I'm in Bradford not Devon.
Bradford used have the policy as of right . As did Leeds.
Then they decided to change this - in the very year that would affect me
Of course, the school, and our paediatrician and speech therapist, had been unaware of the threatened change, so they had advised me in clear terms that it was in Ds2's best interests to defer. We all considered it a non-brainer, a non-decision. Now of course they have to lie and say "it'll be fine...." but that's another topic.
I only found out about the threatened change because DH came home with the local paper which contained a one-liner aside at the bottom of an article about something else.... called the council.... found out the meeting was in 2 hours' time.... got on a train....called a couple of councillors from the train...... it turned out there was divided opinion and so the councillors who were in favour of sticking with deferral came through for me.
The following year, of course, Sir Jim Rose's report came out. My views on his treatment of this issue are apparent if you look at threads passim. The kindest thing I can say is that it was not very thorough.
What happened next was that those in the LEA who were against deferral cited Jim Rose's report as meaning that deferral was now forbidden. They proposed amending bradford's policy again the following year (once I was no longer affected). I made representations and got them to put a special needs exception into their formal policy document. So the policy then stated that exceptions can be made on the advice of a relevant professional such as a paediatrician or speech therapist (they just cut and pasted my language which I'd chosen as a half-way house)
But what they don't do is report this in their admissions literature. it's like a secret.
Of course the policy could have changed again now - I no longer follow it - I'm not that obsessed!
We mananged to get Jim Rose on to mumsnet for a webchat - look it up. After lots of support from others I managed to get him to concede - and this is the important thing for you - that he had never intended there to be no exceptions.
But Jim Rose's report killed off the very real energy there had been - the brief to Rose from the then Labour minister had specifically asked him to rule on allowing year-deferral as of right. So it was pretty upsetting that he completely dropped the ball.
So, you need to do your research. You need to find out what the LEA's policy is - and to do that you need their policy document - their official document, not what they tell you the policy is. In Bradford this is something approved by the executive committee of Bradford Council. It's probably similar in your LEA but you need to do your research into their systems very thoroughly.
If their policy actually forbids year-deferral (which I doubt) then you have to persuade them to change it. If not, you have a different sort of battle to fight.
So find out what the real battle is, get friendly with your local councillor and good luck.
By the way, I have a name change history - linglette and backtolingle were aliases I used to post extensively on this issue.