Summer-borns - Would anyone be willing to send this to their MP?

[bananasontoast]

As per the title:

Dear [MP],

I am concerned about the inflexibility of the school admissions process for summer-born children in England.

Section 8 of the Education Act 1996 states:

"A person begins to be of compulsory school age when they attain the age of five"

The important words here are;

1. "a person"

Each child is a person in their own right and deserves to be treated as such and the child's best interests are what should be driving any admissions discussion. Not what the admissions authority administrative system wants to happen for its convenience. And;

2. "compulsory school age"

Summer-born children don't reach this until the September term after they have turned five.

Reception class is defined by Section 142 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 as:

"A class in which education is provided which is suitable to the requirements of pupils aged five and any pupils under or over that age whom it is expedient to educate with pupils of that age".

Reception Class is therefore aimed at children aged five, yet parents are being forced to enrol their child a whole year earlier than compulsory school age or have their child's education entitlement reduced by one year with obligatory entrance into Year 1, completely missing Reception Class.

When forced to enrol at just four years old, these children NEVER reach compulsory school age during their attendance during that academic year.

There is a wealth of empirical evidence that clearly demonstrates the harm that can be done to summer-born children should they start school too early.

The current system of inflexible cut off dates for school entry does not allow for the normal range of children's development, every child is different after all and needs to be considered in that light if their best interests are to be ensured.

Administrative constraints take precedence over the well-being and future life chances of a substantial number of our youngest children.

I would like to see admissions authorities adopt a more flexible approach so that parents are given more choice, to enable them, if they so wish, to enrol their child in school after they reach the age of five and in Reception Class.

I would be grateful if you could raise these concerns with Rt Hon David Laws MP, Minister of State for Schools.

Yours sincerely

[Name]

[Adress]

[Contact Number]

[Constituency] Constituent

I would suggest also starting a petition at epetitions.direct.gov.uk/

If you get 100,000 supporters, it may be discussed in Parliament.

I would, personally, prefer the Scottish system. I was the youngest under that system (born in February) but at least I was 4 and 6 months before starting school unlike my dd who is still 3 now and starts in September . I actually think she will be fine but I still think it's too young.

Bananas the Scottish system as described by FeelThis sounds much better. Why not amend your letter to suggest we adopt it? Even better submit it as an epetition. I would be happy to sign it.

KnittingNovice, it is great that your child is doing so well. I don't think any one has suggested that children who are ready for school shouldn't go.

Gwendoline, someone does need to be the youngest. As long as that child is ready for school that won't be a problem for them.

I would like to see flexibility where premature birth or SN are involved.
Tend to strongly dislike it in other other situations. The have ultra-flexibility in the USA & it gets abused.

I absolutely agree about due dates.
However beyond that no I don't think there should be flexibility. All that you'll be doing is making the range of ages even larger, ie the held-back July born will be 13 months older than non held back end-of-August born the following year.
And it's all very well posters on a mumsnet education board wanging on about handing choice to parents. But what about those who are not so informed? It wouldn't occur to some of the less advantaged families in my kids' school - partly because they're not as well informed, partly because they might need the childcare element of full-time education.
So you'd end up with a situation where the oldest in the class would be more likely children of the well informed and ambitious, armed with stats about summer-borns and desperate that their children be in no way disadvantaged. And stuff the parent who just does what they're told and puts their child in the correct year.
Btw I have an August born dd so I'm not speaking out of self interest.

Habba, read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Far from "borinnnnnnng"...

www.amazon.co.uk/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0141036257

I wouldn't want to send my child any later than the start of Reception because all the friendship groups have been made up already. It's not got much to do with education.

I agree with you op, there should be more flexibilty and the scottish system is good and seems to.work

I have two summer borns, we.home educatedfor a few years as they werent ready for school at just four.
And in answer.to zzz you cant just not send them to school as you may not then get a place and they then go straight into yr one and miss reception.

Westarted ours in yr 5 and yr 2 and were fortunate there were places available, would have been unlokely to get places for my younger two had we done the same with them

I do agree though that where children have been born very early then there should be flexibility. There is plenty of evidence to show that they do often develop more slowly and an extra year at home/in preschool would I'm sure be beneficial.

But for children born at term then they should just start in September. I would have hated DS1 to start part way through the year, because the friendships groups would have been established already, and the older children are a group to themselves already and have a term or whatever of learning under their belts which only puts them further in front.

Farewelltoarms, so because some people might not make the best choice for their child no one should have a choice and the state should make the decision on their behalf without any reference to the needs of the child in question? Don't forget either that the system is already unfair. Those who can afford private education will already have this flexibility. Those who have merely paid for their child's education through tax will not.

I doubt that many parents will want to keep an august DC who is ready for school down a year. If they do they will probably just have a bored DC on their hands rather than obtaining any advantage for their child. Hey they may even come on mumsnet to complain that their gifted child isnt being stretched. But I dont see why the potential mistakes of a few should be used to deny choice to everyone else.

That said an alternative system to the scottish one would be that reception becomes purely play based and is repeated where a child doesnt appear (decided by teachers and parents) to be ready for year 1 based on age. This would take childcare costs out of the equation.

I actually think changing the year group of a child who has SEN is not such a good idea. If a child has specific learning difficulties then these need to be addressed whatever year group they are in.

If a child's difficulties are because they are young in their year and need more time to play before they are ready to learn then letting them defer seems like a good way to resolve the issue without any special intervention.

I agree there should be some flexibilty - My august-born god son should have been born in October but arrived 12 weeks early - he has some developmental delay but had to start school a whole year earlier than he should have - he's struggled all though primary school and now as a year six is going to secondary school way earlier than he is ready for. I don't think that all summer borns should wait a year (because many are ready and then the same will apply to spring born children) but for those born in say jun/jul/aug there should be a choice for parent to enrol them a year later - my god son for one would have massively benefited.

Link to Canadian research www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22392937
showing how significant numbers of children can be wrongly diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder and sadly also prescribed medication based on their school start date.

Have a second to post so not had time to catch up.

Really want to know if there has been a study correlating info on children who attend nursery regularly - ie all week who are Aug born and whether that holds any bearing on if they will be on these lower achievers lists.
If they are being held back rather than given extra support at nursery they are not only a year behind but a further 6 months if the nursery has no room to move up until school leavers vacate... That could be important, no? DD only goes in twice a week, so perhaps it isn't a problem for us, but I think mums who use childcare full time might have a disadvantage if Aug born.

Some summer-borns do just fine, many others do not, particularly if those children have been born into the summer months prematurely. The data-sets have looked at 1000's and 1000's of children, certainly enough to identify a trend.

I would like to see flexibility, as noted in the letter in the original post.

There is nothing in legislation that would prevent parents from starting their children in school (if they wish to use mainstream education) in Reception Class after they attain the age of 5, in fact legislation supports this, unfortunately, barriers are put up, predominantly at LEA level.

Many LEA's choose to avoid or ignore or subvert the legislation concerned, there is nothing in that documentatin that allows them to deny parents or the children their rights under that same legislation, though they continue to do so.

The Department for Education recognises this issue and is collaborating with the campaign group 'Flexible School Admissions for summer-borns' and BLISS to issue guidelines to LEA's.

There will soon be an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons regarding this issue, the more MP's that are aware, the better.

So has anyone established any trends?
Did they take into account whether the child is in FT nursery or not?
Sorry, not seen the figures.

There are so many books and research papers on this that it would be difficult to put in all on a forum post.

But if your interested, here are a few links:

University of Cambridge - Birthdate Effects: A Review of the Literature from 1990-on - Feb 2009
www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/ca/digitalAssets/169664_Cambridge_Lit_Review_Birthdate_d3.pdf

Institute for Fiscal Studies ? When Your Are Born Matters: The Impact of Date of Birth on Educational Outcomes in England ? Apr 2010
www.ifs.org.uk/wps/wp1006.pdf

DfE RR017 Month of Birth and Education ? Schools Analysis and Research Division ? Jul 2010
www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RR017.pdf

Institute for Fiscal Studies - Does when you are born matter? The impact of month of birth on children?s cognitive and non-cognitive skills in England ? Nov 2011
www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn122.pdf

DfE RR294 Results of the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) Pilot - Mar 2013
www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RR291.pdf

Institute for Fiscal Studies R80 ? When you are born matters ? evidence for England ? May 2013
www.ifs.org.uk/comms/r80.pdf

I doubt it Lioninthesun. At the moment the data doesn't even take into account that summer borns are likely to have had 1-2 terms fewer in school than autumn borns. Most LEA's had January entry for children born between April and August until the Admissions Code changed recently. I'm not aware of any research into attainment that has been carried out since this change. Although there may be some out there.

OP - most of the data is drawn from a time when autumn born children spent 1-2 more terms in reception than their summer born counterparts.

Seeing how much DS1 has learned and grown in just 2.5 terms of school, no wonder these children had such a huge advantage.

Where I live you can choose to hold your child back a year if you want. At first I thought it was great. Now I think it's disastrous.

In my dds school, there are children in the same class who are three years apart. This is hard to manage as a teacher.

Childcare is very expensive do poorer people can't afford to hold their dc back.

Some parents choose to hold back even if their dc is ready for school so that they are at an advantage.

As the dc get older, the age differences become more obvious.

If a parent wishes to 'defer' as oppose to 'delay' :

a)parents can request that the date their child is admitted to school is deferred until later in the academic year or until the term in which the child reaches compulsory school age, and

b)parents can request that their child takes up the place part-time until the child reaches compulsory school age.

The Admissions Code is clear on this.

I think the IFS data has been a bit misunderstood, summer borns don't do as well but this is not because they start school too early but because a) they take tests when they are younger and b) they have less time in reception (some councils have more than one entry date into school). They is little evidence for the idea that summer borns are behind because they are always the youngest

"I also don't understand what the problem is with just applying for a school place once your child is ready for school?"

The massive problem with that is you are very unlikely to get a place at any good schools as they'll be full, leaving you with the choice of a school that's not great, or waiting till a place comes up at a decent one, whenever that may be.

zzzzz, you are right, and there shouldn't be a problem.

Parents of summer-borns are trying to do just that, put their children in a class that is suitable for their age, aptitude and ability when they are ready but are thwarted by LEA's. Often under the threat that they may not receive a place in school.

Putting aside the research and the issue of summer-borns, it is surely disgraceful that LEA's openly subvert legislation? What gives LEA's the right to pick and choose which legislation they will adhere to and that which they ignore and deny an individual their rights under that legislation?