Deferring School Entry

[prembaby27]

Hello everyone. I really need to know if there is anyone out there who can help me fight our LEA. Our son was born prematurely on 27th August - 2 months too early. The LEA are insisting he begins joins his chronological cohort, but his social and emotional development is behind these peers. We are having to obtain evidence, but all the LEA are concerned with are his cognitive and language skills. His case is marginal but he will be the youngest in his cohort and has been assessed at being 3 months behind, which the LEA say is within acceptable limits.

If he was born 5 days later there would be no issue! We seem to be fighting against an immovable August/September datum which may cause our son to struggle throughout his education.

Has anyone experienced a similar issue? Has anyone managed to overturn this child-unfriendly rule?

I'm not an expert but I thought that you are only legally obliged to send you child to school in the term that they turn 5. So, for instance, your DC could join the class after Christmas or after Easter. But then they would still be with the same children.
I have only heard or one or two examples of a child being 'backclassed' after about 10 years of involvement with schools. It CAN happen so keep trying. Good luck.

your not legally obliged to send you child ever, home ed him tell his 7 then rethink.

Hi Prembaby,

yes we've done this, started our August-born at 5.0 in reception. see my post today on the Devon thread on this board. good to know it can still be done in Devon. It can still be done in Bradford too. We didn't exactly have to fight (though I did have to turn up at a Bradford council exec meeting once) it was more that we had to be very very clear that our decision was made and that we were not applying for any place in the default year.

It's worth the fight for the right child. My child was that child. My friend's child needed a later start in reception but then jumped a year later on - that was right for him. See my copious threads passim on this topic. and I mean copious!

good luck

As SchoolsNightmare says, you can defer entry until later in the school year but your child will still be the youngest in the class. If you defer entry for a full year most schools and LAs will insist on putting him straight into Y1. This also means you will have a limited choice of schools as the popular ones will already be full.

It is unusual to be allowed to start in Reception a year late but not completely unheard of. If you go down that route you need to consider what will happen when he goes to secondary school. Some secondary schools would insist on putting him straight into Y8, skipping Y7 completely. Unfortunately some LAs won't allow your son to start in Reception a year late no matter how much lobbying you do.

You can keep applying pressure to the LA and school(s). I would agree with SchoolsNightmare that it would be worth going to see the school(s) as well, both to have a look at what happens in Reception and to talk through your worries with them. Reception is about learning through play and preparing the children for the transition to more formal teaching in Y1. The syllabus for Reception is the same as that used by Nurseries.

There is one August born child out of year in DD's private school class. So it may be possible to do as you wish in the private sector.

However there could be ramifications if you later change school or enter state sector.

yes, we got a stern warning letter from Bradford saying that if we ever leave Bradford LEA we may be forced to have DS2 jump up a year.

It's good that they warned us about this, both in writing and face to face. It was a mark of how clear we were about the decision that we were prepared to commit to staying in Bradford LEA for the next dozen years.

But we had a child whose language development stalled for 18 months then accelerated back to normal pace. So we were people for whom this really was the right solution. I suspect many children born prematurely may fall into the same category.

I really, really do not know why LEAs in England are so rigid about chronological age?

Most definately I would your pre-mature August born allow to defer and also many summer born children would be better off starting a bit later.

Reception teachers can only do so much, and having lots of just 4 year olds who are needy, just want to play and have no interest in reading or writing doesn't help the older ones and those who are ready and keen either.

We had a similar situation with my DSS who was born prematurely at end of August.

At the time we thought about the possibility of deferring a year, but decided that as he is a very confident and outgoing little boy it was the right time for him to go, even though he is by far the youngest in his year.

There were children in his year who were far more advanced than he was, but the teachers were very reassuring that he would catch up over time and he did. From memory he was below average for his year in reception and Y1, ave by Y2, and by Y3 had started to be placed above ave in some subjects.

He's now Y4, still loves school and doing well, but I think a lot of it was down to his personality and being ready for school socially.

You know your child best and whether they will be ready or will need more time - I think the best thing to do is go with your gut and if you think they're not ready explore some of the options given by other posters.

Someone has to be the youngest.

That person should not be someone who also happens to be immature for their own birth month but capable of progressing at normal rates if placed in the year below.

In all of the three years I have campaigned on this topic, I have never ever seen a thread of complaint about the system in Scotland (where choice to year-defer is the norm) wishing others did not have a right of deferral.

And if deferral by choice did actually highlight some more general issues about school starting age, the responsible course of action is to review school starting age, not dismiss the legitimate needs of a minority of highly vulnerable immature August-borns.

SchoolsNightmare - but does it have to be the parents' decicion alone whether a child is defered? Surely the school could assess the child as well and decide whether he/she would be better off starting a year later.

I have an April born who is in Y2 now and I am more and more convinced that he would have benefited from being deferred - so its not just about age, DS is very immature and silly and plays best with the Y1s in his mixed Y1/2 class.

"children with hearing problems for example whose speech is years behind where it should be but improving now they are diagnosed and being treated - but not improving quickly enough to see them catch up with their allocated year group for possibly many years"

that's a great example schoolsnightmare. It's that combination of delay+potential to progress at the same rate as others that seems to identify the "candidate" summer-borns.

As I understand it, it used to be more common to have children repeat years and there was a widely held view that this wasn't working (badge of failure and all that). Whereas if you just select 5% of summer-borns and start them a year later than default and let them stay in the later year, you don't get that issue.