Starting Primary school one year earlier than normal age.

[bobthemoggie]

Hi Lovely Supportive fellow parents,

Any experience, in the UK Public school, of starting the Reception class one year earlier than normal schooling age?

As per Local Council's policies, It seems that it's possible to start school either one year earlier or one year later than normal schooling age.

But I would like to find out the admission procedure in this case.

Cheers

@MC68 er yes that sounds right. Dc start the September after they turn 4, some will be 4 in Sept and start the following Sept and others will turn 4 in August and start the following month and then there will be some in between.

Dd1 was 4 in February 2012 and started school September 2012.

Dtds were 4 in August 2015 and started school September 2015.

All standard. Dtds are now 8 and the gap isn't obvious at all.

I went to school at 3 years of age but I wasn’t ahead because all children went to school at this age. I was an 80s child so maybe this was the difference. It didn’t do any of us any harm but we were all on a level playing field age wise

I think I started at about that age too. I'm not sure because we moved house a couple of times and went ino and then out of a first, middle, high school area.

I do remember being given a 2p to buy something at break and complaining that before I'd had a sixpence which was now worth 2 1/2 pence not 2p. So that was 1971.

So assuming I started 1st September 1970 I would have been 3 years 10 months.

They'd just say no, because it's not in the child's best interests educationally (they often say no to delaying, even though it IS in the child's best interests educationally).

They don't like exceptions. More admin.

I know of two children who have deferred a year and then gone into Reception rather than Y1, however both were born extremely prematurely and both needed a huge amount of evidence from their paediatricians etc to enable this to happen.

There was never any cast iron guarantee though that they'd be able to stay in that cohort and may have to then skip Y6 and go straight into Y7 to start secondary school at the correct age. One of the boys is now 16 and switched to an independent special school for many good reasons including being able to stay in his adopted year group. The other boy is bout 7 or 8 now I think and I don't know what will happen in his case.

M0therofdragons:
Where I live primary schools only have 1 intake a year in September??

Where I live primary schools only have 1 intake a year in September??

Me too, but it used to be fairly common to have staggered Christmas and Easter intakes for reception classes. It was difficult to staff though so that’s probably why they stopped.

It’s normal for schools to only have one Reception intake, in September.
The children’s ages, in England, will normally range from about to turn 5 (September birthdays) to just turned 4 (August birthdays).

But as children aren’t compulsory school age until the term after their 5th birthday, parents can legally choose to start them later in the school year, although schools may not be keen on this.
And in the case of summer born children, delaying entry until the term after the 5th birthday may mean the child having to miss Reception and start straight into Year 1, unless the parents manage to get their LA and their school to agree to the summer born child having a deferred Reception start after their 5th birthday.

I seriously hope no local authority would allow a 3yo to start reception. That's inconceivably awful.

I was in pre-school full time at 3. That wasn't awful at all, but school is a different kettle of fish. Behaviourally, socially etc a 3 yo would not cope. The expectations on them in reception is very different to that at pre-school.

Smell

It was the 1970's. Lots of experiments in education at that time, schools without classes, individual learning, ITA, lots of things that you couldn't do now or not without informing parents eg being taken to the local park to collect frogspawn or, 'It's a nice day let's go for a walk' - we would be taught local history as we snaked around town.

When we were going up to high school they sent the second years from the school to collect us and take us by bus to the high school to look around.

Can you imagine year 8 children being trusted to leave school, go to their old primary at the other side of town, collect a class of 10/11 year olds and return to high school with them?

Sorry to derail.

I pretty much did this - started school nursery in the summer, then did two terms in each of R, Y1 and Y2 so ended up a year ahead. Worked out fine until I was 10-11 and my classmates were 12, when it became a social disaster.

Secondary was better as there were more girls from sheltered backgrounds who were less obviously mature, but I had problems in my gap year as I couldn't yet have a cheque guarantee card or credit card so spent ages running round the supermarket 10 times in a day to get enough cashback out to pay my rent.

I know four people who started uni at 16 and for all of them it turned out badly (breakdown, drugs, one suicide).

@MC68 me too. So all children start in the September after turning 4, whether their birthday is October, February or August.

Just awful. I allowed my husband to overrule me with this with one of our children, for the sake of saving money. It did my daughter great harm in the first few years. There's just no need.

Let your child be in nursery for as long as they can.

I also started school when I was 3, very bright-high achiever, I also used to fall asleep at lunchtime regularly, was bullied when I entered high school early. I wanted to play and I couldn't.

It's a shitty, selfish move for the vast majority of kids imo.