Can I defer my children's entry to school until they are 5 and insist on reception?

[bothcholma]

This is an old hot chestnut.My girls are 4 next May.They are being steered to enter reception.I know that legally I can defer their entry to school until they are 5.My Local Authority says they must then enter year 1 having lost the learning encountered by their counterparts.They say this has to happen because they have to transfer to secondary aged 11.Are they telling me the truth? Can I defer their entry and insist upon a place in reception?

Can anybody help please?

A friend of my DD was born in July at 26 weeks and struggles to keep up. There appears to be no learning problems apart from later development. Her due date was in October and despite one hell of a battle to keep her back a year the LEA/Council would not allow it. I think it is appalling. The sweet little girl is already feeling silly as she struggles to hold a pencil etc. After Xmas they are going to keep her on mornings only (the Principal is not supporting this) but it looks like they are going to have to go private.
The argument is that all children need to be treated equally - but equally does not always mean the same.

Bocca - ooh, how interesting!

i find the attitude of these local authorities very strange . we live in scotland and its not unusual to defer entry and then the child just starts in primary one (what you call reception). My rough guess is that there at least one or two children like this in each class and it doesnt seem to cause any problems at all

our cut off date is 28 Feb and i know many people who defer their january and february born children. we are going to defer our chistmas baby

I know of one person who successfully deferred her son's entrance and he started RECEPTION a yr later.SHe did have a major fight with the local lea though.

this happens all the time in scotland. Don't quite understand Eng;and's problem.

more info for scottish parenst here

My ds was a June baby due August. Started reception this term and is thriving. He has developmental delay for his gross motor skills but fine motor skills are okay. I just made sure that his teacher understood what being a prem meant in day to day terms. Learning wise he is where he should be and it never occurred to me to defer him. Lots of children start school not being able to hold a pencil, or know their letters etc. Surely that is what school is for?!

my son was born at the end of August and I wanted to do this but was told he would have to join Year 1. He did in the end go to a private school but there is a girl there who was born on the 28th August at about 28 weeks so should have been born in October (I think). Anyway I think her parents were given the option of starting reception a year late but choose not to take it (I don't know why).

My son is doing well but has struggled a bit and there is a noticable difference between what he can do now Year 1 and some of the older ones can do. He struggles with reading and writing whereas some of them are reading and writing really well. When he started at just 4 he could barely dress himself and couldn't write any letters etc.

Incidentally, I started school a year early, my birthday is September and I was the youngest in the year (I must have still been 3 when I started!). I don't know why or how but it was a private school and to be honest it was a problem for a long time.

lingle - Yes it is. I haven't read all that DCSF stuff myself yet - I really must! - but I'm interested in this issue because a friend did eventually manage to defer entry to reception for a year for her child who has quite severe special needs (sorry if that's clumsy wording but it's late and I can't think of better) but it took an almighty battle with the LEA to achieve it.

Scottish parents are always completely bewildered by our inflexibility. It must save Scottish LEAs thousands of pounds not to have kids who aren't ready in school.

Bocca - the interesting dilemma for this year's parents if they feel their child is really not going to be ready - then do they keep the child at home/nursery another year in the hope that the Rose reforms will kick in in time for their LEA to change their policy?

I am on tenterhooks to see the Rose report. But I thank my lucky stars that my little one is now safe.

Did the speakers at your training day give any more outline than you've already indicated about the rationale behind the probable changes?

Just wanted to clarify, because there was a slightly unclear post earlier in the conversation, that of course the law is that a child must be in full time education at school or otherwise the term AFTER they become 5. So for any child born in, what, April or after, I guess, depending on the date of Easter, they don't legally have to be in full time education until the September after they become 5.

Keeping children out of school until that point is NOT "home education" necessarily! It's "in my opinion, my child is not yet ready for school" syndrome, and that's absolutely fine.

As for what to do if an LEA is saying a late-in-the-year child must start reception aged 4 or year 1 aged 5 and there's no flexibility, I would be thinking about

1. making sure that life is happy and comfortable for the child now. If a child is making it clear they don't want to be in school yet aged 4, or a parent has a strong sense that they simply aren't ready, then I would be prioritising making sure the child is happy in the present rather than doing something which isn't appropriate or making them happy because you believe it'll make life better in the long run. Small children live so much in the present, and it's exactly the right place for them to be living IMO.

1. If a family decide that school isn't the right thing yet, but that it probably will be in 6 months, I think it's worth sussing out what all the other children will have been doing in the intervening period and just quietly doing it at home. Those of us who home educate tend to be astonished at how long it takes for very basic concepts to be covered in schools, just because the teachers have the needs of an awful lot of children to balance. But with just a couple of children at home, there needn't be any pressure about picking up whatever is in the reception curriculum. The most formal school-at-home types of home educators I come across talk about how their formal schooling part of life takes no more than an hour or two of formal learning a day, at this sort of age. The glory of having them at home is that you can pick exactly the moment to build on what your child is showing an interest in, which also will help them to have learned the things that the children in reception classes will have learned.

1. When you get to the point of wanting your child to be in school, and them wanting to go, of course, and approach the school and get told there's a waiting list, then there's no need to panic, IMO. You just get yourself onto that waiting list and carry on making sure you're keeping roughly in step with what the school is doing until someone moves out of the area or shifts school or whatever, and a place comes up. Because you've already done the unconventional thing in not signing them up at the earliest possible moment, you're likely to be more confident about waiting another half term or term or 6 months or year for a place at the right school, and confident in your ability and your children's ability to learn perfectly efficiently outside the classroom context. But of course, if you're waiting for a place, it'd be worth finding out as much as you can of what sorts of things the school will be doing with the relevant year group so the child is ready to slot in seamlessly when the moment arrives.

1. and of course, just with my provocative hat on, if when you get to the term after they become 5, or a year later, or three years later, they still don't feel ready for school and you are still happy to be living your lives together at home, then you can just carry on as you are (and come on over to the HE thread... the water is lovely!)

Great post onward. Your point 1 is so well made.

lingle - The training event was for members of admissions appeals panels and so most of the presentations were about the law on appeals and the appeals process. As background, there was a brief mention of the admissions code and an even briefer mention of the Rose review.

It's a while since the training and I think I had conflated what I heard there with what I've read on threads on MN about the Leeds/Bradford policy, because when I went back to check the handouts it was not said that the admissions code or our LEA policy would be changing to accommodate deferring entry beyond what's currently permissible under the code. It was mentioned that the Rose review might suggest changes to the admissions code to accommodate that deferment and so the code might be amanded on that point.

Some of these issues have been discussed on orums.ukgovernors.org.uk he UK Governors website. Have you ever looked on there?

Ooops. That link should be the UK Governors website.

I think that we should be more flexible on ages. My DS was a summer birthday, he started when he was 5 in year 1. Ideally I would have liked him to be in the year below.
Your DCs can wait but they will be year 1,I think you would have to make a good case for otherwise. You also have to think whether you would want them to be a year behind for the rest of their education-take GCSE's at 17, leave school at 19 if they stay for 6th form. If you are going to try and get reception you need to have taken the knock on effect into account.For example will they be annoyed at 11 to be left in the primary school when they should have moved on?

If the idea is to catch up at some point they have to miss a whole years work and socially it is difficult.

Just on the earlier post re admissions code saying you cannot defer entry across academic years. My reading of that is that you cannot defer a place offered across academic years - ie if you apply now for next Sept and are offered a place, you cannot defer that place at the school until the following Dec. You have to apply again at the relevant time. No help practically as LAs have the "start in Yr 1" practice generally, but does mean that (I think) that the practice of doing so is not required/supported by the school Code

very good point nellieellie.

Just a bump to suggest that all those interested read the Institute for Financial Studies report entitled "When you are Born Matters".
This was the report that convinced the Government that the August birth penalty never goes away (statistically, I mean, not that every August-born is having bad outcomes!)

Google "When you are Born Matters". It's 112 pages but invaluable reading.

My little boy was born on the 26th June 2004 and entered reception this September as one of the youngest since starting reception he has learned to hold a pencil correctly write and recognise all the letters of the alphabet he can now count to 30 and has some basic French I have been told by his teacher he is one of the quickest learners in the class and the fact that he is one of the youngest does not show! We could have let him go half day until January (which should be an option open to you) but we went for the full day as he had been at nursery all day before hand as I was working at the time!

Can I ask why would you want to keep him behind for a year are the reasons about you or him? have you thought how he will feel in a few years when he is so much older than the next child (5 months at least) kids can be really funny my DS already is saying to me that he cant play with certain boys because they are 5! Do you really want your little boy to stand out as different?

Sorry I dont know why I thought your little girl were boys maybe a little easier that there are two of them but still kids can be really weird about others being different!

IMe Year 1 is much more pressured than reception so yes I do think there is a difference. And in Reception there are often more hands on deck to help with toileting, emotional stuff which the just 4 yos are really in need of.

Here's what I'm going to do with my late August born (eeek!) son when we get there: register him, but make sure he takes lots of, er, sick days when I can manage them...

At the other end of the inflexible ridiculous spectrum, I have my middle boy who missed school by a few days and is doing his nut in nursery for a whole extra year, beginning to read and add up while the just three year olds in with him are still in pull ups...

Lingle, thanks for that ref to the IFS study: will read it.

here's the link

Lingle, as the mother of a child with a severe speech disorder, I would think very, very carefully about delaying his start to school.

The amount of small group teaching time in reception, was significantly more than in Y1 and my DS would really have struggled at school without the care and attention lavished on his during his reception year. At his school the TA used to take all bar 4 of the children outside for play based learning, while the teacher kept 4 children at a time in the classroom with her. This means that the ratio of child/teacher is very high and hence they are able to do short bursts of work with the children. The teacher used to do 2 half hour sessions each day with each group of 4 and the rest of the time they were outdoors playing.

Y1 was a very different set up, with almost all lessons done on a whole class basis. The teachers had much less time to spend with the children in a small group and it would be very hard for a child with speech difficulties to advance as quickly in that set up as mine did in reception.

Of course, if you can defer for a year and still go into reception then this is less of an issue!

Blimey, that's interesting data.

Key shocker is that August borns are at a significant disadvantage even controlling for other observable characteristics (such as social class/income or ethnicity)...

Let's hope someone takes their policy recommendations seriously. Does anyone know if DES or whatever they are these days is responding?

Shall we start a campaign?