The Education select committee has written to Nick Gibb, Minister for School Reform, to request that parents be granted the right to appeal if summer-born children are refused permission to delay starting school until they are five years old.
Children born prematurely should also be able to start school according to their due date, rather than their actual date of birth, the committee says. Children are not legally required to start school until the term after their fifth birthday, but youngsters are usually expected to start the reception class the September before they turn five.
This means summer-born children would normally be expected to start reception when they’ve only just turned four. Parents can delay until compulsory school age but campaigners warn that individual headteachers and councils have made this difficult for families by insisting that they go straight into Year One if they delay – missing out on a year’s education.
