How common is it for children to repeat reception?

[givemedirections]

As it says on the title really. Child in question has severe autism and apparently they can’t meet his needs in Year 1 - but he can’t stay in reception forever? So what eventually happens?

I don’t have any expertise or advice but well done to you for trying to help out your family.
There is a little boy in my son’s class who is in a similar situation and I feel like it must be such a tough position for his family. In his case he has spent so much of the last year outside the classroom that he hasn’t really “done” reception so I could easily imagine there would be a benefit in repeating the year.
In his case he’s had a 1:1 TA support but the person they hired was not a good fit for the child and has hated the job. I hope the family might be able to get improvements in that area for the year ahead so that the child can make more progress.
Wishing you the best of luck.

Exactly.

So you only care that it's a lie? You're happy with him being in reception?

Why does it matter that it's a lie?

I worked with a child in reception who then officially went into year 1 but never entered a yr 1 classroom. She spent the mornings doing laps of the field (her happy place) and then the afternoons in reception. Said child is now in yr 3 and still doing exactly the same. Parents think there is nothing wrong with their child as she is always happy -unless confined to a classroom of course. The school now have the right to say they can't meet her needs anymore but the parents don't agree and refuse to move her.

Which class will be over maximum numbers? If you're implying that the Reception class would be over numbers with your child is there, how do you know that the new Reception year in September is full? Ours isn't this year - for the first time in many many years. It's been a big surprise to us. Our Reception classes are going to be very small this year.

If the plan in September was for my Year 1 child with additional needs (needing one to one) to be spending most of their school day in an undersubscribed Reception class vs. an overcrowded smaller Year 1 classroom full of 30 children with desk and chair set up, I'd be made up. I'm not sure why you are seeing it as negative.

You clearly don't understand. This is the explanation of the fields from the support department of the industry standard MIS;

What is the difference between Year Taught In and Year Group?

What is the difference between Year Taught In and Year Group?

Year Taught In
Year Group
NC Year
National Curriculum Year

The 'Year Group' is the actual year the student should be in based on the Date Of Birth.

The 'Year Taught In' could be higher or lower than 'Year Group' depending on the students capabilities. Usually it is the same as the 'Year Group' field.

The Year Group field relates to the Pastoral Year group that the student is in.

The Year taught In field relates to the National Curriculum Year that the student is being taught in.

In England and Wales the pupil's Curriculum year would be expected to be his/her age at the previous 31/08 minus 4. If answer to this is 0 he/she should be in Year R, -1 = N2, -2 or less in N1.

In the SIMS system there is a link held between the Pastoral Year, ex: Year 7, and the NCYear 7 (the values of which are statutory, and cannot be changed). When you add pupils, assigning one will default the other to the expected value. Users can then edit both these values independently.

Statutory returns (School Census) are not interested in Year Group, only Year Taught In. There is at least one validation rule (2020Q and 2030Q) which identifies if a pupil is an unexpected Year Taught In for their age. This is a query because it is an unusual situation but it is perfectly legal and most schools will have a few pupils in this situation. The query report asks the school to check that it is intentional rather than a mistake in the data.

and here's the DfE Census explanation of the Year Taught In;

Pupil’s actual national curriculum year group [used for funding]

We need this data for on-roll pupils.
The year group in which the pupil is taught for the majority of their time, irrespective of their chronological age.

The LA complete returns that are based upon the year they are expected to be in. When you upload your data to them, you confirm that this child is on the roll and that they are being taught in a different year. I've done it for several students this term, some because they joined out of year group from admission, some because the decision has been made later in the year that it would be in their best interests to be taught OOY.

Your insistence that they are lying remind me of very patient explanations given to very, very new members of SLT insisting that I have made an error when I bloody well haven't, as proven when the census is authorised by the DfE after entering a notepad entry confirming the difference between chronological age and YTI is correct. The difference, though, is that they generally go 'Oh, OK' once it's been explained to them.

It's absolutely terrible. Bad practice all round

This! This is the kind of thing that's made me quit. All of it has to be fair, but this is one of the things. Delusional parents and shite provision for sen kids. Walking up and down the corridor with a one to one so parents can play pretend. How many times do we need to see this?

That’s completely fair enough @NeverDropYourMooncup So why isn’t that being communicated to the LEA? If it’s all as simple and above board as that, why is it not being shared?

@BoleynMemories13 I know 😢 it's very much area dependent. I was trying to reassure that reception may be the best place for now . But the local authority needs to know what happening

I've just finished reading the full thread now. Are you the guardian for this child? Does the child's parents have some additional needs themselves? Because I'm not quite understanding the reason for the extent of your involvement. Presumably it's not you who has had the conversations with the SENDCO, or the teachers, or the LA, or any other agencies who are involved in the care for this child? So it's possible that the child's parents who HAVE had the actual interactions with those people have misunderstood themselves, and have unwittingly fed you a different version of the plan for next year, based on their misunderstanding.

Or it may be that they have told you things correctly, but in a very simplified version, and you have personally reached the conclusion, without the full facts, knowledge, or experience, that the school is lying?

It matters because it raises questions as to why they are lying.

It will be shared, in the EHCP review. When they say they cannot meet the need in Y1 so have taught him alongside reception to best suit him.

(really I'm out)

You will appreciate I can’t go into full details @CurlyhairedAssassin . Happy to PM if there is a reason you want to know.

there was a mix up with DD1... when it came time to allocate her high school.. we were shocked to find that at 11 they had re-enrolled her in 'reception' at her local primary school.

Obviously this is nothing like your situation, but the authorities had messed up, and it took a fair while for me to sort the mess out

I’m not insisting you post @MultiplaLight (no, it has not been.)

Because if the school can't meet need they need to be honest and either access more funding for more support or the local authority needs to start looking at other options. If the child is not working at age related they need a robust plan as to how they intend to support the child. Sticking them in reception and claiming they are coping with yr 1 is not fair on the child.

Poor you @sentfrmmyiphone

I imagine that he’ll be in specialist provision by that time but realistically they can’t keep him in reception indefinitely and if according to his EHCP he’s in Y1 then what the heck is will happen!

They aren’t lying.

He’ll be a year 1 child taught in the reception classroom because in order to support him best he needs the set-up of a reception classroom.

He doesn’t need a table of 4/5 kids and a chair with no other space for the sensory table he needs.

No one is lying. There would be no benefit to anyone doing so.

Tbh my sons school is over subscribed- 67 children in reception with no means to fund three classes and they can not have more than thirty on a class. So they intend to keep 7 in nursery and deliver a reception education in nursery environment. 6 of those 7 have additional needs. It's no coincidence. But the parents know and the local authority know what's happening .

I asked earlier, to try and understand your/his parents concerns….what are they @givemedirections?

Ah yes, it's so sad. I've seen our staff in tears at just this kind of situation. They know it's not what's best for the child, but the parents either don't seem to comprehend the huge gap between the child and their peers and think that as long as the child is happy and being looked after every day then that's fine. They aren't thinking ahead.

Often the parent has some additional needs themselves and just don't understand the highly complex way that LA SEND funding works, or what mainstream SEND provision entails, and what its limitations are. Even if the parent doesn't have any SEND themselves, they are so exhausted by their child that they don't have the fight to push, push, push with the LA for what the child needs.

It's disgusting that SEND funding and processes are in the state they're in. The educators know what the child needs, but they are often up against so much tryign to provide it.

Knowing the background would help people advise on the situation. It also matters because if you are not the one caring for the child you are not privy to all the information and that you do have is not first hand.

I would go carefully with this one because the ehcp system for special schools relies on school “being unable to meet his needs”

If the child is on roll in year 1 and the school can’t meet his needs in year 1 then a special school place is clearly required and school can write in support of that.

If the child is on roll in reception and the school can meet his needs in reception then the argument for a special school place is significantly reduced. “His needs can’t be met next year” isn’t an argument.

But, if the child is being educated in the year 1 classroom and they aren’t able to put into place enough accommodations for him, it might well be a quite spectacular failing to meet need.

Seems to me that school are being supportive here but aren’t communicating well.

They're NOT lying. This has been explained so many times and in so many different ways.