Reception year admissions guide

With more families seeking guidance, schools are looking for effective ways to manage deferred or delayed entry, part-time attendance, and admissions outside the normal age group. Here are our top tips to help your school navigate these challenges.

We’re receiving an increasing number of queries relating to deferred and delayed entry, part-time attendance and requests for admission outside the normal age group. There’s often confusion around how these rights and processes interact, particularly with reference to “summer-born children”.

In these FAQs, we address some of the most common queries to provide some clarity.

When do children reach compulsory school age? 

All children are entitled to a full-time place in reception year in the September following their fourth birthday and, where this happens, this will be with their “normal age group”. 

However, children don’t reach compulsory school age (CSA) until the first of three prescribed dates following their fifth birthday - 31 December, 31 March and 31 August (children born between 1 April and 31 August are informally known as “summer born children”). 

This means that no child starting school in September with their normal age group is of CSA and therefore legally required to attend from then.

What is deferred entry?

Deferred entry happens where parents secure a place for their child in reception year, with their normal age group, but decide that their child will start school later in the school year. The place they accepted for the child will be retained and the admission and attendance registers marked accordingly. 

Deferred entry is only available until the term after the child reaches CSA, and not beyond the first day of the last term of the year (i.e. a summer born child cannot defer entry for the whole school year until the following September and still keep their accepted place in reception year). 

How does part-time attendance fit in?

Parents can also decide that their child will attend school part-time until later in the year and until they reach CSA. Unlike deferred entry, this right can be exercised during the last term as well (i.e. in the case of summer born children).

In addition, this right can be combined with the right to defer. For example, a child born in February could start school in January and attend part-time until Easter; however, after Easter, they would have reached CSA and must attend full-time. A child born in May (i.e. a summer born child) could start school in January or after Easter, and then attend part-time for the remainder of the year.

Can schools refuse parental requests to defer entry and/or attend part-time?

No, they are not “requests”; they are simply parents exercising their legal right to decide this. 

Primary schools should ensure that their admission arrangements do not refer to parents making “requests”, as this suggests that the school has discretion to refuse. The Office of the Schools Adjudicator has confirmed that this will be regarded as non-compliance.

What is delayed entry?

Delayed entry relates specifically to summer born children and happens where their parents decide that they will not start school for an entire year until the September following their fifth birthday, when they reach CSA. 

As deferred entry cannot be exercised for an entire year, parents wanting to delay entry will lose any place they have secured for their child in reception year, with their normal age group, and will have to apply for admission again the following year.

However, the default position is that this application will be for year 1, with the child’s normal age group, which would mean the child missing reception year entirely, and there is a risk that there won’t be a place available in year 1 when they need it.

If parents want their child to be admitted to reception year one a year later than normal, they will need to make a request for admission outside normal age group and obtain the admission authority’s agreement before the application can be processed for that year group. See below for more information on these types of requests.

We are aware that parents are often encouraged to make their requests at the same time as applying for a place. In our view, it makes more sense for parents to be encouraged to make their requests for admission outside normal age group well in advance of the application deadline for their normal age group, so that they can make informed decisions as to their preferences once they know the outcome.

What is a request for admission outside normal age group?

The default position is that children will be admitted to school with their chronological (normal) age group, that is to say all the other children who were also born between the same 1 September and 31 August school year as themselves.

Where parents want their child to be admitted to a different age/year group (whether below or above), they must submit a request for admission outside normal age group to the admission authority for every school they are thinking of applying for and obtain their agreement to this happening.

As stated above, the right to defer and attend part-time and the right to delay entry are all parental rights that cannot be refused by a school. However, parents do not have a right to decide, in addition to deciding to delay entry for a year, that their child will then be admitted to reception year instead of year 1 - that will require the agreement of the admission authority for the school.

Schools should bear in mind the following key points when dealing with requests for admission outside normal age group:

Applying the School Admissions Code

Paras 2.18 to 2.20 of the School Admissions Code 2021 apply to these requests, including setting out the factors the admission authority must take into account, and requiring schools to set out the process they require parents to follow when making these requests in their admission arrangements.

Individual case assessments

Para 2.19 confirms that the decision must be made “on the basis of the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child concerned”; which means that blanket policies and/or personal views on whether this option should be even possible play no part in the process.

Admission arrangements must not say that requests will only be agreed in exceptional circumstances and/or limit these circumstances.

Who decides? The role of admission authority 

It is not the headteacher of the school who makes the decision - the request must be decided by the admission authority for the school (usually delegated to an admission committee of at least three trustees and/or governors), and the headteacher’s views are only one of a number of factors the committee is required to take into account (along with the parents’ views).

Evidence requirements

Parents are not and must not be required to submit documentary or supporting evidence with their request (although, where they do provide this, it must be considered).

Types of requests beyond summer-born children

Although the overwhelming majority of requests received by schools relate to summer-born children, they are not restricted to them, and requests can be made by parents of any child for any year group and by one or more years.

Reasons could include illness, education abroad in different countries, previous study of different syllabuses etc., there is no restriction on this.

Communicating decisions

The outcome of the request must be communicated in writing to the parents, with the admission authority’s reasons for making the decision (in reality, reasons will only be needed if the request is refused).

What happens when the request is for a summer born child delaying entry? 

The DfE has published separate guidance on handling admission requests for summer-born children, which schools should carefully consider.

The crucial point for schools to keep in mind, when considering these particular requests, is that the decision to delay entry for a whole year has already been made by the parents and cannot be interfered with by the school. 

The question for the admission authority is not whether they think the child should start school with their normal age group at the normal time, it is whether, when the child starts school one year later than normal, it be in the child’s best interests to miss reception year (or year 7) entirely and go into year 1 (or year 8).

The DfE has made its views clear in its guidance:

“It should be rare for an authority to refuse a parent’s request.”

“An admission authority may not decide that a child should start school before compulsory school age — that is the parents’ decision.”

“The government believes it is rarely in a child’s best interests to miss a year of their education, for example, by beginning primary school in year 1 rather than reception or secondary school in year 8 rather than year 7.”

“There do not need to be exceptional circumstances and a child does not need to have a medical need or  SEND for it to be in their best interests to be admitted out of their normal age group.”

Whether the child has previously been educated outside their normal age group is one of the factors admission authorities must consider. The DfE’s view on this is:

“Unless there are sound educational reasons to do otherwise, the assumption should be that they will remain outside of their normal year group, as to do otherwise would result in the child missing a year of school.”

In practical terms, this means that it will be very rare for a request for admission outside normal age group for a summer born child to be educated one year later than normal to be refused, and where a decision has previously been made to allow this in the lower phase, it is hard to see how an upper phase school could refuse.

What happens when a request is refused?

Parents do not have a statutory right of appeal against the refusal of a request for admission outside normal age group, like they do in respect of the refusal of a place.

What this means is that, if the request for admission outside normal age group has been refused and the child has separately been refused a place in their normal age group, the parents may lodge an appeal against the refusal of a place in their normal age group, but it should be clearly explained to them that their grounds cannot include an “appeal” against the refusal of a request, because that is not what the admission appeal panel is tasked with considering.

Instead, parents may make a complaint under the school’s published complaints policy against the refusal of the request for admission outside normal age group. Conversely, it is important to ensure that the refusal of a place isn’t dealt with under the complaints process when it should be dealt with at an admission appeal panel. Sometimes, it will be necessary to deal with two separate processes.

If you have any queries about anything discussed in this article or admissions in general, please get in touch.