summerbornchildren

The tongue-in-cheek letter below was written by a parent to vent their frustration at the absurdity of the current school admissions system for summer born children, and the possibility or even likelihood that their child will have to skip a whole year of school in the future, solely because he entered Reception class AT compulsory school age and not before.

It is based on the very real situation parents and children are finding themselves in, and exposes the illogical stance that the DfE is taking by supporting ‘local decisions’ to re-shuffle children back into their ‘correct’ and ‘normal’ age group.

“Dear County Council,
I’m considering taking my 9 year old son out of school for a year and wondered if you could advise which year of education it would be most appropriate for him to miss? Continue reading →

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The Department for Education is advising parents of summer born children to discuss their request for their child to enter Reception class at compulsory school age “as soon as possible with the schools they are interested in applying for and the local authority.”

This is already HUGELY problematic and devoid of choice (not least because it may only be the schools you have no chance of getting a place in that say yes, while your nearest school and/or council says no), but a Guardian article this week (“New schools commissioner reveals plan for all schools to become academies“) reports on a “goal… to make every state-funded school an academy by the end of the next parliament, and perhaps even within the next “two to three years“.

Academies are their own admission authorities (although local authorities can still influence these policies), which means that parents will have to traipse round schools trying to convince individual head teachers why their child needs the same number of years of education and access to the school curriculum as every other child. 

And the DfE’s July 2013 advice advocates this; using paragraph 2.17 of the Code it says, “admission authorities must make decisions on the basis of the circumstances of each case“.

But the DfE advice also says, “It is likely that most requests for children to be admitted out of their normal year group will come from parents of children born in the later summer months or those born prematurely.”

So if your child was born in April, May or  June, it’s also likely that you will experience even greater resistance to your request than other parents.

It’s embarrassing really, but the DfE is advocating an admissions system for compulsory school age children in England that requires parents to contact multiple schools (and even multiple local education authorities) before they begin to fill out the standard application form.

Some admission authorities might say yes to Reception class entry, some might say no – it’s simply a postcode lottery.  But worse than that, local authorities can overrule a head teacher’s support, they can put these applications to the bottom of the processing pile, and they can refuse to give parents an answer in time to make an informed decision – meaning parents are left to gamble even getting a school place at all.

For evidence of the complex hoops a parent must jump through, often years in advance of their child beginning school, just look at this parent’s question posted on our Facebook group this week: Continue reading →

The crux of the problem for summer born children’s admission to primary school at compulsory school age is this:  Admission Authorities ONLY look at the Code.

They do not look beyond the Code to the relevant Primary Legislation. Continue reading →

If you are the parent of a summer born child and in recent years have applied or thought about applying for a Reception class place for your child(ren) when they reach compulsory school age, PLEASE COMPLETE THIS ONLINE SURVEY a.s.a.p.

The more responses we have, the better. Thank you.