Department for Education school policy (primary education thread as you might know, please)

[Italiangreyhound]

Department for Education school policy (primary education thread as you might know, please)

Hi

Does anyone know where on line I can find the Department for Education school policy, which includes reference to the fact that head teachers decide which academic year children go into, please?

I was told by our County Council Admissions department that although they deal with admitting children to the school, the head teacher of the school decides which year children go into (if it is different from the year in which children would normally fall into - I am paraphrasing but that was the meaning!).

Thanks so much.

Thanks so much.

Are you wanting your child to go into a different year group than expected? Younger or older year group? On what grounds?

Thanks WaffleWiffle, yes. My son is adopted and has not been with us very long at all. He is a summer baby and I believe his social and emotional and educational needs will be best served by joining school in the year below the one in which he would naturally fall if he had to stick to the chronological age.

I was told the head teacher can decide but the head teacher of the local school does not seem to know this.

With my eldest two I've come across working across year groups twice. My eldest is very bright so joined an older class for various subjects. He found the play of early school very difficult (he's Autistic, which we suspected but didn't have diagnosed at the time). My younger son spends time with a younger year for various lessons because he's not been schooled in England/ English and had big gaps in his phonics that after discussion his needs were best covered by doing the whole learning experience and then catching up on the current year work in smaller group sessions. Both kept contact with their age peer group which was seen to be important - including by me in the end.

In both cases its worked well. In both cases, at different schools, its been arranged with the school Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) and class teacher. My elder son also had/ has lots of Educational psychologist input.

One of the things that I understood when I went into this is that within the schools age range the head has discretion but the child still has to go up to the next school with the age correct academic group. So in the case of my elder son he'd have had to be held back two years.

In your situation if this is the case, i'm a parent not some kind of education expert, it could have quite a few implications for a child who maybe has social/mixing issues. New school and no peer group to move to new school with is potentially an even bigger hurdle.

Have you thought about asking for an Individual Education Plan (IEP) to be drawn up for your child with the school with how they will help your child integrate and develop age appropriate social skills?

My eldest was helped significantly by several rounds of speech and language therapy group work within his class(his speech is very good, his interpretation/ turn taking/ literal language/ body language interpretation not good).

Sorry thats got a bit long and doesn't help with an actual document that you've requested.

How interesting, Italian.

Can you PM me where you are?

This article may be useful, particularly the Ashton Checklist.

Hereford designed a good policy for placing children out of year, although some parts are a little out of date, most of it is still relevant.

You need to find your local authority policy on primary school deferred entry. Type into google to find.

Tethersend, the first link was to Repeating a school year: considerations... was that what you meant?

Tethersend, the second link looks excellent. Many thanks.

I've had a look at the second link and it doesn't really seem to say how one does change the year a child goes in. I thought it would.

It seems to be very hard to find evidence for this perfectly lawful practice, almost like it is a guilty secret!

Sorry, first link was meant to be to this article

Yes, it's still a bit sketchy.

I would ask the head to look at the Ashton Checklist, though. Whilst meeting all the criteria should not automatically mean a child is placed out of year, it would be useful to point out that your DS does meet all the criteria and so therefore the head should consult experts via assessments etc.