Deferred entry - grammar schools

[rattlinbog]

Do grammar schools allow you to apply if you are a late August birthday who has deferred to the year below? Does anyone have experience of this? Thanks so much

You would need to check the admissions policies/websites for the schools you are interested in.

It is normally possible, but you should ask. For example, the sutton schools say -

If your child is going to be in Year 6 at the time of the test but is out of date range (i.e. their birth date is not between 1 September 2012 and 31 August 2013) then and you must contact the SET administrator at [email protected]k_. You will be asked to provide supporting evidence from your child’s primary school confirming why the decision was taken to allow them into an academic year that does not correspond with their birth date year

www.suttongrammar.sutton.sch.uk/admissions/selective-eligibility-test-faqs

Also, be aware that if the entrance tests are age-weighted, then your child would be more heavily weighted against than other applicants, but the education they'd have had would be the same.

You would need to check with the LEA/school as not all areas will use the same criteria. My friends child has just done exactly this, the child passed the 11+ and has a grammar place in Bucks. Child has been deferred a year since reception.

It depends on the school, but I know of one which has a carefully worded exclusion that's something like that they mist have been in that out-of-age-cohort since at least year 3. I think they had a spate of some canny parents of decidedly below-par kids who tried to game the system by holding them back a year when it emerged that their DC wouldn't make the grade.

I know in our borough, and it seems to be in the government guidelines, if you're out of cohort you have to apply for a school place in Y5 with your original cohort and then ask again for a deferral. I don't understand how that works with any school that has an entrance test, even just a banding test where those are used. Do they have to sit them in Y5?

From the government guidance: "Parents will need to apply once again for an outside normal year group place alongside an application for a school place and should do so when their child’s ‘correct’ cohort are making applications for a school place. This means that for a summer born child who started in reception a year later than is usual, parents would apply for a secondary school place and for an out of year group place when the child is in year 5 rather than year 6." www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-born-children-school-admission/admission-of-summer-born-children-advice-for-local-authorities-and-school-admission-authorities#transition-to-junior-middle-or-secondary-school

Thanks all, seems a bit of a minefield!

I asked a couple of local
grammar schools because I was curious. The consensus was that there are no barriers to a deferred child sitting the 11+ especially if you can prove the child has been out of cohort since Reception (repeating year 6 to have another bash at the exam however? That’s a no!).

The sticking point, as previously mentioned, would be that the child would not benefit from any kind of age standardisation when calculating scores. But neither do September born kids.