please help - should ds start school this Sept or not?

[baskingseals]

Ds1 will be 4 on the 25th August this year. Dh and other people in the family think he should start school the following week. I am really torn about it. I like having him around, and I think he is too young to go anyway. Dh says it's about my inability to let go. I really don't know what to think. He will either be the absolute youngest or oldest in his year (if he goes next year). I just wondered if anybody had any experience of this sort of situation and could give some advice. Thanks.

Gosh - interesting thread.

Main thing that stands out is KIDS ARE DIFFERENT. Each parent knows their child best.

There is no good pedagogical evidence that it is beneficial to children to start formal education at 4. The school starting age has been lowered to facilitate women returning to the workplace and contributing to GDP.

Joining school at 5, 6 or 7 (typical ages in Europe) will not necessarily disadvantage a child. It depends on what else they are doing in that time and the overall quality of the home environment and education (in the widest sense) they receive.

My DC started in year 2 at 6/7. Neither could read. DS did not know his alphabet. 9 months later he was reading C S Lewis. OK - he's a bright kid, but the point is he was READY to learn. He didn't spend 2 years (as a large number of small boys do) developing negative assocations about "not being able to read" because they are not developmentally ready.

OP - follow your instinct. People vastly over-estimate the importance of school IMHO. What goes on at home, the stability of family life, the experiences to which the child is exposed etc is far more important in the early years.

In our LEA at present, the summer born children don't start school until the January, there are two intakes. However, from Sep 2012 they are moving to one intake. Just to reassure you, Reception should be very like nursery. My DS is in pre-school at present and my DH is a reception teacher, and both environments are really very similar. Reception tends to be sympathetic to children falling asleep, having toileting accidents etc. At the same time, they get to see what the school is like. I think is is a good transition if done well. I am surprised you've been offered mornings only, as at our primary school everyone has to do five full days from day one.

My DD3 has just started reception this January. She is an August child and we decided to defer her entry at school as felt she was happy with her combination of Pre-school and spending time at home with mum. We felt that starting school so soon after her 4th birthday was a bit too soon and that waiting until January would be better and closer to the age that her older siblings were when they started school. Each child is different and I would trust your instinct as to when you think he is ready.

DD3 was the only child to start school in January as the rest of the class started in September but she has settled fine and we feel her confidence improved so much last term with her being the oldest at Pre-school. Reception classes at school are far more play based nowadays and so the transition from home to school seems more gentle. We don't regret waiting until January and she is certainly not behind in her development than the children already at school.

I would encourage you to help prepare your son for school by joining a pre-school even if it is just for mornings or a few sessions a week as this will help him to socialise with other children. The rolling around under the table will pass I'm sure as he starts to show more interest in what else is going on. It will also help him to start to be a little bit more independent from you which is what we all hope to achieve for a happy transition to school.

Unless your child has special needs, I would recommend you start him at school in September with his peers. He won't be the only August baby, there will be a complete spread of ages with which the teacher will be well aware of and adapt the curriculum according to their individual needs. My dd was born in August and there are 6 others and 4 younger than her.

If you defer for a year it is highly unlikely he will get to start with the reception children, he will then be landed straight into the year 1 class. Not only will he have the disadvantage of being one of the youngest, but also be disadvantaged from missing that first year of making friends, learning the routines of school and those early learning experiences.

You can defer until the term after a child turns 5. However for your DS this would mean going straight into year 1. When your son gets given a place at a school you have to take that place up by the beginning of the summer term. If you choose to defer until year 1 you have to reapply for the place and if your school is an oversubscribed one then he will have to go to a different school.

I actually think there is nothing wrong with deferring and most of the stuff they do at school you can do with him at home anyway. 4 is much too young to go to school. If DS was NT I definitely would have held him back.

However I think the jump from reception to year 1 is much bigger than the one from nursery to reception so I would have ensured he started by the beginning of the summer term. Don't worry about friendship groups already being formed etc. My friend's DD moved schools at the beginning of the summer term of her reception year and has been fine.

The law has changed in the UK as of this year - and now parents have the right not only not to send their children to school until they are five but also for the school to hold the place until the start of the summer term (any child born after april has to start the summer term of reception or miss out the year). Previously you could defer but the school had the right not to hold the place. However, the school does have the right not to accomodate part time requests.

The relevant thread on this is called Deferring school entry - England.

And the most useful post was by Saracen:

"The document you need is the School Admissions Code www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/

This is statutory guidance to LAs. Your Local Authority should know it inside and out and should be aware that it directs them to keep the school place waiting for the child. It was issued more than a year ago and is fairly central to how they operate. There's no excuse for them to be in ignorance of its contents at this late date.

I'm sure you won't have any fight on your hands if you just fire off a quick note quoting to the LA from this document so they can look it up. They should be quite embarrassed to have overlooked this. That isn't to say that the school and LA might not try to discourage you from choosing deferral. Many LAs seem to be leaning on parents with the argument that earlier is always better and the old peer pressure tactic. ("Everyone else is starting in September; do you want your child to be the odd one out?") But it should be straightforward to exercise the option if you are clear that it's what you want."

kattyo Do you know what's the latest you can let the LA know that you are deferring by?

First of all, I'm so sorry - I didn't realise that there were four pages of replies and all this had been raised already. I just saw the first page. Otherwise I would not have repeated this again...
As for your second quesiton - I'm afraid I don't know. I am going to wait and see if we even get a place anywhere and then ring up the LEA and ask them for more information.