Is it possible for a child to be held back a year?

[Drunksushi]

Hello,
I’d really appreciate some advice or insights.
We are moving to England from Australia in a couple of months. Entering school in September for both my kids will be difficult:
The older one will go into Year 11 - in to the last year of the GCSE syllabus (there are no equivalent exams to GCSEs in Oz - exam year here is year 12).
The younger will go into year 8. His birthday is right at the end of August. At the moment he is in Year 6 and would not start secondary school in Australia until Jan 2024. Effectively he will miss the first year of secondary school.
Is it ever the case that children can be placed in different years? not exactly ‘held back’ but I suppose it’d be the equivalent.
It’s clearly not a normal thing in England but I wonder if there are exceptions?
It’s very difficult to get information from overseas. We’ve started the process of applying for admission with a school but they won’t speak to us directly yet.
This is the state school system, we can’t afford private education!

That's not true. My DD was born in 2008 and it was already allowed then. There's 2 kids in her year that we know, who were deferred.

Went to school in the north west with several peers who came from USA and transferred into places a year lower than their age. So entered yr 9 instead of yr 10 to allow for GCSE starts. This was 15-20 years ago so Lancs councils and LEA’s have been familiar with this for a long time.

Interesting but great for those kids. The school admissions code to allow it only changed in 2015 but I know they did a pilot somewhere too. Wasn't allowed in 2 parts of London near where we lived or the case to make it happen had to be extreme circumstances I believe. My summer borne nct peers scattered around the country and a few of asked including prem twins 😞

Many of us knew the rules were about to change too which was more annoying- told not for our kids but the next year

2019 - Summer born made bugger all difference to us - I had that as my second argument for deferred entry.