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

What about children at the other end of the spectrum who miss the cut off date and end up having to start to school effectively a year later than other children despite being ready to move on. Personally I think DS2 had an advantage over DS 1 as he has an early summer birthday whereas DS1 has an autumn birthday. Both are bright mature boys but DS2 will be closer to his peers in his year whereas DS1 has spent and extra year festering in a nursery that didn't know what to do with him because he could read already followed by a year in reception spending a lot of time doing work on his own with a TA. He would probably have benefited from being the youngest in the year and going early.
A good school will manage the individual needs within the inflexibilities of the cut off date.

It is silly compare the English system to the Scottish education system. P1 is more formal than the typical English reception class. Quite rightly the scottish teachers expect more from slightly older children.

Many English schools have a foundation stage which is a mixture of nursery and reception children. Children do activites that match their level of development. Dd has three hours in the afternoon and already learning phonics, writing and simple maths (she is April born). The immature august born boys are able to work on developing their fine motor skills. The nature of the early years foundation stage means that the children chose the activites and decide when they are ready to learn to read and write.

The cuture shock for summer borns is year 1 rather than reception. I feel that children should move on to year 1 when they they are ready. Prehaps some very bright september borns could start school earlier to balance numbers.

The costs of supporting children who can't cope through school is far more than the costs of them repeating a year.

Talkinpeace I don't see why it's an issue?? Just apply for place when child is 5?? Why have you got such a problem with people being concerned about there children at just 4 starting school?? It's too young for a lot of children. What's the issue??

Sleepy - agree it's much more usual that the Jan/Feb are deferred and not the Aug-Dec.

But both my kids will have a 16-month span in their year group (single class intake), so it is happening. And I hear lots of people talking about whether to defer their Nov/Dec born (not so much follow-through though).

This

The costs of supporting children who can't cope through school is far more than the costs of them repeating a year.

As I understand, my request to move DD back a year failed, in the final analysis, because of the over subscription of schools in the South of England. Her extreme prematurity and developmental delay would have caught her a break in other parts of the country but not here.

I'm not sure if I what I said earlier was correct as, on reflection, it seems to be COSTING the education system more money to have sent DD to school before she was ready, they are presumably having to work harder to accommodate her, I was rather that she was still at home with me and the medical professionals are in agreement with me. Just seems really daft

And if she'd been born less than a week later - still ridiculously premature at 24 weeks and change - I wouldn't even have had to go through this whole mess as she would simply have started school this September!

LtGreggs - Your point, which was also made earlier in the day by another poster and which I wrote a long reply to (which I shan't repeat due to really needing to go have a bath and go to bed) is the most valid one I have read against changing the current system (though I still think it should be changed)

Talkinpeace argues that people wanting flexibility should stop discussing this "non issue"

"
As I understand, my request to move DD back a year failed, in the final analysis, because of the over subscription of schools in the South of England. Her extreme prematurity and developmental delay would have caught her a break in other parts of the country but not here."

I doult it is anything to do with pressure on school places.

There is a philosophy among many teachers/ education pychologist that having a child above their natural year or below their natural year damaging. They forget that developmentally that there is little between an August born child and a child born a couple of weeks later. Things like hormones and puberty do not follow neat academic years.

Repeating a year may well be humilating for an older child, but it is not humilating for a child to start a year later.

CottonWoolWrapper - I've been back upthread and found it - apols had not read everything before posting!

This is yet another problem that only arises because our gargantuan Education System is a massive sausage-machine! Everyone is fed in one end and pops out of a couple of exits down the line -the issue is how flexible is it practical to be? Having worked as a civil servant I suspect that they have not actually even considered being more flexible because 'it would be the thin edge of the wedge' 'open the floodgates' ' be very expensive' or ' a lot more work'
Actually if the LEA don't catch up with you simply turn up when it suits you - I took my two out for four years in primary/lower secondary as the regimentation and arbitrary set-up simply didn't suit them - mind you they had gone to a day nursery that they adored from the age of five months ( before the separation anxiety kicks in at 7 months I later found out) so they had expectations and opinions about the shortcomings they observed!
Home Ed was marvellous but all good things come to an end and these days exams have to be done in school because of the units and assessments. They like school and are doing well but the two things that are strikingly different are 1 They still tell me everything (well a lot) that's been happening - their teachers would be mortified if they knew that I knew...and 2 They are their own people and feel no compulsion whatever to copy others - though to be fair their small rural High School has many 'eccentric' pupils!
You really do have options - the years I spent on the helpline hearing the distraught parents of depressed children (who could not bear to keep sending them to school) begin to see that there was a way forward were very rewarding. It did seem to me that most parents simply tell their children to get on with it because they had to! But some who are perhaps very close to their sensitive children are unable to tune out are compelled to act! No blame here please guys- most parents realise that it is pot luck how they and their child align personality wise and we each have to make our own bed.
The home edders charity is Education Otherwise and though some members are totally agin schools most are in and outers. Btw if you know folks in the USA or Canada or Australia/NZ 'home schooling' is totally normal there and the government supports it...

Re scottish system- I am deferring my October born 2yo, until August after 5th birthday, as per legislation. Therefore, decision made months ago not to enrol him for preschool year from jan next year "as expected" because we only want him in preschool for one year. So, nursery at 41/2, p1 at 5 and 10 months.

I wish we'd known enough about the legalities years ago to defer our 2 December borns in the same way!

Kansas, exactly and this is why people with summer borns that are ready for school aren't going to defer them and there won't be a problem with everyone born in May suddenly finding themselves the youngest in the class.

ReallyTired, an alternative system to one where parents choose would be one in which reception becomes entirely play based and parents and teachers decide together whether a child is ready to move to year 1.

The problem is that there actually would be practical issues with class sizes in this case. Also some summer born children that aren't ready for school might just not be able to cope with reception well anyway due the low staff ratio associated with schools in comparison to many nurseries or issues with naps or toilet training.

I think it damages children to languish in nursery/ pre school when they are ready for school. Thankfully dd's nursery have been giving her reception work. Thankfully she has an April birthday and will start reception in September. I think that dd would have lost the will to live if she was at a pre school and had to wait until she was five years old to start proper reception.

"The problem is that there actually would be practical issues with class sizes in this case. Also some summer born children that aren't ready for school might just not be able to cope with reception well anyway due the low staff ratio associated with schools in comparison to many nurseries or issues with naps or toilet training."

The low ratios are not as bad as you think. In schools the teachers and TAs concentrate on teaching. In day nurseries/ pre schools the staff have to do more cleaning up and feeding the children. Schools are very efficent at managing large numbers of children.

Foundation stage units in England can and do cope with children who aren't potty trained. The majority of children are physiologically ready to be potty trained by the age of three, unless there are special needs. In fact several children started in pull ups at dd's nursery and going to school nursery helped them become toilet trained. Many schools allow summer borns who nap to attend part time up to the age of five.

In scotland you get parents choosing to hold their children back to give them an advantage rather than holding them back because the child needs to defer. Teachers are in a better position to decide if a child is ready for school. I feel the numbers issue can be balanced by allowing some of the brighter september/ october born children to start school early.

I was born in England but have lived both sides of the Scottish/English border since dd was born and we are moving further into Scotland so she will be going to P1 in Aug at 4yrs 10m

I think the Scottish system is much better for children born near the cut off although it is quite stressful deciding what is best to do about deferral. Dd was a month early and throughout nursery (Scottish) the teachers recommended we defer her (Oct birthday) Now in the last couple of months she is reading and suddenly seems ready for school. There's no way she was ready at 4.

Reception does seem much more playbased than P1 though, so I would prefer she was going to that now, but she still wouldn't have been ready for a full day at 4.

YABU and there should be much more flexibility. I am also AGHAST that prematurity is not taken into account in England. That completely belies common sense. Not only are the children actually younger than the youngest, they are more likely to have developmental delays. I'm sure Mumsnet could change this.

Both my DSs started school at 5 yrs 6mths (Scotland). They would have struggled to cope with a full day before that. They were happy at nursery and were not bored - though i guess that is because all the preschoolers were together and they were all 4/5 years old so did things age appropriate.

I am agast when I read some threads - it seems to me that in England kids start full days when they are still so small - seems cruel and I am so glad that my kids didn't have to do that. Don't think it makes any difference in the long term.

Because the government cannot be arsed with the hassle and bureaucracy that that entails - it is much simplier to have finite cut off , makes planning much easier for them - they don't give a toss about the well being of the kids!

But you're NOT holding places open. The deferred DC would NEVER join the ywar group that started Reception when they should have, age-wise.

THEY JOIN THE YEAR BELOW.

So actually, they are freeing up a place for another DC in their original year group.

No place needs to be held, they just apply for a place in the year AFTER they would normally.

My DS1 was in the last year group in my area that still had termly intakes into Reception. By his birthdate, which fell in the Easter holidays, he shouldn't have started PT until the January, FT until after Easter. The school took him PT in September and FT in January. Because he was ready.

And by the same token, my spring-born DD was able to defer until after the Easter holidays as she wasn't ready. (SN's).

By the time my DS2 started, just two years after DS1, this flexibility had vanished.

And tbh, my DS2, despite being one of the older DC's in the year (November birthday) could have done with being held back for a year, and starting Reception at almost 6yo.

Even now, with DS2 almost finished Y4, he is far more immature than his year group, and spends the majority of his lunchtimes playing with DC's from the year below.

If I could have held him back, I would. At 9y6mo, he has finally caught up academically to the tail end of the AUGUST born DC's in his year - but that still leaves him lagging behind the Autumn-born DC's.

So socially, emotionally AND Academically, he would have fitted far better into the year below. And the school wouldn't have needed to spend half as much on SEN help for him, either.

So I don't think that allowing children to start Reception 'out of year group' would be wrong - DS1 would have been better suited to the year group above him, and DS2 would have been better suited to the year group above him.

And I would have based that decision on each individual child's needs.

really only going on what I was told by the chief admissions officer. Maybe it was just an excuse? I soon learnt that nobody actually seemed to understand (or would admit to understanding) how the system actually worked! Every school in the local area is oversubscribed and takes the full PAN. So if I had delayed DD a year, the schools would have accepted children born in the 'correct' year first and thus would have been too full to accept a child born out of year? I could have delayed her but would probably have had to hoik her across town at the very least, to another town entirely at the very worst!

I'm pleased for you that your DD will evidently be ready for nursery and I can see your arguments about potty training and so on. However my dd was losing the will to live to Year R! I don't see how you can argue that it is bad for your child to languish in pre school or nursery yet so unnecessary for mine to be allowed to remain their longer. Surely it is just a question of the environment that is appropriate for the individual?

Only just now is she partially toilet trained, only now is her speech coherent enough to be understood at the tail end of year R! I don't understand how this year has been of benefit really. As far as I can see she is making fairly steady progress to be expected had she been born on her her December due date or this summer (correcting for her developmental delay)

really I meant that your DD is ready for school! Not nursery! Sorry.

and there not their. Can you tell I'm a summer born yet?

Couthy we didn't have termly intakes and, although I was offered the option I didn't take and I'm glad that I didn't. They started phonics, handwriting etc. straight away and if I hadn't she would have been even further behind than she currently is. And I'm in agreement with every point you make.

Everything that SavoyCabbage said.

AWhistlingWoman, wandering slightly off topic but can you fight somehow for her to repeat reception? Speak to the Head Teacher first but then involve your MP and Bliss and your local newspaper and anyone else you can think of? The situation you describe is absurd. I am sure from your description it will not suit her needs at all to move to year 1. She needs to be back in what is actually her correct age group. Only then will it possible to tell what additional help she needs. Feeling quite cross on your behalf!