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.

"It is an imperfect system for many and not just for summer born children"

I totally agree.

My son is an autumn-born child, one of the oldest in his year. He nevertheless struggled hugely at various points in various schools, because of quite profound dyslexia, and we had to move him at huge cost to him (and our pockets). The schools couldn't have cared less when he was born - they just simply refused to help children with SEN and took to lying about it instead, and writing me letters about how those children were "disrupting their priorities".

He wrote an application form for 6th form the other day. He couldn't remember how to spell his name, or write down the subjects he was taking. He couldn't find the subject list on the computer because his brain can't work out the alphabet to enable him to use a dictionary or reference a book or internet page. With the right help and technology, he's nevertheless making excellent progress in school and may well go on to have very good GCSEs (early results suggest a few Grade As!! He was told he'd never amount to anything...). It breaks my heart that we've had to go through such trauma and massive costs to get that basic right of a decent ordinary education for him. But it was nowt to do with when he was born.

Only one example, but there it is, all the same. So.. even if a child is born early in the school year, and struggles a bit more to get the same grades, it all depends on the goodwill and skill of the school.

I'll start a new thread now with a more informative title and apologise for not doing so earlier. It will be in SN because school deferral has been the key beneficial intervention for my SN child - it's the one point on which all those professionals involved with him advise on before anything else.

I've also contacted mumsnet to ask if the title to this thread can be changed or if there is any way they can "close" it.

This really is the thread which refuses to go away!

What about maybe putting the new one in the SEN section lingle, then all of us who've been following it know to move over there and contribute?

Here's the new one Kettle!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/673578-The-right-to-defer-mainstream-reception-entry-for-possible -SN

Lovely, thanks Lingle. So shall we declare this thread officially closed now!!

seconded.