Can the school kick us/DS out for wanting to go to school?

[ABitTipsy]

DS has just started in reception. He is born and the school have a policy, decided by the governors, that summer born children can only attend part time til January.

This means my DS misses out on the important issue of making friends and getting used to the normal school day and routine including having his lunch there etc. simply because he was born at a certain time of year. He will have to come home and have his lunch at home and get bored whilst the rest of his class mates carry on getting to know each other, forming friendships, getting to know the staff and he will have to do all this in January, a full term after the others.

I am going to see the head teacher next week to ask about the school's reasons for this policy in case there is some benefit to my child in missing out on half a day at school ever day for a term that I do not know about. If not I will tell her that I will send in my DS with a packed lunch and he will stay for the full day like all the other full time children.

I can't see what the school can do about a pupil who wants to attend school but isn't allowed to.

Has anyone been through this situation? How did you handle it?

TIA

Sorry, DS is summer born

Speak to the school, maybe you can make the case that part or full time should be based on the individuals child's readiness for school. Most children will have attended nursery. Some children are in nursery from 8-6pm from a very young age and therefore their birth date will be no indication of their readiness to spend a full day in school.

i would have thought it was preferable for summer born children to go to school a term later.

Say if your child is born in August, if he goes to school in the September, he may well be a full year younger than a child with a September birthday.

I think it is better for the child to go a term later. he will not have any problem settling in - he will be in a cohort of other children whose birthdays are later in the year.

When my dd started school, there was a great hue and cry because her school only had the one intake in the September, so a lot of mothers concerned that their children would be starting school aged barely 4, so would be at a disadvantage to the older ones. As it turned out the younger children took a longer time to settle than the older ones - it would have been far preferable for the younger children to all have started in January.

It's actually very common and standard procedure round here. Consider yourself lucky that it's only till Christmas these days. When DD1 started (also a summer baby) she had to go part time till Easter!

will be itnerested to know outcome. i had similar prob with dd1 - was told no go wrt to starting early. dd2 also summer baby and am waiting to se her reaction when told her friends can stay all day but she can't...

I wouldn't kick up a stink to be honest.

Presumably he isn't the ONLY child leaving at lunchtime? By the law of averages, at least 1/3 will be?

DS2 was summer born and we had this policy at his school.
Although he'd been at nursery 9-6, he wasn't actually emotionally and physically ready for a whole day of school in the Sept-Dec period.

Why does your son have to have his lunch at home and get bored? Get to know some of the other mums and organise kid-swaps for afternoons, or get together and go out.
Not only will your son get to know the other kids and establish friendships that way, but you will too.

If you make a 'stand' about this now, you & your son will forever be remembered as the 'awkward' ones.

10 weeks of missing school lunch and afternoon 'play' (which is usually what it is anyway) is not a deal-breaker in the context of 14 years of school!

"i would have thought it was preferable for summer born children to go to school a term later."

This is the co-called "rising 5" policy that Birmingham had in the 1970s. It was a total disaster, and was stopped.

I'm an autumn child. So, I started in a reception class in September 1969, with about 10 others. I had a term in a class of ten, forming friendships and learning to read rapidly, thanks to being in a small group.

Then ten more arrived at Christmas. The teacher now had to teach twenty, differentiated at two levels (roughly). Teaching them to read (or whatever) had to fit in around keeping the first cohort going.

Then ten more arrived at Easter. The teacher now has thirty.

Come September, we all start in year 1.

So I had 10% of the teacher's time for a term, then 5% of the next, then 3% of the last test, which means over the course of the year I got 6% of a teacher-year. The people that started at Easter got 3% of a teacher for one term, or 1% of a teacher-year. By being born in the autumn, I had SIX TIMES the resource available for my first year at school.

GetOrfMoiLand - Starting later in the year will NOT put a child in a cohort of other children with birthdays later in the year. The child will go into exactly the same class they would have gone into in September, so a summer born child may still be a full year younger than the oldest child in the class.

ABitTipsy - If you feel strongly about this, you may want to point out to the school that the Admissions Code suggests that it will be up to parents to choose whether their children are part time or full time from September 2011. They may therefore want to rethink their policy.

"The child will go into exactly the same class they would have gone into in September, so a summer born child may still be a full year younger than the oldest child in the class."

And, of course, the older children will have fully formed friendship groups, established relationships with the school, be at home with lunch and break arrangements, etc, etc. As I say, it was operated in Birmingham and was widely regarded as a total disaster. If you have a summer children (I do) and regard them as not ready to start the September before they turn five (unlike me), then the most sensible option is to wait until they are five and start them as the oldest child in their year the following September. This is legal (children do not to enter compulsory education until the school year following their fifth birthday) but may cause secondary schools to hate you deeply and object to your presence (because children who are 16 or over at the point of taking GCSEs do not count towards their metrics).

It is normal procedure here in Essex and where we used to live in Kent - I don;t think you will get very far sending him with a pack lunch and sying he ahs to stay - they do not have to take your child until he is a certain age.

DD was a july birthday and is no different to the other kids in her class who started full days earlier than her and DS is a november birthday so went straight into full days in september but it hasn;t affected either fo them negatively.

Do you want to go back to work or save on child care or something?

Anyone wanting to delay a year as tokyonambu suggests needs to check with their LA and the school first. Many will insist that the child then goes into Y1 rather than Reception, so they will still be the youngest in the year. To make matters worse, you will have a limited choice of places as most schools will already be full.

Even if the school will still allow the child to start in Reception, you also need to find out how secondary schools will deal with the situation. Many will move the child into the "correct" year, effectively missing a year's education.

tokyo they still have that system here in Wales.

Children start in Reception the term after they turn 4. So September born DS1 started in the January and had 5 terms in Reception. February born DD started after Easter and will have 4 terms in Reception. May born DS2 started in September and had 3 terms in Reception.

I definitely think there are some ways in which it benefits certain children. DS1 had a lot longer to get used to the routines of school before moving into Year 1, but he was getting bored by the end of Reception. DS2 on the other hand really didn't settle down in Reception and it took him until the end of Year 1 to really get the hang of the school routine (by which time he was about the same age as DS1 was when he started year 1).

I don't think it had too much impact on friendship groups though as they mainly all came from the same nursery school. DD's "best friend" from nursery school started Reception in the January, but was still her best friend when DD started in April.

Round here all children start in September, but until the term after their 5th birthday it is up to the parents how much time they spend at school (as long as they keep it the same week to week). So most of the oldest children go full time straight away, some have 1 or 2 afternoons off and some of the real littlies do 4 mornings and 1 full day - basically whatever the parents think will suit their child best.

It works BRILLIANTLY. I cannot understand why every school doesn't do the same.

what do the children of working parents do? If DS's school implement this he will be spending the afternoon with a CM!
Seriously, is school really that much of a jump for children who have been to nursery?

Bridge - yes I realise that they will all go in the same class, however there will be (say) a cohort of 10 or so kids who are in the same situation. Your DC will not be the lone child starting school in this way.

I thought the rising 5 thing was prevalent all over in the 70s/80s. I have a late birthday and started school at easter. It made absolutely no difference to my school life than if I had started 6 months earlier. I was perfectly fine and happy and xcertainly was NOT disadvataged. These children are 4/5. They are going to be colouring in and doing educational play. Breaking down their teacher time into percentages for the first year is barking, imo.

I'd have been glad of that policy if I'd lived in England when DD went to school.
Her birthday is 28th August.
She'd only been out of nappies 4 months!

As it is I live in Scotland and she started a week or so before her 5th birthday, after doing two years of (free) preschool, and she did a half term of mornings only at school.
It worked really well for her.

I wasn't working at the time but if I had been, she'd have gone to a CM in the afternoons, as she did when I was at college and she was at preschool.

I really think parents should have the choice. Some children are ready for a full day.

My summer born DD had to do full days from Sept in reception...can you imagine the fuss if I'd told them I was only bringing her in the morning?

And yes, for working parents half days must be a nightmare.

Again, where I live, summer-born children (like both of mine) don't start full-time until the Easter before they are five.
My understanding is that schools don't get to decide their own policy on this, it would be the LA - basically, the morning sessions are the nursery entitlement, so the child is not a (fully funded!) reception pupil until the term before their 5th birthday.
And yes, on the days I work, my 2 had to go back to their nursery in the afternoons. We moved house (!) to be able to use a nursery that would collect from a local school at 11.45.

Hi, sorry to have posted and run, had a busy day. Thanks for all your responses. A bit of a mixed bag as is usually the case with any threads on this topic.

My point is that the school governors' policy in deciding that all summer born children could not possibly be ready for full time school in September is deeply flawed. Every child develops at a different rate and the parents should be the arbiter of the decision.

In my school's case they are also inconsistent and contradictory in their idea that summer born children need special treatment because I have another older, also summer born child at the school. My older child has struggled with reading and arithmetic and every time I mentioned to her teacher(s) that it could be because my older child is summer born and one of the youngest, I was told categorically "No", being summber born makes no difference to their ability to learn. So which is it? I think the school needs to decide, either consistently make special provision in teaching summer born children from reception at least until the age of 7, or treat them all the same from day 1.

Also, DS's teacher confirmed that in the afternoons, after the younger children have gone home, all the older ones will do is play and the younger ones will not miss out on any 'learning'. But, if all they do is play in the afternoons, why can't the summer born children stay on and play? Playing in class with your classmates, especially when they are all mostly new to the school and each other is immensely important in forming friendships, bonding, learning to get on with each other. I do not want my DS being excluded from this seemingly unimportant afternoon 'play' times.

My DS is a bright little boy. He wants to learn. He has a thirst for knowledge. I am not a teacher, I am not trained or qualified or experienced in teaching young children, not do I have the resources at home that they have at school. Therefore, to deprive him of the opportunity to learn through play for a whole term afternoons in my opinion is just wrong.

I have spoken to my LEA and they have confirmed that the school cannot withdraw my DS's school place if I insist that he does full days at school. Yes the head teacher and governors will get in a tizz about my audacity but quite frankly I don't care. Their job is educate my child, that is why my DH and I pay our taxes. And if a school says they are unwilling to educate a child who is ready, able and more than willing to learn, then what sort of crazy society are we living in?

Just re-reading some of your posts. I need to investigate a bit more but I am beginning to think that the governors' policy may be based on financial considerations. Perhaps they do not get funding for children until the term after they turn 5. But that doesn't make sense anyway as DS will still not be 5 by the time he starts full time in January so they will not be receiving funding for him at that point anyway.

And I am a full time SAHM. Have been for 7 years. So I don't have childcare issues etc with the part time place. My only issue is what is best for my child.

Well, I'm not a child psychologist or academic researcher, or anything like that, but I did help out in Reception as a parent helper in reception for 3 years, and my observation and opinion is that the after Christmas start is a good thing for summer born kids.

Is it a state school? Ours was. And a classroom full of 30 noisy, boisterous, fidgetty 4-5 year olds can be an over-whelming place for the very young ones.
It's not like nursery - they don't have sleep spaces on mats/beanbags, in fact there isn't really anywhere to retreat to if it all gets a bit much.

The summer born children (incl. my DS - Aug born) were the ones who were tearful, tired, sometimes having 'accidents', more prone to getting upset about 'friendships'/sharing etc.
It's simply an awful lot for a young 4-year-old to cope with for 6-7 hours. IMO the phased entry is much kinder.

There's lots of research which suggests that being summer born DOES create a disadvantage - especially for boys. I have two boys, one dec-born & one Aug-born, and I don't think the difference disappears until they are about 10/11 to be honest.

The OP says "I am not a teacher, I am not trained or qualified or experienced in teaching young children, not do I have the resources at home that they have at school."

• Do you have books, or a library nearby?
• Do you have a park?
• Jamjars/paint, paper, pencils, clay etc etc

I think you're over-estimating the value of the afternoon sessions! Mostly it will be 'crowd control' while a teacher/TA /parent helper try to corale groups of 10 kids around various art/playground or lego brick activities - nothing that you couldn't do at home, or with friends...

Do you work full-time?

I would take issue with the school as the policy would make working parents lives a misery, is there a preschool he could go to in the afternoon? My dd has also just started in reception and they are doing 5-6 weeks of just mornings, as a working single mum it has made childcare arrangements quite complicated and now involves, breakfast clubs,the preschool and a childminder (with the afterschool club as backup!!!)It would end up costing a fortune if continued for several months!!!

OK- just seen that you're a SAHM.... but sorry, you DO sound like you're keen to get rid of him ASAP!