It proposes that the Government should ensure that parents of summer-born children should be able to defer their child’s school start, up until the statutory school start time.
Parents should be able to do this without losing their chosen school place due to funding issues. The motion also calls on the Government to ensure that parents also have the choice of placing their child in a reception class, rather than in Year One, at statutory school age.
One factor behind this motion is the growing amount of evidence claiming that summer-born children are at a disadvantage to autumn born children, as they can often be nearly a year younger. Researchers found that the best predictors of being in the Year 2 top stream was being born in the autumn or winter and one of the best measures of predicting being in the bottom stream was a Spring or Summer birth.
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