Compulsory age for starting school

It has nothing to do with OFSTED as the attendance figures do not include reception. Your daughter could continue to send her son to Nursery until he is statutory school age. That risks not finding a place in a local or preferred school. As a governor you will know about admissions and how they work & that pressure on places make it difficult to defer places. Your DD could see what happens when DGS starts. You never know he might thrive. It sounds as though your DGS would have a lovely time at school: bright, articulate, creative and interested in the world.

Your daughter is coping with a lot at the moment. Do you think it is more her worry than your DGS?

He has never been to nursery; but has done a couple of days at pre-school for a term.

It is possible that he will be fine and thrive and obviously this is what we hope - we just do not know - but he has had a lot of pressure and has at times been quite unhappy. We do of course recognise her worries and how this impinges on him.

But it is more than that - in her heart she feels that even 5 is too young for any child for lots of very sound well-researched reasons. It would just be nice of there could be a bit of flexibility. The rigid system that is creeping in does not help.

I had a somewhat paradoxical reply on the subject from the LA. "The school cannot insist on the child attending full-time and the parent cannot insist on the child attending part-time" - hmm.

Looking at it from another perspective, could it be that, as his life has been a bit topsy turvey lately, starting school might actually be a comforting structure in his life and being so bright he will feel very confident academically. Know what you mean about targets etc. Can't abide with the amount of pressure that's put on children from such a young age. It was bad enough when mine were young, and it's much worse now. I know when my daughter was between school and uni she said she felt as if all of her life had revolved around exams .

My German son-in-law did not start school until he was 7 but it doesn't show !! I think 4-5 is too young emotionally. My daughter may have been ready for school at 5 but my sons certainly weren't. I think there would have been much benefit for them if they had stayed at home for another year or so. My daughter sent her twins at 4yrs 3 months because everyone else was starting in September and she felt they might miss out on friendship groups etc.

I have just taken advice from the Children's Legal Centre and the school are wrong about the law - they had said it is illegal for them to allow a rising 5 child to attend part-time. That is not the case. They do have discretion in the matter and they have to act reasonably and listen to the parents views. If they decide to withdraw the place for that term, they are still obliged to allow the child to attend after he reaches school age - i.e. they cannot back out on their offer of a place.

At least we know where we stand, and my DD and her OH will have to discuss what might be best. But it is of concern that the school is not aware of the legal situation.

mishap double check that the place has to be at that school. It is the LA that has the responsibility to provide places not individual schools. So it could be the case that if the decision is taken not to take the place up at all in September that the LA could offer it to another child who wants that school and place your DGS in another school and still be within the law.

We were not able to keep children on roll if they were absent for more than 6 weeks. The place was forfeited and anyone on the waiting list for that year group was given the place. It would be chaos and cause all sorts of unfairness if individual families could pick their own admission dates! I agree with taking individual needs into account and have always managed flexible admissions but after the first couple of weeks 100% of families decided that their children were happy at school f/t!

If it is a school with its own admission arrangements (Church/academy/free etc) then the rules will be their own.

This isn't of any use to you, Mishap, but in Scotland the system is a bit different. The cutoff date is 1st March, and any child who will be 5 between then and 28/2/14 can go to school this year. If your child is 5 later in the year (don't know the exact date, but I think it's from September on), you can choose to keep them back until the following year. In the local authorities I know about, there is only one intake per year.

I have one 4-year-old DGS, who will be 5 in January, starting next week, but the one who won't be 5 until next May will have to wait until August 2014. Our own children all had autumn or winter birthdays and so started when they were 4, and coped fine. In those days the choice of keeping them back a year was not publicised as it is now, but we wouldn't have wanted to do it anyway, as they all seemed ready for school.

Hope all goes well with your DGS, Mishap

Hi,

Part-time until compulsory school age is fine and is a right that parents have under paragraph 2.16 of the School Admissions Code 2012.

Thanks shelby75 for clarity!

No probs. Flexible School Admissions is a subject I have an interest in and have read pretty much all relevant legislation.

If you need to delve into something, I think that it's always worth looking at the legislation yourself. I myself called Corams Children Centre earlier this year, but they didn't give me correct advice, (I've sent them an email since then, so that they might better advise future callers). As is the case now here with Mishap.

Well that is very interesting, as I too called the same organisation, but their advice was slightly different. They agreed (under the same para of schools admissions code) that part time is allowable under school age, but said that the school had discretion as to whether to allow this.

This might help you. Look at Q2.

media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/a/advice_summer_born_children.pdf

Thanks for posting that - very interesting.

I don't want to throw further confusion but Admissions document says a parents can request p/t or deferment and a school needs to consider any request BUT I think a school could still refuse. They would have to have a reasonable reason to do so..and that for example could be a waiting list of children who wanted to take up a f/t place in September.

It's a bit like the right to request a job share..you can ask and it must be considered but it does not have to be granted if there is a good reason why not.

Please understand that I do think there should be a degree of flexible admissions to cater for specific needs and that the practice and environment should be supportive of little children! I am only trying to point out potential pitfalls!

I agree with Mishap. I also think the problems started when Ofsted assumed responsibility for nurseries . I was so angry when my three year old son had to be reported on as if I had been able to stay at home with him he would have avoided all the testing until he started school. I just wanted him to be cared for in a homely environment. A later start date would mean resources could be diverted to higher education and to cut student debt. My older son is a July baby and when he was older he got so annoyed that some of his pals could drive and visit pubs/clubs almost a year before him!

Mishap has put the case more eloquently than I ever could!

I just wanted to say that my children all started school between 6 ½ and 7 (not in England) and this has not prevented the three older ones from being able to move on to good UK universities. (The youngest hasn’t left school yet.)

I know that some parents now have to rely on schools to provide childcare as well as education, but I can’t help thinking that there must be some better solutions available.

Hi, as far as I'm aware the school can't refuse, I have seen confirmation of this from the Department of Education. Obviously there would need to be some dialogue with the school as to the timing/days/hours etc.

If you would like confirmation from the DfE, this lady is helpful:

[email protected]

Tel: 01325 735711 (internal 635711)
works part time - Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays

Re the summer-born issue:
A disproportionately high percentage of summer-born children are identified as having some sort of Special Educational Needs. At the end of Key Stage 1, August-born pupils are nearly 90% more likely to be identified with SEN than September-born pupils (Research Report DFE-RR017) and I recently read in Hansard that 50% of pupils on School Action Plus are summer-born.

This appears to be purely because they are summer-born and young socially and emotionally for the school year they are often forced to join. In this manner Admissions authorities’ policies, where they are at the moment weighted against parents who want to wait until their summer-born child reaches the age of 5 years, are self-defeating. They refuse to easily support these children’s parents in waiting that extra year, when the child’s social and emotional skills will have had a chance to develop that all-important extra period, and instead force early entry and inject wasteful funds in trying to redress the child centered problems, through “Special Educational Needs” intervention such as School Action or School Action Plus, this type of policy brings about. Why not encourage Admissions authorities to re-think this strategy and see the wisdom in allocating much needed, scarce funding into areas where it can be put to far better use and to those children that really do require such intervention.

Wherever you draw a line for starting school there will be a year difference in the oldest /youngest child.

Some children will be less socially mature than others and they may find mixing with other children, coping with being part of a bigger group and routines etc very hard and distressing. If we became more relaxed about the age for starting school AND taking final exams then we may see more success for all children.

I have worked in schools in some very deprived areas. Many of the children were cognitively and emotionally immature and they really benefited from being in a school nursery.

I reiterate what I have said before: good nursery & reception classes do meet the needs of 3-5 year olds! I am aware that some schools feel under pressure to 'sausage machine' children and formalise the teaching too soon.. however there are as many parents who prefer that approach to those who prefer a more child -centred approach... you can't please all the people all the time!

It would be nice to see some flexibility though rather than the one-size fits all approach from admissions authorities, based on bureaucratic administrative constraints instead of what's in the best interest of the child.

"you can't please all the people all the time!" - Very true!

It is often the parents who want to see real Teaching taking place in the classroom even though the children are only 5, but the teachers know that creative play is necessary at this early age.
We notice in Germany that our children get very bored with Kindergarten in the 6 months beffore starting school. When they start they are raring to go and are very positive about it. As most parents went themselves to school at the age of 6 or 7 this system is accepted.

It is tough to challenge the 'rules' but it can be done.

I will say that, in most instances I have experienced, the request to defer or prolong the p/t attendance has been far more heavily based on the parents' needs than the children's. In those cases parents did change their minds and children started attending f/t sooner than the parents had originally thought the child would need to.

When it was for the real benefit of children I wholeheartedly supported parents to defer moving into Reception /Yr 1 and this meant the children were not always struggling emotionally and so were better placed to make good cognitive progress.

nanaej, you are quite right, it is tough to challenge the 'rules' and that it can be done.

The campaign group 'flexible admissions for summer borns" and the charity BLISS worked collaboratively with the DfE to help produce the latest advice that has been published. It doesn't go as far as the groups would like, but it's a good start.

Parents are beginning to challenge admission authorities and succeeding. Many published admission arrangements are in breach of legislation and LEA's revert back to the stance of 'our policy' when questioned. Their policies are neither prescriptive, nor enforceable and certainly do not supersede legislation.