Reception school admission - Early born

[vincini4]

My daughter will be three year old in this August 2011. She will start Nursery from Sep 2011. She born 8 weeks early in August ( Initially expected in October) 2008 and spent about 5 weeks in neonatal. Her birth weight is very low. We as a parent found that she is behind her peer group. We are happy with the nursery place allocation. We would like to understand the options available to us regarding reception start date. We live in Kingston upon Thames Surrey.

We would like her to start her reception class after her fifth birthday ie from September 2013. What are the supporting document needed to achieve this? Or In 2009, there was press release from department of eduction regarding parental choice for summer born children from 2011. Is this applicable in my case?

In short,
Sep 2011 to 2012 - Nursery
Sep 2013 to 2014 ? Reception at one of the allocated school

Sep 2012 to 2013 - If she can start the reception after 5 years, Will she be allocated a full time place in say Nursery ( assumed we full-fill the selection criteria)? . What are the option I have in this academic year regarding full time education?

Any pointers to help achieve the above would be greatly received.

Thanks.

By the way, when you say she is "behind her peer group", do you mean she is behind most kids in the year group she's due to go into? Or do you mean she's behind the peer group of kids born in the same month as her? If former, you may get less support. If the later, you may get taken seriously.

Another tip if all else fails. Choose a school with 1 1/2 form entry that mixes its classes. Children who are behind often survive reception quite well but then flounder in Year 1. In our school. most autumn-born Year 1s went into a mixed Year 1/2 class. Most summer-borns went into a pure Year 1 class and then, the following year, the less mature ones went into a mixed Year 1/Year 2 class. This gave the summer borns a lifeline as follows. Reception: youngest but it's playbased.... Year 1: still youngest but at least a tighter peer group up to about 6 months older than them Year 2: hurray! not the youngest for a change!

A school with a pure reception class and a mixed reception/Year 1 class would be even better for obvious reasons.
I would also recommend a school that has its own onsite nursery - our school used to place children who were clearly not ready socially/developmentally for reception into the nursery where they could learn with true peers.

Hi - just wanted to let you know that there have been recent studies into the effect of prematurity on learning and achievement at school - I am not an expert in it by any means, but I am a parent rep on a neonatal board in London. Through his I met Prof Neil Marlow from UCLH who specialises in looking at outcomes for prem babies throughout their lives - he spoke quite convincingly to a group of us parent reps to say that he frequently writes to LEAs, etc, on behalf of parents to support their requests to delay starting school. He said he happily did this for anyone who asked, as he felt it was so important. The outcome information he gave (if I remember correctly) was that those who start in the school year right for their actual birth as opposed to the one right for their due date usually require a lot more support to reach their potential; he said the way the brain develops at a late stage in the womb makes it harder for prem children to concentrate but because they are not disruptive (necessarily) it is often missed and support for this might not be given (child just thought to be dreamy etc). I may be completely misrepresenting what he said, but he was very convincing at the time, and if my son had not been born in September (also 8 weeks early!) I would be thinking about applying late for school, based solely on what he said.

Might be worth contacting Prof Marlow for some advice? His contact details are here: www.uclh.org/OurServices/Consultants/Pages/ProfNeilMarlow.aspx

He was very friendly and even had premature twins himself, so he knows about it from a parent perspective too.

Cheekydino, that's interesting; dd is hopeless at concentrating. And, Southofthethames, of course I totally agree that she was really clever and thinking outside the box to have said "baby dalmatians". Although we now know she is simpy daft; today we were discussing death and all its implications and she suddenly asked 'Why aren't we all just made of cucumber?'

The point about a good teacher being able to differentiate but not to change the nature of a class od children is a good one - I hadn't put it into words even to myself before, but that was my major worry. Even now, I strongly fear that dd (why aren't we made of cucumber) will struggle to fit into a little group of very conventional girls. I almost hope she doesn't.