More councils allow all summer-born children to delay school start
Derren Hayes
Friday, May 28, 2021
Increasing numbers of local authorities approved all applications from parents to delay summer-born children starting school in 2020, latest figures show.
Results from an annual survey of councils found that the proportion agreeing all requests from parents to delay a child entering reception rose to 22 per cent last year compared to eight per cent in 2019.
The Department for Education Delayed School Admissions report also reveals that the proportion of councils that had a policy of only agreeing to very strong cases fell from a third in 2018 to zero in 2020. In addition, two thirds of councils said they automatically allow requests to delay school start for children born prematurely.
The issue of delayed school start for summer-born children has gained attention in recent years due to growing evidence showing many achieve lower attainment throughout their education.
The School Admissions Code requires authorities to provide for the admission of all children in the September following their fourth birthday. This is when children usually start school, but a child does not reach compulsory school age until the “prescribed day” following their fifth birthday. This means that children born between 1 April and 31 August do not need to start reception until the September following their fifth birthday – a full academic year after they are first entitled to a place.
Currently, the admission authority for the relevant school is responsible for making the decision on which year group the child should be admitted to and must make a decision on the circumstances of the case and in the best interests of the child concerned. This has led to inconsistent practice across the country, with campaigners arguing for all applications to defer entry being automatically allowed.
Since 2015, the number of requests to defer school start have risen year on year, but the latest data shows the rate of growth slowed in 2020. In 2017, the annual growth in requests was 89 per cent. This fell to 37 per cent in 2018 and 17 per cent in 2019. Last year, that had fallen to 14 per cent among the 52 authorities with data for the five-year period.
There were 3,078 requests to delay entry in 2020 compared with 2,656 the year before.
The acceptance rate for applications remained static with 88 per cent of requests approved by the 52 councils compared with 89 per cent the year before.
The report authors said the survey data corroborates school census data that shows that 1.2 per cent of summer-born pupils delayed entry in 2020, up from one per cent in 2019.
