In year application summer born DS to go reception instead of year 1

[Daisytiddles]

I want to make an in year application for my son to attend a new school starting January.He is 5 ,born in July.He can read books like cat in the hat and do basic addition and subtraction numbers under 10.He loves science and learning.But he has already missed a term of year one.He has been home education and never attended school. I noticed he has a tendency to zone out when when he doesn't want to read or write and I think he needs 6 months in reception to get used to school and the reading system they use.

I thought parents of summer born children were allowed start one year later but the school have said "the rules have changed" and he won't be able to do this.Can schools make their own rules or have the government rules changed?

I don't need advice or to be told I should not want to do this .Just want to know the rules/law

Thanks

You have the right to ask, and admissions authorities MUST look at each application on its own merit; they cannot have a blanket No policy. However, they don't have to allow it either.

You ideally should have had agreement on this last year, at the point of normal application, but it can be done now but ASAP otherwise you will miss primary application dates.

Thank you Patricia, but I'm making an in year application to start next month.I am dealing directly with the school.I have meeting with them tomorrow morning but I just wanted to know if they can just refuse like this, and if the rules have actually changed

Deffering a year normally has to be done at the point of application so when your child was due to start school. Even then they can refuse.

I'd say the likelihood of them agreeing isn't high. They'll want him to start with his peers so that he settles more.

It would be more disturbing to let him settle in reception, make friends then bump him up to year 1.

So he is already of compulsory education age, what have you done since September. You may well have missed the opportunity to negotiate as that should have occurred 18 months or so ago. Does the school have space in both years? Do they mix classes across years?

You need to look at the School admissions code para 2.17 (I think) and the Department of Education Guidance on the Admission of Summer Born children - google the titles should find them. All the info is there. The Summerborn Campaign website also has helpful information.

The short answer is yes, the school can refuse like this. There’s nothing in law saying that parents can demand their children can be educated out of cohort, it’s all on a case by case system and largely relies on the agreement of individual headteachers.

Not the exact scenario as yours, but one of my DC is an August born child. He was educated out of year at his first primary school (so the year below the “normal” year).

We moved both school and LA when he was partway through Year 2. The stance the new LA admissions authority took was that, as they themselves had not agreed to the delayed start when my DC was starting Reception, they were not obliged to honour it, and that any decision to decelerate my DC would all be entirely up to the headteacher of the new school.

Our school choices were limited as we had 2 DC in different primary school years, and the school we got put my August born DC in his correct year, so he was halfway through Year 2 one week and then in a Year 3 class the next. Both the headteacher and the educational psychologist the school got in insisted this was definitely in my DC’s best interests

Join flexible school admissions for summer Borns on Facebook. The people on there know a lot about each area and the current law/ rules.

Thank you all for your replies. PureAlchemy what happened to your DC sounds dreadful to me.I hope he managed to settle in okay and catch up with the class.I wish teachers would listen to parents more instead of thinking they know what's best . Thanks Hilda and Zebra I will look at flexible school admissions Facebook page and the admissions code.

Join the facebook group flexible admissions for summer born children and you'll get good advise and there might be people who can recommend schools in your area who are open to this.

@PureAlchemy

Ridiculous. I bet if he'd been born a few weeks later in September and wanted to put him in the year above they'd be absolutely insistent that he couldn't be educated out of cohort and it wasn't in his best interests. It's amazing the developmental difference the education system thinks occurs between kids born on August 31st and September 1st.

Yes IceCreamFace it was utterly ridiculous. He was also premature and has SEN.

Although the whole thing seems to be a bit of a postcode lottery, so the schools in OP’s area may be more flexible than the ones round here!

The answer is that you are putting two separate bits of schools admissions together when there is no continuity in them.
Yes if you had applied for deferment when you originally applied for a school place in reception year then you would have been considered for deferring for the school year and almost certainly been given a place in the next year. However as soon as you started the academic year in September then you would have been considered as being home educated and therefore any application now for year 1 can only be as an in-year admission.
You are then in the same position as every other parent who wants to move schools. If you apply and there is a place then you will be offered the place. If however there are no places then you can appeal but assuming that any appeal will be an infant class size case then you will only have a very low chance of success.

As others have said, I think that if you wanted to delay his start in reception by a year, you would have had to do it at the time you should have applied for reception. If the school agreed then you would have applied again for reception the next year.

As a Year 1 in-year admission I would imagine you don’t have the same rights at this point,ie, he needs to be in his correct year group.

Just to put it out there....often this is nothing to do with the class teacher so let's not start teacher bashing.

Errr? Who said it was? It’s the agreed in year admissions policy. I think DS would be fine in y1. Why would he want to go back to ye when he can do so much? Might he not get bored?

Thanks all.He should be fine in year one. They do science in year one he is obsessed with Science so we will see how it goes.

@BubblesBuddy OP said...

I wish teachers would listen to parents more instead of thinking they know what's best .

No need to be funny