Great news for summer borns...

[satinpillowcase]

www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/08/parents-of-summer-born-children-get-right-to-delay-start-of-school

I don't think it will be a case of parents ring able to choose freely when their child starts, I think it will have to be decided by several people - doctor/pre-school teachers/etc to establish that a child would struggle, just as it is now but with a higher success rate

I know that is the system we have now but most councils say a blanket no to all requests, I think in future it will be easier to defer but with some supporting evidence such as speech delay, delayed toilet training, etc but there has to be some sort of reason for deferring rather than a parent saying they want defer. I the same way that parents get 'free choice' of which school they want to go to but in actual fact it's a preference.

The current system as I understand it is they have to be very exceptional to defer, not just august born and a bit immature. We're talking preemie with major developmental delay. And even more exceptional to be moved year once they're within the system.

I was thinking more the least mature 1/3 of august borns being deferred and the most mature 1/3 of September borns being accelerated. Or whatever proportions deemed appropriate. So it was a normal thing to do not a stigma or a last resort. Within the normal range of development there is much much more difference in readiness between top and bottom of the curve than one month cohort and the next - which in some cases means one day and the next!

Who is going to pay for all these extra assessments?

I'd much rather my doctor spent their time dealing with the ill
That my school spent time teaching
That my council spent its money on the needy

than thousands of hours being utterly wasted on assessments for the children of fussy parents.

Or will the parents have to pay?
In which case its one rule for the rich and another for the poor.

Would it really be that much of a problem for councils though? After all, populations fluctuate naturally, they can never be exactly sure how many children will be in each year group, and if all applications are in by mid Jan, including those for summerborns from the previous year, (other than people moving into the borough after that date) they've got long enough to sort out classes.

I also think the 'two bites of the cherry' is a bit of a red herring because no child can actually take up two school places- if they get allocated a school they don't like, they have to give up that place (and any place at all for that year, i.e. withdraw from all waiting lists etc) before they can apply again for next year. And if the parents then move house / get religious or whatever, then those are the people who would have done that anyway, they're just doing it a year later, so overall it doesn't make a difference.

When people say they can't afford to defer a summerborn child, do they know that the 15 hours a week funded place is still available for that year?

TalkInPeace assessments are required by some LEAs under the current system, under the new proposals they won't be needed so it will be a cost saving for LEAs. Not to mention saving their admin time processing the applications.

I'm not sure why this is big news. I've got summer borns (3) and although they seemed very young in Reception class, they were actually all in the top end of their class by the end of year1. What a shame it would have been to put them back a year - They wouldn't have been as pushed to catch up, and probably would have ben bored in reception if they were 15months older than some of the others.

It was already possible to delay the entry of ANY child into school until the term after their 5th birthday. It's not until then that school attendance is mandatory. What they don't then tell you though is that your child will miss reception and go straight to year one, putting them even further behind. Not all schools will hold a school place for you either,

Edandmadsmum your last point is the reason this is news - the proposed change is to make it possible for summerborn children to go into reception the Sept after they turn 5, instead of year 1, if the parebts choose to (rather than having to get permission from the LEA).

tiggytape maybe there could be increased free nursery hours for those children if needed so as not to financially penalise them - definitely something that needs addressing but I still think this reform over all will benefit children starting school.

there could be increased free nursery hours
Funded from where exactly?

Councils are facing yet more years of cuts.
School budgets are frozen.
Tax credits are being cut.
The living wage will result in job losses.
Nothing is free it just gets paid for in another way.

Interesting. One of our local primary schools (intake of 90 children) used to wait until January to admit the children who were born April to August. This has proved to be very unpopular with the relatively well off parents and about 3 years they stopped doing it. The year before they were given a choice and only about four children out of the 90 were January starters.

And this is a school with plenty of pushy parents that produces consistently high SAT results. So not all parents will be desperate to keep their children off. Many of my friends whose children go there couldn't wait to send them!

That's different to deferring though. And I'm not surprised parents don't want their children missing out on school. It's part of the same feeling - not getting behind.

We keep fiddling round the edges on this issue. I have a bold idea. A shift to a three semester school system that could sort summerborn, exam cram, peak holiday hassles, childcare and boost performance in one big change. I've spoken to some other parents and teachers about it, and they agreed that once the inititial reshuffle is done, it could be brilliant.

You can read the detail of the idea on the link below (8 quick points), and while you don't need to sign I'd be really interested in your views. If you share my view, and fancy trying to make a big change happen, then maybe we could do something together.

www.change.org/p/secretary-of-state-for-education-lets-sort-out-the-uk-education-system-together?recruiter=180122391&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

From my magic money tree TalkInPeace obviously there's an opportunity cost for every penny councils & government spend, buts that's always the case across the board - any new policy can only be funded by reducing spending or increasing revenue, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ever suggest something new.

tiggytape you make predictions like they're facts, I understand the concern but I just don't believe the worst case scenario you anticipate will occur. Anecdotally, speaking to parents in Sweden and Australia recently, where deferring is at parents' discretion, the attitude was very much 'some people defer, some don't, it's no big deal' Regarding parents deferring to try for a place at a school the prefer - well, there's no guarantee they'd get one, and I stand by my point that it's a red herring as a child can only take up one school place.

Ultimately school isn't childcare and we're talking about 4 year olds who aren't ready for formal education. Four is so young to be at school - other countries with later start dates often offer more and better childcare than is available here - surely that's better than more school, at such a young age.

As tiggy said - and I said upthread here in Scotland that is what happens - almost all Jan/Febs defer in my area ...and it mainly isn't because they aren't ready - (youngest intake here is already 4.5) but because 'in the know' parents think it give their DC an advantage starting at 5.5 and older...

Thing is there will always be children disadvantaged for whatever reason

For example my youngest has just started school and although a November born is going to struggle due to be half deaf in one ear due a large perforation, his speech is severely delayed due to constant glue ear and burst eardrums since a baby, they won't be able to mend his perforation until he is around 11 and think a hearing aid will cause more harm than good due to causing more infections.
Should he be allowed to defer? He will struggle to keep up, learning his phonics is going to take him longer and he struggles to be understood when speaking. He has worse language skills then his friends who are summer born
An extra year at home with 1-1 speech therapy would be beneficial for him just as an extra year would be beneficial for a summer born.

There are lots of other reasons why a child may struggle starting school - should everyone with a valid reason be able defer?
My DD was the only one out of my 3 that was ready to start school and she is a late July baby.

That three intake thing would only work in big schools, though. And most primaries are not that big, not even in larger cities.

I agree, we don't know whether everyone would want to / feel they had to defer. There's some people saying they would / already do (in Scotland) and some people overseas saying they don't - so we just don't know what the take up would be. I also wonder whether in reality people really would - as another poster said, in her area, it was 'pushy parents' wanting kids to start school sooner. If you have a child who is doing well at nursery, happy, confident etc you are quite likely to think 'well they may as well start school, it will be good for them to have something new / a challenge' - a bit like the person who wrote the MN guest post about this, some 'pushy parents' may see it as a good thing to crack on with school. So we can't really say what the uptake will be, that's why I don't think this is a strong argument against the proposal.

'Four is too young to be in school' - yes I know that's a whole separate debate, apologies, it wasn't clear what I was trying to say. There's an argument that parents whose summer born children start school at 5 are having to pay for childcare for that year. But you could just as easily say it's not fair on parents of September-born as they have to pay an extra year of childcare. So should they be allowed to start a year early? No. School isn't intended to be free childcare. It's the start of academic formal learning. If the problem is about lack of childcare, that's a problem that need to be addressed itself, not by making it harder for children to start school later.

BrieAndChilli the point isn't to prevent any child from being disadvantaged, as you say, all children are different and face different challenges. The point of the current proposal is actually more about closing a legal loophole than trying to end all inequality (would that it were so easy...!) - the current legal position is that children aren't requ to start school til the term after their fifth birthday, so an autumn term born or spring term born child could do that and still start in reception- but if a summer born child does it, they'd start in the September of the next academic year, and councils have been making them start in year 1, missing reception completely. So the autumn born and spring born have to right to (1) start school the term after they turn 5 AND (2) start in reception at that time, whereas the summer born child only has right (1), because they can be made to go into year 1 in that first term. That's the legal loophole the proposal is intended to close. The side effect is that they are in the academic year below if they do so. Apologies if you already knew all that though!