Summer-born children - delaying entry to Reception by a full year
Contents
- Deciding to delay your child's admission
- Request to delay your child’s entry
- Delaying entry to Reception - what happens next
Delaying entry to Reception - what happens next
If the request is agreed
You will receive confirmation that an application for that school can be made in the following year. The Head teacher at this school will also be notified.
If you made an application for Reception in the normal year of entry, this application will be withdrawn. A place will not be offered on National Offer Day (16 April 2025).
It is important that you only apply for a delayed Reception place at a school who has agreed to a delayed application. If you name a school that has not agreed to a delay, the school may refuse to allocate a place in Reception.
The current online system for applying for a primary school place is not yet set up to accept dates of birth which are outside the normal year group of entry. This means that it will not be possible for parents who have an agreed delay to make an application online.
School Admissions will send a paper application form. This should be printed, completed and returned back to School Admissions by the deadline of 15 January 2025.
A copy of the paper application form can be found on our website.
The new, delayed application will be processed as part of the normal admissions round in the following year.
While a school may agree to a delayed application, there is no guarantee that the child will be allocated a place at that school in the following admissions round. Other children may have a higher priority within the school’s oversubscription admission criteria.
No additional priority will be given to an applicant applying under the summer born policy, nor will they be penalised. The application will be treated in the same way as all of the applications made in that admissions round.
If it is not possible to offer a place at one of the preferred schools, the Local Authority will make every effort to allocate a Reception place (rather than a Year 1 place) at an alternative school. However, because WNC is not the admissions authority for all schools, any school approached as an alternative school would have to agree to the delayed entry.
If the Local Authority is unable to offer a place at one of your preferred schools, it may not be possible to offer a place in Reception at another school.
If no school is found that will agree to the child being admitted out of normal age group, you will be offered a place for your child at a school in Year 1 at the nearest school to their home address that has a place available.
If your child is given an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan after you have made the decision to delay their child’s start to school and has the agreement of their preferred schools, the EHC Plan will override any agreement made and will specify which school the child will attend and which year group the child will be in.
If an admission authority has agreed that you can delay their Reception application by a full year, you must ensure that School Admissions team has received a copy of this confirmation and have sent an official email confirming the delay. The WNC data system can be adjusted to show that your child will start in Reception a full year later and you should be able to request your funding as normal.
To ensure that the Early Years setting can secure the funded place for children for September 2025, you should notify your Early Years setting before the end of the Spring Funding Block (Term) - 31 March 2025. The Early Years setting can then take into account the number of summer born children continuing for another year when allocating places for September 2025.
If you do not notify your Early Years setting until after nursery allocations have been released, nursery schools and classes will be under no obligation to offer a place above their normal intake number. Children can, of course, be considered for a place through the normal waiting list process.
Once a child has been admitted to a school, it is for the head teacher to decide how best to educate them. In some cases, it may be appropriate for a child who has been admitted out of their normal age group to be moved to their normal age group, but in others it will not.
Any decision to move a child to a different age group should be based on sound educational reasons and made by the head teacher in consultation with the parents.
You can still apply in the normal round for a place in Reception 2025 following their child’s 4th birthday. You must apply by the deadline on 15 January 2025.
If your application is received after this date, it will be treated as late applications according to the current WNC late application policy.
If the request is refused
You will receive a letter from the admission authority of the school, providing reasons for refusal.
Assuming that an application for a Reception place for the normal year of entry was also submitted on time (15 January 2025), you will receive an offer of a school place on National Offer Day (16 April 2025).
You then need to decide if you will accept the place offered for your child’s normal year of entry on National Offer Day. If you still wish to delay your child’s school start for a year, you should decline this offer. You should then apply in June for a Year 1 place for the following September, when your child is compulsory school age.
If you decide to decline this place, you must inform School Admissions team of your decision in writing. Information on how to do this will be on your offer email.
If you have not yet applied for a Reception place in their normal year of entry, you need to apply as soon as possible. This is the case if you decide you would prefer your child to start in Reception rather than waiting until your child reaches compulsory school age, and starting in Year 1.
Applications received after the deadline of 15 January 2025 will be classed as late applications (see our website for more information on late applications).
Any complaints should be addressed directly to the admission authority of the school in question.
You can request to delay your application to more than one school; a request may be refused by one school and agreed by another. There is no limit to the number of schools you can approach to request a delay.
If your request for delayed entry into Reception is refused, you have no statutory right to appeal this decision. This is because the purpose of the appeals process is to decide whether a child should be admitted to a particular school. It is not to decide which year group they should go into.
Last updated 12 September 2024