Deferred entry when moving to Scotland.

[HappyWombat]

I wondered if I could possibly have a bit of advice about school years and what I should do with my youngest daughter?

We live in Australia currently, but are moving to Scotland in about 10 weeks time, to Perth and Kinross area. We have two daughters. Our eldest is currently half way through Y6 here, which is equivalent to P7 in Scotland, and when we move over in early September, due to her April birthday, she'll be starting P7, having come from half way through the same year, which is great - it'll give her time to settle, get used to the new school and make some friends etc. No problems there

Our youngest daughter has a mid-February birthday. Here in Australia she is currently half way through Y4, which is equivalent to P5 in Scotland. However, because of the cut off dates, the school that they will be attending say that she needs go into P6, meaning that she will kind of skip ahead by six months. I had asked if we could put her back to P5 but they insist that P6 is the right year. She is pretty good academically, and a fairly easy-going kid, but I wanted to hold her back, so as to give her some breathing space and extra time to make friends, get used to the different way of doing things etc., bearing in mind that she has lived in Australia for 8 of her 9 years! She will be massively behind in things like history and languages (Aussie schools don't do any language in primary, and history/geography is very Australia-centric).

I'm not sure what the right thing to do is? She is one of the youngest in her year here (as she would be in Scotland P6), but because they start school in January rather than the August before, she is kind of six months behind. I'd rather she go back 6 months than go ahead by 6 months. Can I request that she is held back and do the school have to take my request into account?

You can automatically defer Jan/Feb children when starting school, and most schools advise that you do. My kids both have loads of deferred children in their classes- both are March birthdays and only the 4th/ 5th oldest. I would strongly advise you push for deferment, mainly for social rather than academic reasons. If it's a reasonably big school then your DD is very unlikely to be the oldest in p5.- It's also much better imo to start high school at 12 rather than 11. Good luck.

Arkadia yes I think it does matter when it comes to senior exams - I have a Feb born and a March born.

It also means either starting uni at 17 and a half or taking a year out (you'd have to take a year out of wanting to study medicine). Or even potentially starting at 16 and a half.

It becomes more significant in secondary school - my Feb born wasn't deferred on advice of nursery teachers and it was fine during primary, it was more noticeable at secondary age when there were children in the same year up to 14 months older.

Yes! Most primary teachers prefer jan/feb birthdays to begin P1 when they're five rather than four. I know two primary school pupils with november birthdays and one born in December who started in the august after they were five, nearly six.

I'd assume the LEA is trying to reduce their costs by having your DD in the system for a year less.

Big misunderstanding here ;)
I agree with you.

My understanding is that you don't have to start school until you're five. For some children this will mean that they start school when they're nearly six.

They're not being kept back. Presumably the dilemmas arise if the child starts nursery at the minimum age then decides to wait to start school at 5 and has to battle to have a third year in nursery or has friends who are a few months older in the same group who are moving on to school.

I would get her deferred. My DS is in P4 with an Aug 08 birthday. There are 2 kids in his class with Dec 07 birthdays and a lot of kids Jan-March 08. If she's academically OK I'd say she'd be fine going into P6 but she'd be the youngest in the year I suspect.

I asked a teacher in DD's primary (before she started) whether she recommended deferring; DD's a January birthday. The teacher said that she has never heard of anyone who had chosen to defer, regretting it.

I had a similar problem when we moved from England to Scotland - ds2 missed out a whole year of high school (which was fine by him as not a big fan of school). But I pushed for ds3 to be put into the younger year as he'd struggled in England (late August birthday so one of youngest, although middle of the year in Scotland). Having that extra year can make a huge difference, so definitely worth pushing for.

Thank you all so much for your advice! I'm sure that it's the right thing to do. I'm just waiting for our letting agent to get a copy of the contract to us, and then I can send all of the paperwork over to the school. I'll send an email in the meantime asking whether there would be space for dd2 in P5 and see what they say.

If they don't have space I'll have to have a re-think.