Parents of summer-born children face ‘unfair’ postcode lottery in school admissions
Families who want to delay their children born in summer from starting primary school face a “unfair” postal code lottery.
Parents, who wanted a delayed start for a child born between April and August, found that they have changed successes depending on where they live, and some councils rejected more than half of their parents’ demands.
The figures obtained by using the demands of Freedom (FOI) – show that some councils reject the majority of parents’ demands to postpone their children who started school.
Meanwhile, many councils have approved 100 percent of their delayed entry requests for three years.
Campaigns and parents call for more consistency throughout England for families who do not want their children to start primary school almost younger than one year of their classmates – some families worry that their children are not emotionally or physically ready.
Some Covid-19 locks discussing in the midst of concerns about the decline in school preparation among children who worse the developmental delays.
Children in the UK usually start primary school in September after the age of four, but the parents of children born between April 1 and August 31 can demand a delay for one year.
A child does not reach the “compulsory school age kadar until the period following the fifth birthday.
The Ministry of Education (DFE), which was updated in 2023, says that admission authorities are expected to decide whether a child-born child can be accepted from normal age groups.
It should be “rare ve, the rejection of a parent by a parent, and the government believes that it is rare rarely for the benefit of a child” to miss training for a year by starting the 1st year instead of reception.
Approximately three of the five councils in the UK provided full data to PA on the number of demands delaying purchases from the parents of 91-summer-wilder people for three years: September 2023 to September 2023, September 2024 and September 2025.
86 Councils provided a complete breakdown of the rejected requests for three years.
The numbers show:
- The Lambeth Council in London rejected more than three of the parents from the request for delaying the purchase entry from September 2024 to September this year. Seventeen demands were made for children born in summer and 12 were rejected. The Council spokesman said that all decisions were “carefully evaluated carefully according to the situation with the interests of the child at the center of the process”. However, he said in chronological age groups, however, “usually supports better long -term results”.
- The Lincolnshire District Council rejected two -thirds (64 percent) of the demand for delaying the start of the school within a year. From 2023 to 2024, they received 87 requests to delay the purchase and 56 were rejected. However, the following year, only 13 of 89 demands were rejected for a delayed school from 2024 to 2025. Matthew Clayton, Head of Education Support in the Council, said that after a change in guidance from DFE in 2023, a school -born school was “changed” in relation to the start requests for children born in summer: “As a result, the possibility of demanding for 2024/25 was more aligned with the national picture.”
- The Southampton Municipal Assembly rejected more than half of the demands of delaying the start of the school within a year. From September 2022 to September 2023, they received a purchase request and 13 were rejected. Member of the Assembly Amanda Barnes-Adrews, Cabinet Member and Learning at the Council, DFE’s education process outside the normal age group is monitored, “each demand requires the child’s effect,” he said.
- More than two fifths of the councils (45 percent) said that children born in 39-summer, which provide data on the number of rejection, did not make any requests to delay the entry from their parents for three years. The Leicestershire Council, the neighboring Lincolnshire, includes 139 applications during the period and none of them were rejected.
- The Hertfordshire District Council, which automatically processes the applications born in summer, received 766 requests for three years, and the West Sussex District Council made 293 requests in the same period and none of them were recovered.
The figures are based only on demands for councils, so that the numbers may vary directly to academies and all demands made to voluntary assisted schools with their own acceptance authorities.
In September 2024, Bianca Sumpter applied to the Lambeth Council because he did not feel that he was ready for school because he had a speech delay, separation anxiety and still sleeping during the day.
Rumo was born on August 26, 2020-two weeks before the last date-in the first year of his life, a kidney situation that led to two operations, and Mrs Sumpter said that there were not too many “socialization” due to Rumo’s illness and Covid-19 pandemia.
The 43 -year -old child from London said: “You decide because you feel the best and so desperate for your child, when they don’t know your child, they take this decision.
“It was really terrible. It was really stressful.
Orum I don’t want Rumo to go through school thinking that it is terrible. I want the education to enjoy it.
“But this thing puts barriers to say good because you were born today, you will probably always be inadequate ‘.”
Ms. Sumpter said that the family faced uncertainty for a year after their demands were rejected by the Council and decided to keep him in nursery last September instead of accepting him to a local authority school.
During the summer period, Rumo was offered to settle at the reception at the school they preferred, and teachers concluded that they were not ready to enter the 1st year in September. The Council finally agreed to allow the school to keep Rumo back, so that it started reception next month.
Mrs Sumpter added: “There is this great inequality between councils and districts. You are in the arms of the gods in terms of what this council says.”
The Southwark Council, which is adjacent to Lambeth, said that PA’s summer children from the parents who want to be accepted at reception in community schools a year later said.
The mother of the three said: “I can literally walk there [to Southwark] In seven minutes. It’s ridiculous to have to fight.
“Of course, we want the result to be better educational, but they also achieve better socially and emotionally. At this point we have to do our children.
“It’s just a cutting day of a cutting day and it doesn’t mean that your child doesn’t have to be at school, because then we only have unhappy and uneducated generations because they feel emotionally out of control.”
The Summer Born Campaign Spokesman Pauline told McDonagh Hull Pa: “Based on the current legislation, this postal code is completely unfair with the lottery lottery.
“It is unjust because some parents have more information about their laws and rights, and some parents have the capacity to fight more if a fight is needed.
“Some parents advise them to make a choice in a lucky and naturally area or school.
“I don’t know how the government stops every year and that he’s not doing anything about it.”
The campaign group urged DFE to update the school acceptance code, which is the legal guidance that schools and local authorities should follow in order to give their parents to their parents to their parents at the age of five to register their children at a five -year -old reception.
McDonagh Hull added: “The government did not follow the promise of the school admission code to enable all summer children to register for the school in a compulsory school age.
“Other parents can go to a special route if they can meet this. Other parents will choose at home.
“Other parents will only be the cave – their children either enter the reception class at the age of four or if there is an existing area, they enter the 1st year.”
Tammy Campbell, a senior member at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said FOI results showed that the postponed entrance for summer -born children is “far from being fair”.
He told PA: “The right to demand ‘policy emerges unequally according to both the local area and the family background factors.
“This is not effective in ensuring that children with the highest probability to benefit from the postponed entry are accessible.”
Dr Campbell said that his research showed that summer -born children were potentially more “advantageous” families that are likely to begin a reception a year later.
“Children from families who are not registered for free school meals and who are the first language in English are more likely to postpone posts,” he added.
“Government guidance is clear that acceptance authorities should be rare to reject a parent’s request, but in practice, the rules do not seem consistent.
“Our opinion is that decisions should always be in the benefit of children – and this may be a matter of ensuring that the child is accurately supported instead of delaying the entry of the school.
“However, no matter what, it needs a series of expectations that support the continuous implementation of these interests, so that families are not exactly what they will expect and the postal code is not a lottery.”
A DFE spokesman said: “High and rising standards are at the center of the mission of disrupting the obstacles to the opportunity for each child to succeed and develop.
“It is clear that the guidance of the government is rarely in the interests of a child, and therefore it should be rare to reject the postponement request.
“We know that parents’ experiences can still change and that they can continue to support individual acceptance authorities by deciding.”
