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Guidance

Summer-born children: advice for parents

Guidance for parents on requesting a delayed school start for children born in the summer.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Education
Published:
26 July 2013
Last updated:
27 April 2023
Show all updates

  1. The guidance for parents on school admissions out of the normal age group for summer born children has been updated. Guidance for admission authorities on the same topic has been moved to a new page.

  2. Updated page with 'Statement for local authorities, schools and admission authorities on the admission of summer-born children to school, from Baroness Barran, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the School System’.

  3. Added link to 'Delayed school admissions for summer born pupils (2020)' research report, updated the statement on admission of summer born children, removed outdated consultation details, and converted the local authority guidance into HTML.

  4. Updated 'Admission of summer-born children: advice for local authorities and school admission authorities' and added 'Summer-born children starting school: advice for parents'.

  5. Added updated statement on admission of summer born children for 2020.

  6. Moved the 'Delayed school admissions for summer-born pupils' research reports for 2018 and 2019 to their own pages.

  7. Added document 'Delayed school admissions for summer-born pupils (2019)' and summary of information it covers for the 2017 to 2018 academic year.

  8. Added 'Delayed school admissions for summer-born pupils' and updated details to reflect change.

  9. Updated advice document to take into account changes resulting from the publication of the revised school admissions code.

  10. Updated document clarifies the compulsory school age.

  11. First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Summer-born children starting school: advice for parents

HTML

Making a request for admission out of the normal age group

HTML

Details

These documents are for the parents of summer-born children.

There is separate guidance for local authorities and admission authorities.

They set out information about requests to delay the admission of summer-born children to reception.

Reports on the findings of surveys of local authorities and parents of summer-born children who have asked to delay their child’s admission to reception are available:

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