Deferring Year 9

[Bimkom]

Anyone have any experience deferring a year within Secondary School.

DD is a summer baby, and if they had been allowing delay at the start of her reception the way they are allowing it now, I am sure I would have kept her back.

And all through her school career, while she is bright, and has mostly kept up, it has been a struggle on an emotional level.

She is now finishing Year 7. And because of a whole range of factors coming together for our family I am seriously thinking about taking her out at the end of Year 8, "home schooling" her for a year, and then putting her back into school the following Year in Year 9 - so in fact she wouldn't miss any years of school.

I realise I would need to talk to the school about it, as I would hope for her to go back into the same school, but wondered if there was anybody else out there who had done it, knew somebody who had done it, or who had any thoughts?

A state school is unlikely to be able to accommodate this. They are expected to enter pupils to take GCSE exams in the summer of the academic year (1 Sept to 31 Aug) in which they turn 16.

Independent schools are more likely to be able to accommodate pupils out of their chronological year group. They might be able to find an extra pupil to fill your daughter's place at the beginning of Y9. However, what if nobody leaves the following summer at the end of Y8? Then there wouldn't be a place for her.

One obvious thing to point out that you may not be aware of as yet is that many schools now commence the gcse syllabus in year 9

You would also have to reapply for a school place as the school cannot hold a place for a year

You can only move a child out of year group with agreement of the authority and generally only with an ehcp

I know that many schools commence the GCSE syllabus in Year 9, including the one DD is at, which is precisely why, if I am going to do this, I want to do it before she starts Year 9, so that she has a clear run for the GCSE, and it is not interupted in the middle.
That said, my experience with the three year GCSE, with DS, is that the Year 9 is a much more relaxed introduction, and consolidation of the KS3 skills, which in many ways makes it the best year to put her back into, to make sure that the KS3 skills are refreshed.

How does she feel about it? Does she want to leave all her peer group and friends in a year's time and then go back with the people who are then in year 7?

What are the actual issues - is there a simpler way of addressing them? Also - in terms of home ed - could you do this? I am a graduate and a qualified, experienced teacher but I would not be able to teach a bright child year 8/9 physics or chemistry.

The whole question about delayed GCSEs is a bit harder. I don;t believe it is true that the State school alwasy enters pupils to take GCSE exams in the summer of the academic year (1 Sept to 31 Aug) in which they turn 16, as I know of several at various stages of the school, where they were summer babies and the parents, more clued in than I was at the time DD was going into reception, held them back. I certainly know of ones without an EHCP - at least one boy and one girl in her Year 7, and various others throughout the school. That one boy and one girl in her Year 7 are certainly not going to be forced to do GCSEs a Year early. So there must be some way of doing it. The difference is that at least with the boy, he definitely was held back at reception, and the girl sometime early in primary school, if not reception.

clary - I haven't breathed a word of it to her yet, and wasn’t planning to until I was sure that it was feasible. I don’t want to get her hopes up. The thing is, she keeps telling me how much she hates school, she has sleepless nights the night before the holidays end, she counts down on her calendar the days until the next holiday, or the weekend. She is just so miserable about it, and watching her go miserably off to school breaks my heart. And she has a nice (but small) circle of friends (other summer babies, who also don’t go with the prevailing winds, and who are just all “younger” than the rest of the year group). I do worry about taking her out of that group, but the reason they have found each other, it seems to me, is precisely because they are all so much younger psychologically than the year group.

And in terms of home ed – the thing about my idea, is that I wouldn’t need to do very much teaching. She would be fully taught the KS3 curriculum by the school up until the end of Year 8 (which is what they do). She would be fully taught the GCSE curriculum from Year 9 on, by the school, all I need to do is a) maintain her level during the Year; and b) provide enrichment. One of the things that frustrates her is that she wants to have more time to practice her violin and clarinet and school keeps getting in the way – this would provide that, we could have a very musical year (with private teachers). I could probably find a maths tutor (if I didn’t do it myself – I also have a maths science degree – theoretical physics and my minor was applied maths) to come once a week and make sure she was maintaining her maths levels. That is, briefly, I could give her a year of enrichment, and a time to mature, and then put her back into the GCSE system, that’s the plan. Hopefully with the maturity to cope with school a bit better.

I don't think that's going to work in any state school unfortunately. Can you afford to look at the private sector?

Ok the other family issues:

a) DS1 who has very, very complex special needs is turning 18 in June next year. We are hoping to find a residential place for him, because the family has only just managed up until now, and we cannot do it for ever. If we can manage to find a suitable residential place, that will give the family as a whole options that it has never had, including, particularly, travel.

b) I am an Australian, and my parents live in Australia. DH’s parents are no longer with us. When they were younger, because we could not travel with DS1, my parents used to come and spend a month with us during our summer, their winter. However my parents have become increasingly elderly, and my father has Parkinsons, and can no longer come. We have struggled and struggled to get respite for DS1 to go and visit them. With DS1 in residential care, it suddenly might be feasible for us to go for a month or more to Australia to be with my parents – but clearly I would not be able to take DD out of school to do this unless she is currently completely out of school (ie home schooled).

c) DH has close relatives (uncles and cousins) in South America whom we have never seen, because every bit of somewhat lengthy respite we have had has been dedicated to Australia. He used to go there for his summers as a child, but the rest of the family has never met any of them (except when they pass through England).

d) DS2 will finish his GCSEs at the end of next year. He is looking to changes schools and go somewhere different for Sixth Form. Unlike DD, where I feel there are real reasons for her to take a year out, I don’t feel that about DS2, although I think he would enjoy and benefit from a year out to explore some of his interests which his schooling cannot accommodate (particularly drama). One option with him would be for him also to take a year out, and see if he can do some drama courses post GCSEs. The other is to try and see if he can stay with other people/board with a family during periods that we are not there. If he did take a year out, we would clearly need to have a tutor to maintain his GCSE standard in his chosen A levels (likely to be out of Chemistry, Maths, Biology, Physics or Geography). Might think about getting a start on A levels, although I gather the gap is not supposed to be as great as it was, given the new GCSEs. He is motivated and hoping to do very well at GCSE and is already working very hard.

e) DH is feeling a bit jaded at work. One of his major reasons for not moving is the demands of DS1, which his work, knowing him, tolerate. In particular, having him travel for work puts an enormous burden on me, and we have worked very hard to keep it to a minimum. Post DS1 being in residential care, there might be work travel options – or even a posting overseas. Alternatively DH’s work allow for employees to take a “career break” of up to six months, and he has certainly been there long enough.

f) I work contract anyway (demands of DS1 in particular has meant that I gave up full time work a number of years ago), and run the risk every year that I won’t find a contract for the months I want to work.

paddlingwhenIshouldbeworking - we probably could afford to look at a private school if need be, although would prefer not to at this point for DD. DS2 wants us to look at private schools for his Sixth form.

But what I am trying to get my head around is what the LEA would do if I took her out for a year and home schooled her, or "came from Australia after time in Australia", would the really insist that she went into the year above, especially as she is a summer baby, and I gather that, at least now, they are reasonably relaxed about allowing delayed starts to summer babies, so surely it won't be long before having a summer baby do their GCSEs in the following year will be almost commonplace.
Secondly, we know a family in the local burrough who was in a small private primary school that closed, and the family struggled, even with the LEA, to find a place, and it took them over a term to get a place, at which point the school in question assessed the boy (who was never the most academic in the first place), and said that they thought he would do better in the year below, and that is where he went. The LEA wasn't that stupid, to insist a boy who had missed a term of school go into his year when the school was saying he shouldn't. Wouldn't it be the same? Why would they want a child to do badly in their GCSEs because they had missed a year of them?
Admittedly that means taking a risk, which might backfire, I would much rather get them to agree in the first place. But what are they going to do at the point at which I admit that "home schooling" is not enough and DD needs to go back into the regular educational system?

Oh - regarding DDs reaction if I did tell her: she discovered a couple of years ago that home schooling was possible (we have firends, although not in this country, who have done it will all of their kids), and tried begging me for it. I have kept telling her that I don't feel qualified to teach her what she is learning in school.

It was probably her begging about it that set me thinking about all of this in the first place. I really don't think I could home school through GCSE and A levels, as I have made clear to her, and if I told her, I would have to make it clear that it was just a year, and she would have to go back into the system, just a year later. I would certainly not force it on her, but given the way she is at the moment, I cannot see her doing anything but jump at the opportunity. There is a chance that things might change by the end of Year 8, but I am very sceptical that they will.
And it is not the school. No school is perfect, but this one seems pretty much as good as any other I could think of transferring her to. If I could solve the problems by moving elsewhere, I would be seriously considering that, but I think she will have the problems she has at any school.

In my LEA you'd just be put in the pot for a year 10 place. And it could be any where in the county.

They do not take any account of being a summer baby (probably because they're not babies any more). You need to ring your LEA and see where you stand.

TwoGinScentedTears - I think what I was hoping/planning to do is talk to the school first. Maybe because of the experience of this boy we know - where it was the school who told the LEA that he should be admitted to the year below, and that is what happened.
Maybe it is different because the school is an academy and a faith school - but having just checked the admissions requirements on line for in year admissions (which is everything bar Year 7 and Sixth form) you apply to the school, with your faith credentials, and "also" fill in the LEA form. The school knows us, and knows that we satisfy the faith credentials (but we could get another letter certifying this without difficulty if we needed to).
My instincts are (although I guess I hadn't thought this through until now, with everybody posting about it, and I could be totally wrong) is that if the school felt it had a place, and it told the LEA so, then the LEA would agree. And if the school agreed she should go into the year below, and I can't see them wanting her in Year 10 without having done Year 9, then the LEA would defer to that (just as it did with the boy in the primary school).
But I wouldn't want to "spring" this on the school. That is why I thought the first thing to do would be to talk to the school, explain all the issues, and as well as getting a feel for what the chances of an opening in the year below are. Discuss with them why educationally I feel this is the best thing for DD and the family - maybe they will disagree, but it seems worth having the conversation. See if there are ways of making this happen. It is a "can do" school, that is one of the things I like about it, although maybe I will come up against a brick wall if I am suggesting something so radically unheard of.

Not sure how much an academy can dictate to the LEA on these things though, I don't fully understand the relationship.

And i just wondered if anybody else out there had tried something similar.

How about you gently homeschool her for a year and travel and then use Interhigh for years 9 - 11. It would give her structured homeschooling (it is an online school) in your timescale is you keep her back a year.

You can always think again for a levels.

I would have thought that coming back into the same school a year younger would potentially cause as many issues as it would solve unless she already has strong friendships with that year.
She'd have to keep explaining, and I would think that however much you protest, she (and possible her classmates) would see it as having been demoted which could be fairly damaging to her self-esteem.

I will have a look at Interhigh, but I confess that I feel a bit daunted about trying to guide her through GCSEs, even with an online school as my support. And it would make it difficult for me to work at all, I would have thought. One year I might be able to flex (as mentioned I work contract), but to be out of the market for four seems risky.

I have wondered about the issues of putting her back into the same school (which then made me wonder whether in fact we should look for a different school). Truth is, though, I am very happy with the school as it stands, which is doing the best it can to help. Eg - the SEN has started something new he calls "forest school" - because he wants kids who don't enjoy school to have something that they can look back on that they did enjoy, and DD was one of the first to get the letters. She is enjoying forest school - where they take them out into nature and let them do want they want, even including climbing trees, and all the things DD likes doing, but it is one lunchtime a week, and not enough to compensate. He ended up putting DD on the special needs register, because she is too slow at everything, ie too slow to pack her pencils and too slow to unpack her pencils, and too slow to finish work in class (although she does it to a high standard), and takes too long over homework, and was just not finishing tests and exams (although doing them to a very high standard for the bits she got to - eg she would get 65 out of the first 70 marks of the paper, and then the rest up to 100 is blank because she doesn't get to it, regardless of what area is on the first part and what on the second. If given enough time to complete, she gets very high scores. So the SEN assessed her, and besides the fact that she took a really long time to complete the assessment, I couldn't make head or tail of what he thought he found, and I am not sure he could either, but something wasn't going right, so he said let's trial extra time in tests and exams, which has been fantastic, as it means she is actually able to show what it is that she really knows, but he cautioned us that when it came to GCSEs we may not be able to get it - because we need a diagnosis.

But this has been the pattern over the years. In Year 1 they were worried about the fact that she was still wetting herself periodically (whereas if she had deferred and been in reception, they would not have blinked an eyelid, as many kids were still doing that). In Year 2 that had cleared up, but they were worried that she couldn't hold a plastic cup without crushing it, or hold her pencil properly, and was not really playing with the other children, but playing by herself. If she had been in Year 1 I think that would have been regarded as within the bounds of normality. By Year 3 all that was resolved, except that because she was only then able to hold the pen properly, she had completely forgotten how she had been taught in years 1 and 2 to draw the letters, and her handwriting was dreadful. After jumping up and down at the SEN, I got them to give her some special classes focused on teaching her handwriting just as she would have been taught it in Years 1 and 2, and guess what, her handwriting came right. And all the way along we have had concerns because she cannot dress and undress herself for PE as fast as the others. But when she was taking swimming lessons with kids who were mostly the year below, there was never any complaint, because they were also by and large slower.
I really wonder whether it is not just that she keeps being pushed to keep up with an age group that is too advanced for her, and while academically she can mostly do that, whenever we have motor skills and the like involved, she just can't keep up.

My thoughts would be that the explanation she would need to give is "I took a year out to go visit my grandparents in Australia and my cousins in Brazil etc, but that meant I missed doing Year 9, so I have to do it this year". Kids don't know about LEAs insisting on in year admissions, or home schooling. But they can all see that if you don't do Year 9 of a three year GCSE, you could well be expected to do it again. Even if in fact we spent most of the year in Britain, the parts we didn't could be highlighted as the reason.

Just so I'm clear, does your daughter have SEN? Is she taught in a special needs class at school? Does she have additional support?

My ds had just finished year 8, and I would say that a child staying back a year would cause some talk. You say the kids won't know- they will go home and tell their parents she's repeating a year, and you will have many parents who know the system and will say she's being held back. Please don't be blinkered to this happening.

If she went to the same school, how easily will she merge into a new group of friends, if kids know she was the year above? Again it depends on how big the school is. Ds's school only has 1000 including 6th form, so kids tend to know who's who and what years they are in. Would a new school be better?

Once you de-register, they won't keep a place open anyway, so you may not get back in. How would you feel if the only available place was at a school an hours drive away that had poor public transport links? Would you still be happy to send her? Then you have the additional meeting up with friends issue, it will always be a considerable amount of driving.

Sorry I'm putting worst case scenarios to you now, just to see how you feel should they happen.

if you want to do this, accept she will need to go into private education for yrs 9-11 the LEA is not flexible in the way you are wanting. I have a Summer baby, many of us do, can you imagine the chaos if everyone wanted an exception.

Firstly I think you would have no problem with the LEA if you withdraw your DD for home schooling. The issues would come when you try to reintroduce her to school. As other posters have said you need to speak with the LEA and get some clarity from them. Each LEA is different, some are more open to flexible schooling than others.

Secondly, will your DD want to return to school. From your description of her I think she may be very reluctant and you may not have the option of returning to formal education.

Interhigh, and there are a couple of others, offer very good alternatives to formal school requiring no more from the adult as a regular school. You can still work if your DD is ok to be at home on her own.

Finally has your DD been assessed for any SEN? Do you really think a year out will make enough difference to her abilities?

Regarding the LEAs and summer born children - this report www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-born-children-school-admission
is very interesting it says, amongst other things:

"10 of the local authorities which responded now have a policy of automatically agreeing all requests that are made to delay entry. 23 local authorities said that they only agree requests where parents present very strong evidence. The majority of local authorities (56) surveyed still expect parents to make a case as to why their child should be admitted to reception at age 5, although they admit that they are more likely to agree requests than they were previously."

Of course, this is talking about delaying entry to reception, not about deferring Year 9 - however, all of these kids who deferred reception will end up in Year 9 and higher out of year. Assuming one is in one of the 10 LEAs who will automatically grant deferral to reception if asked, or one that will mostly grant, then, as I mentioned, in a few years time, if not sooner, it will be commonplace to find summer born babies out of year. Given that I know of at least two children out of an intake of around 200 in DDs current Year 7 who are summer born and out of year - and those are only the kids that I happen to know, as we knew them from before high school, there could easily be another few who are also out of year. My guess is therefore that the year below will also have a similar number already out of year - the only difference being that they have been this way since reception.

Assuming my LEA is one of those that grants automatically requests for deferral at reception, or even one that ask parents to make a case but do not requires such strong evidence - and given the numbers I know about, it seems unlikely that it is not, then why should a case being made at a later stage, when there is more evidence, be treated any differently?

Just so I'm clear, does your daughter have SEN? Is she taught in a special needs class at school? Does she have additional support?

No to all of these. The Senco put her on the special needs register, but that doesn't mean she has anything formal. He put her on it because she is always slow at completing work, and was getting swamped by the combination of homework along with being told to finish work at home that she hadn't finished in class, and was similarly slow to finish any exam or test. He did some assessments but didn't seem to come up with any diagnosis, from what I could tell. He did talk to all the teachers about the fact that she was slower at doing work and not to overwhelm her. He also trialed extra time, which has really helped her to finish tests and exams.

However to be clear she is doing very well. Without the extra time, she was still performing at average to above average, with the extra time, she is performing towards the top of the cohort. For example, she gets most of any set of maths questions right, just that she seems to take longer to do them than the rest of the group. If given extra time she will end up with high scores. If not given extra time, she will end up with mediocre scores, because she will get right what she reaches, but she only completes 70% of the paper. If pushed to try and go faster, she gets stressed, panics, and does worse than if left to go at her own pace and only complete 70% of the paper. The same is true of her other subjects.

The issue is the emotional one. She is miserable, and feels constantly pushed and stressed and overwhelmed. The extra time in exams has helped a lot, but what she really needs is not just extra time in exams, but extra time in each class, because she never manages to finish what she is expected to finish, and she never manages to pack up her pencil case and unpack it at the same pace as the others, so that she is scrabbling around trying to do this while everybody else has started work or left the classroom.

But if given the time she needs - she is comfortably Set 1 material. Putting her in, say, Set 3, means that she gets easier and more repetitive work, which she doesn't need, but in terms of how much they want her to do, she still hasn't got her books and pencil case out and started with the others, so still doesn't finish the work in class that is set, even if it is easy for her.

My ds had just finished year 8, and I would say that a child staying back a year would cause some talk. You say the kids won't know- they will go home and tell their parents she's repeating a year, and you will have many parents who know the system and will say she's being held back. Please don't be blinkered to this happening.

Of course the kids will talk, and they will certainly all know that she was previously with the Year 10s and is now in Year 9. But they will also know that she was not around in Year 9 the previous year. That will for sure generate talk from the start- where has she gone? What has happend to her? If she is in England the kids will see her around and ask her during that year, well before she comes back into Year 9. She will see them when she goes to the local shopping centre, when she is on the various mainstreets, around faith activities, everything. There is no way it will be hidden from the various classes long before there was any question of her going back into school. And that is regardless of which school she goes back to. Even if she goes to a different one, she will still meet the other kids everywhere she goes.
The question is, if we do this, what does she/we tell them when they ask and talk? No question they will talk. And that is why it seems to me that the line would not be "she is being held back" - even if that is the truth, but "she was not allowed to visit her grandparents if she was in school so her parents decided to take her out for the year so that they and she could visit her grandparents" (they all know that, following the requirements of the LEA, the school is draconian about not allowing holidays in term time and falling below the dreaded 95% attendance). The point being, that if her parents took her out of school to visit her grandparents in Australia in term time, and therefore she never covered the Year 9 curriculum, surely it is logical that she would have to do it the following year? Hence she ends up with the year below.

I doubt they will think that she is being "held back". You don't hold back Set 1/2 students - I doubt that will cross their mind. It will all be blamed on me and my (unreasonable) desire to spend time with my parents. Or alternatively they will be jealous that she got a year's holiday - although that should hopefully be tempered by the fact that she then has longer to go to finish school, as she is not missing any of it, just deferring it. I know how unhappy she is, but unless they know her very well and are party to her confidences (which as she keeps these things close to her chest, they almost certainly aren't) why will they necessarily assume it has anything to do with her, rather than the family's circumstances (and most kids are likely to be aware that she goes to events run by the hospices and other charities for siblings of life limited children - particularly as one of the charities runs a retreat, so every year we have had two days off school to go to it - retreats run by charities for life limited children and their families falling within the "exceptional circumstances" category of the school).

I think it would be best to go with the "she is being homeschooled" to any nosey gossips. You shouldn't feel you or your DD have to explain yourselves to anyone about her leaving school. That way it leaves you free to make decisions about where you spend the time at home.

MurielsBottom Lots of very good points. I suspect she will be reluctant to go back to school. I was planning to tell that absolutely all I could manage was one year, with all the consequences that entailed and she would need to take that into account if we agreed to do it. She is a good girl, she does go off every morning, even if her face is so long it is hitting the floor. She really does try. She was so happy coming home today having finished school, she is just a different child.

Will it solve all the problems? No idea, but I just keep thinking back to all the concerns that have been raised over the years, and it keeps being that she grows out of them, only to grow into a new set where if she had been in the year below, the concerns would never have arisen in the first place, or they would have resolved before anybody got too worried. And to be quite honest I can't think what else to try.

I will have a look at the longer term home schooling. Maybe that can be the fall back if it doesn't work (but if I tell her that that option exists, then I suspect the alternative will for sure not work).

This is for you and your life plans, not her. Get her a tutor if you are worried. I'm getting cross with you the more I read your excuses. Your naivety is astounding

I'm a august born and I hated secondary when I started school. But it got easier as I got older and I gained confidence. I started doing somethings I initially felt uncomfortable doing. Drama productions etc. I did art at lunchtime to prevent the hanging around on the outside of a group.

And taking your DD away from her few friends seems crazy. Re-entering an established year group will be very hard and isolating.

I understand your travel ideas m, but are you going to be happy not to see your oldest for months and go off traveling? Are you going to have him home some weekends?

I would work on enrichment during the holidays.