I need a safe place to grieve and to rage for our summer-born children.

[lingle]

According to the press, Sir Jim Rose has thrown away the Government's suggestion that allowing immature summer-born children to defer their entry into reception for a year should become the norm in England as it is in Scotland.

Although DS2 is now "safe", because I have Bradford LEA's confirmation in writing that we can year-defer and start reception at 5, I am genuinely grief-stricken by this. I have campaigned for this for some time and have become every more convinced that parents need this option.

We have had contact with four health professionals in relation to DS2 now. Whatever I think of them in other respects, all four, plus the two teachers at school, have expressed strong and immediate confirmation that deferring DS2's formal education until he is 5 will fundamentally change his life chances for the better. In my view, this simple act of waiting for the child to be as ready as he can will be more valuable and save the taxpayer more money than any assessment, intervention or therapy.

As if I needed any more confirmation, the specialist early years support teacher who looks after DS2 has confirmed that her pupils consist completely disproportionately of summer-borns.

I suppose the July-August borns with mums who have followed the debate will at least benefit from understanding parents who know it is the system, not the child, that is awry, and who will shield them and remind their teachers of the issue. But the parents who don't know that 4.0 is absurdly early for so many little ones to be sitting concentrating and learning to read, write and add up will be told their child is "behind" or "struggling", if not in reception, where they can soften the blow, then in Year 1 or Year 2. From the statistics about diagnoses of ADHD, etc, it seems that there are many false positive diagnoses in summer-borns.

I feel quite sickened by this wasted opportunity. I feel angry. I feel I should have done more. I need a thread where no one says "Well mine started school at 4.0 and it's wonderful so therefore every child ought to start at 4.0". I feel safer on the SN board.

sorry I don't get this(maybe I missed something)
you are greieving because your dc has to start school at 4!!
ott springs to mind sorry.
I was greif stricken when I found out dd would never walk or talk.
and when her freind died.

I had no idea on the other thread lingle that your ds had special needs. Of course there has to be all the nec flexibility for any child with special needs.

that was the bit I must have missed

Ironically I think it was one of the best things for Ds1 to start school when he did. He's a July baby who started fulltime school in January 2007 when he was 4.5. But this is because his school is very structured, has small class sizes and a high ratio of teaching assistants with the teacher, is geared towards his level of understanding and because he loves letters and numbers anyway.

I'm very very shaken by that first response.

Have I missed something?
sorry but I read and read the op and kcan't find the SN.
could well be me, as I am tired.

(Sorry. Perhaps I misunderstood. I just assumed an SN from the post in this topic, and didn't want to give offence by ignoring it, as obviously it would change the whole issue of school start date.)

I agree with you lingle. Many children are simply not ready to start formal education at 4.
And I can understand why you are so upset about it, if your child is not ready, then it will hinder his/her chance of succeeding in school, which in turn has an enourmous impact in life and self confidence.

It's ok Spiro, I understand - it's great that your little man is doing so well. Please don't think I'm trying to say all children should defer. Brief summary: DS2 is late developing his speech and his understanding of language. But his brother was the same and grew out of it completely by 4.6. Both kids are very similar to some autistic children in the way they learn language and otherwise so I find it very helpful to hang out with parents of autistic children and children with specific language delays on this board. We exchange a lot of ideas and help each other. I can't rule out ASD of course but don't think it likely and cheerfully but firmly resist any labels at this stage.
As soon as DS2 failed (like his brother before him) to have the 18-24 months language explosion, I knew that a 4.0 start would be disastrous for him (brother's speech was still indistinct at this stage). Fortunately I live in one of only two LEAs in England who allow you to defer your summer-born for a year then enter reception. But my LEA regularly considers changing its policy and so I have had to campaign about the issue for the past 18 months. In the course of doing so, I have learnt a lot about the inflexibility of our system. I really believed change was coming. Not for my benefit, but for others. I thought the Rose report would help those within Leeds and Bradford Council who have been defending the right of parents to defer summer-borns. But it is not to be.

I have a summer born child who struggled a lot when starting school. My attitude is that somebody's always going to be the youngest, we just have to support them as best we can. I see many summer-born children who develop great qualities like determination and perseverence because they have to try that bit harder.

I appreciate that this is a subject you feel passionately about, but grief and rage? Surely that's a bit OTT and histrionic, especially to those of us who've lost a loved one and know what real grief is. Is there something else to this?

sorry I have to say I still don't get the thread title.
I can see from your last post ath you have concerns about your child.
but you wrote " Although DS2 is now "safe", because I have Bradford LEA's confirmation in writing that we can year-defer and start reception at 5, I am genuinely grief-stricken by this. I have campaigned for this for some time and have become every more convinced that parents need this option."
so I don't see what there is to "grieve about.
sorry if my first post "shocked you" but I am tired as I was lying awake half the night worrying about dd's future.
(she is an april baby and the oldest in her class)

I am with you on this one lingle.
Ds is a summer baby and in Year 1 this year.

I had the most horrendous experience last year when he started reception at 4.1 and the school highlighted that he was behind and he might have special needs.

I know my son and I knew he wasn't ready to start formal education. He practically refused to talk and do anything academic for the first term, when he started opening up his teacher had given up on and tried to label him.

I had to fight and involve other teachers to make them see what I was seeing: a shy little boy overwhelmed by the experience.

He's so different this year, new teacher and lots of friends later he is very happy to be in school and has made lots of progress.

And this because I think he is now ready as he's 5.

oh - and school now agrees with me....

I am sure you did your best Lingle, so don't beat yourself up. At least you tried.
I agree that there needs to be more flexibilty to each childs individual needs. To me this is a wider issue but I can see your point that some 'late developers' (if that phrase is OK still) combined with youngest in year may be labelled sn when they just need a little time. Many children with mild/mod sn are without a clear diagnosis at 4 ( so are treated as naughty when they cannot conform/sit still etc) and some children (NT and SN) would benefit from a later school start. At the moment it is extremely hard and in some LEAS (like ours) impossible to defer school start. ( My son is an early winter born - but had GDD/LD - so needed either deferment or support and got neither at 5 hense feeling there are wider issues).

No. There is nothing else to this. I was genuinely upset because the government is now likely to waste a golden opportunity to introduce a Scottish-style system that would allow parents a choice to let their child start school when they are ready. It wasn't just about me, or my child. It was a political stance. It was about wanting society to be better for children who are slower to mature and who may or may not have special needs throughout their lives.

It seems after all that this was not the place to express how I felt. I have never been trapped in a conversation like this before. I wish I hadn't posted.

linglesorry if I have upset you. But I just can't help how I feel.
Personally I think 4 is too young(except with sn as dd needed it) for dc's to start formal school, especially boys. ds struggled and he is a february baby.

lingle it is tough isn't it.

DS3 (autistic, non-verbal) will also be one of the youngest in his year - his birthday is 2 August

He adores nursery and I can't help thinking it would be better for him to spend another year there.

But if Reception is a debacle then it will at least give us the grounds we need to argue that he should be in a special school not in mainstream.

Hey ho.

However I do think that many summer-born children without SN will fare fine - that has certainly been our experience with DS1 (even though he has HFA) and DS2 (who frankly would have been insufferable if he was the oldest in his year and not the youngest).

But it is different for SN I think.

Good luck to your DS!

There is not a reception year at all in Scotland. If DS1 had not been autistic, I would probably have requested that he be allowed to start P1 this year - whereas he will actually start P1 ( Special School) next August when he will be 5.5 . DS1 has a music therapist from England who told me that she thinks that P1 in Scotland is a lot more academic than Reception Year in England ( some of her children started in England and the younger two started in Scotland.) So it is not the case that 5 year olds in Scotland start a Reception year a year later. I'm sure this does not help much with your dilemma though !

I completely agree with your main point - that parents should have more choice re:reception start date. But I do think the word "grieve" is too strong - of itself I don't think being summer-born is a special need.

We've had mixed experiences of this. Summer-born ds1 (ASD) could really have done with being in a younger year group during KS1. Things changed in KS2 though and I think he would have become very bored and frustrated if he'd been in the year below his current one.

I think there needs to be flexibility in general though.

Trouble is where do you draw the line? If you allow July and Aug to defer, what about the child born in June who's parents want to defer? Then you get the Mays and the Aprils and before you know it you end up with split year classes, and kids of all ages all over the place. What about the gifted Sept born who's parents want him to start early? I can see it all going very wrong!

Sarah - see posts in other sections about the Scottish system.

can anyone explain to me how being born in august is sn

It isn't.

so why did you post it in sn.

Good question. Trust me, I've regretted it all day. Do you want me to try to explain?