It's not 45% of the whole year, it's 45% of the children in the two youngest months.

I am interested in the research you keep quoting - do you have a link to it?

As a secondary teacher I see very little impact on the students long term with all sets seeming to have a good mix of months born.

In fact the two best students I have taught in the past few years (we are talking A* across the board) are in the correct year group and one is an April and one is right at the end of August birthday. I know this is just a one off example but I really don't see a long term impact on students by the age of 16.