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20th March 2015

The Pre-school Learning Alliance has described the Education Committee’s recommendation for parents of summer-born children to be given the right to appeal if their request to defer their child’s entry into school is rejected as an ‘important first step’, but has called for more to be done to ensure that the final decision on school entry falls to parents, not admissions authorities.

This week, the Education Committee wrote to school reform minister Nick Gibb to ask the government to give parents the means to appeal local authority or academy decisions on when summer-born children start school.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said:

“We welcome this recommendation by the Education Committee as an important first step in recognising that parents should have a far greater say on when their child starts school than the admission code currently allows. However, it’s clear that much more needs to be done to ensure that parents are not pressured into placing their children into school before they feel that they are ready.

“As it stands under the current School Admissions Code, admissions authorities still have the final say on whether or not a parent can defer their child’s entry into reception year. We believe that this must change. Parents are clearly best placed to understand the needs of their own child, and so it should be for them, and not admission authorities, to decide whether or not placing their child into reception, rather than year 1, at five is in their best interest.

"We hope that the Department for Education will use the Education’s Committee’s inquiry as an opportunity to examine the wealth of evidence on this issue and look to amend the School Admissions Code accordingly as a matter of priority."

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Notes for editors

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ABOUT THE ALLIANCE

1. The Pre-school Learning Alliance is the largest voluntary sector provider of quality affordable childcare and education in England.
2. Through direct provision and its membership of 14,000 nurseries, sessional pre-schools and parent and toddler groups, the Alliance supports over 800,000 children and their families in England. The Alliance also develops and runs family learning programmes, offers information and advice, runs acclaimed training and accreditation programmes and campaigns to influence early years policy and practice.
3. For information about the Pre-school Learning Alliance, visit our website: