Should I send daughter to school in Sept or Jan?

Spendless

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

Agree this is the legal requirement. However schools do not have to keep a space open for a child not starting school at the beginning of the academic year, if they only have the one traditional annual intake of September. It is down to the school.

Our local infant school has one intake a year, in the September. You cannot defer a place and start your child the next term for instance, the school simply offers the place to another child. This is for financial reasons; they only get funding for the number of children actually attending the school and since it's always over subscribed, they know they can fill the spaces, so they do.

For poorly performing schools which are not so popular, it may be different due to less pressure on places. So the OP needs to be sure whether this is actually a viable option before making a decision which may not be possible.

I am guessing you quoted the first bit of my post without reading thru as I have bolded about what my council do, also a one intake area and they DO hold places for deferred entry. As it was on the council's website I guess this is down to the LA rather than the individual school.


My post starts 'not ness' (necessarily) in answer to another mse'r who thought a one entry intake area wouldn't hold places, out of interest I went looking up my own council's as they start all children in sept and discovered yes you can defer a place and hold it at a particular school. At no point did I say the OP would be able to do this because as you say she needs to discover what is viable in her own area.

Sublime_2

Minerva69 wrote: »

This is not the case where I live, the head teacher at my nursery said that schools have a legal requirement to keep the place available, and children don't have to start school until the term after their 5th birthday. Technically we don't have to start her until after the Easter holidays. 2 people from nursery did that this year and the school had to hold their place open. The school have said we can send her in January if we decide to, we just need to put our decision in writing before the end of next week. Will decide what to do after hopefully speaking to other staff at the school visit on Monday.

I still think January would be best, because the toilet issue is causing a problem, and as your nursery staff are very supportive, it may just give her the extra time she needs, without perhaps feeling uncomfortable. As has been said in previous posts, at infant school staff are there primarily to teach, so would not be able to remind her to go. If it was just the occassional wetting she would probably be fine in September. I do think its a good thing to see your GP again, just to rule out any medical problems, and for more advice.

I hope you get this sorted out, as it is a big step going to 'big school' for the first time.