Government scraps plans to legislate on summer-born children
By Rachel Lawler
The government has abandoned plans to introduce new laws guaranteeing that summer-born children can automatically be admitted to reception class at age five and remain with this cohort, where their parents have chosen this option.
The plans were originally announced by the then schools minister Nick Gibb in 2015 in response to a number of children being forced to miss their reception year when local authorities did not approve parental requests for children to join school a year later than usual.
In a , Baroness Barran, parliamentary under-secretary of state for the school system, announced that she does not 鈥渋ntend to continue to pursue legislation on this issue at this time鈥.
She said that data suggests that the current system for summer-born admissions is 鈥渘ow working much better than it was in 2015鈥, with the majority of requests for delayed entry to reception now approved.
However, Barran did say that she would 鈥渒eep this position under review if the situation changes鈥.
She added: 鈥淲e continue to support the right of parents to decide whether to send their child to school before they reach compulsory school age. I am grateful to the sector for their co-operation in ensuring that decisions on the admission of summer-born children continue to be taken in the best interests of those children.鈥
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