Deferring

[kattyo]

HI,
I was trying to explain to a primary school headteacher today about the right of deferral until January. I got nowhere. This new bit of administration seems to be very poorly diseminated (in fact hse told me specifically that they had been told they had to fill immeadiately any places that came up and could NOT defer).

I need to clarify this (my LEA were extremely vague).
Just to make sure I have this right:

The admissions code now gives parents the right to defer until the term after their child turns five - or the summer term if they turn five after April

Parents don't just have the right to defer entry - in general - but the right to defer entry to the particular school at which they have been given a place.

I do not know - as I was asked - how this will affect funding for the school. (But I remember a previous poster saying it will not affect their funding providing the child starts by April).

Parents have the right to ASK for their hcild to go part time until they turn five (with the april start proviso as above) but hte school also has the right of refusal.

Please can someone help me, so I can hand this back to the headteacher (and send a copy to my LEA!).

Thanks.

How it work for us I think is if the child is not in full time school in January the school doesn't get the full time money for them for the financial year (i.e. if they aren't in on Jan 2011, the school don't get their full time money until April 2012!) I can see why heads stress - they have to support a full time child for a full year on part time money, without compromising the quality of care the children receive.

How it work
How it works

What is deferring or delaying school entry?
Under present education legislation, parents may make the decision to either defer or delay their child?s entry into Reception class at primary school.

* Deferring school entry allows the child to begin school at a later date than September but joining their own age-peer group. This could mean anything from missing one term to missing the whole of the Reception year. 
* Delaying school entry is defined as holding back a child from joining their own age-peer group and starting school a year later. This means the child will chronologically be the oldest in the class. 

entry to primary schools

2.69 Admission authorities must allow parents of children who are offered a place at the school before they are of compulsory school age to defer their child?s entry until later in the school year. Where entry is deferred, admission authorities must hold the place for that child and not offer it to another child. The parent would not however be able to defer entry beyond the beginning of the term after the child?s fifth birthday, nor beyond the academic year for which the original application was accepted. This must be made clear in the admission arrangements for the school.

We had this situation last year with our daughter. The schools told us that they would not hold the place open and that all children must attend full time from the September term...
Our daughter was born prematurely in August and was definitely not ready for school in September and I knew that paragraph 2.69 (above) stated that we could defer until the Jan or Summer term.
In the end my husband wrote a letter to the head stating that we would like to hold the place open until the summer term in line with government policy (he then quoted the paragraph above). They couldn't argue with this so we got our way.