Summary: Mrs C complains about the Council’s decision not to agree to her and her husband’s request to allow their summer-born daughter to enter school in the reception year when she started school. Mrs C says the Council used the wrong tests and did not consider their views, or the evidence they submitted. The Ombudsman finds no fault, so cannot question the merits of the Council’s decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs C, complains the Council:

• did not focus on the right question in its decision on her and her husband’s request for their daughter (whom I shall refer to as Y) to start school in reception when she reaches compulsory school age. The correct question is: what would be best year for her to enter when she begins school in 2020? Instead the Council has given its view that it would be better for Y to start in reception in 2019;
• considers requests for deferring entry for summer-born children as only applicable in ‘very limited circumstances’, which is not the correct test;
• failed to acknowledge the numerous areas where Y was testing below her age;
• did not consider their parental views and the supporting evidence they provided;
• misrepresented the views of the pre-school;
• ignored the views of the manager and Senco of their chosen schools who supported Y entering reception in 2020;
• did not provide a response that gave reasons why Y, as an individual, would not benefit from deceleration. Instead it provided generic reasons in all its responses.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered the complaint

4. As part of the investigation, I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mrs C;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered its response;
• considered the School Admissions Code 2014;
• considered other (non-statutory) advice and guidance from the Department for Education on the admission of summer-born children;
• spoken to Mrs C;
• sent my draft decision to Mrs C and the Council and considered the responses I received.

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What I found

The 2014 School Admissions Code

5. The Code says:
• admission authorities must provide for children to begin school in the September following their fourth birthday.
• The child’s parents can defer the date their child starts school until later in the school year. But the child must start school by the beginning of the term following their fifth birthday – the compulsory school age.
• Parents can choose for the child to attend school part-time until later in the school year but not beyond the compulsory school age.
• Parents can seek a place for their child outside of the normal age group. This includes where the parents of a summer-born child choose not to send their child to school until the September following their fifth birthday. The child’s parents can request the child starts in reception rather than year 1 (deferred entry). A summer-born child is one with a birthday between 1 April and 31 August.
• Admission authorities must make decisions on deferred entry based on the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child. This includes considering the parents’ views and information about the child’s academic, social and emotional development.
• Decision letters needs to clearly set out the reasons for an admission authority’s decision.

Advice on the admission of summer born children 2014

6. The Department for Education has published non-statutory guidance, ‘Advice on the admission of summer-born children – For local authorities, school admission authorities and parents’. The guidance reiterates that admission authorities must make decisions based on individual needs and abilities, and consider whether these can best be met by the child starting school in reception or year one. They should also take account of the potential impact on the child of being admitted into year one without first having completed the reception year.
7. This guidance says that in general, children should be educated in their normal age group and should only be educated out of this age group in ‘very limited circumstances’. However, it goes on to say parental requests for summer-born children are “different from any other request for admission out of age group, as it is only in these circumstances that the child is being admitted to school for the first time.”
8. It makes clear that: “Parents must be able to make a decision about whether their child is ready for school before compulsory school age, confident that if they decide not to send them to school until age five, the decision about the year group they should be admitted to at that point will be made in the child’s best interests.”
9. The guidance recognises it will not always be easy for admission authorities to make a decision about a child more than a year before the point at which they may be admitted. But it is clear this is the decision they must make.
10. In September 2015, Nick Gibb MP, Minister of State for Schools, published a letter about the admission of summer-born children. He gave the view that the current system for deciding whether to admit summer-born children outside their usual age group was flawed. This was because parents and admission authorities often disagreed about what was in the child’s best interests. He said the Government would amend the Code so parents could choose to send summer-born children to reception in the September following their fifth birthday, rather than having to make a request to the admission authority. This would need a public consultation and a change to the law. There has not yet been any change in the law or the Code concerning the admission of summer-born children.

The Council’s Admissions Policy

11. The Council’s Policy on summer born children says it will consider all requests for deferment on their merits.

What happened

12. Y was born in July 2015. This means, for school admissions purposes, she is a summer-born child. Her default school start date was September 2019. But Mrs C and her husband had the option to defer her entry to September 2020.
13. Mrs C and her husband’s view was Y’s development was behind that of other children in her chronological school year. So they decided to defer Y’s entry to school. They applied to the Council for Y to start school in 2020 in the Reception Year (Year R), rather than Year 1.
14. Mrs C and her husband named three schools. They provided information from two schools supporting the request. They also provided medical and education information, noting some development delay.
15. At the beginning of January 2019, an Education Panel considered the request. Its decision was it was in Y’s best interests to enter school in September 2019. But, as Mrs C and her husband had advised she would not begin until 2020, its view was it was best that Y then start with her chronological year group – Year 1. The record noted Mrs C’s request was well researched and included academic research and supporting evidence. It noted Mrs C and her husband’s reasons for their request were:
• Y’s summer born speech and language delay.
• Their wish for Y to enjoy school and thrive academically and socially.
16. The record also has a summary of the evidence Mrs C and her husband submitted about Y’s developmental delay, including citing some findings in them. The Council’s admissions team contacted the pre-school Y was attending. It said Y had needed targeted intervention and since then she had made significant progress. The Panel’s records say the pre-school’s view had changed and it no longer believed Y needed deferment of her school start date.
17. The Panel’s view was the risks of the implications of deceleration outweighed the risks of her missing Year R. Its reasons were:
• It was better for Y to be with her normal year group. It expected Y to make developmental progress in the time before she was due to start school.
• Y might feel demeaned by being held back.
• The academic gap could be closed quite quickly, as the differences between Year R and the pre-school curriculum was small and could be bridged by targeted intervention. It noted the support available at Mrs C’s chosen schools.
• Y’s social and emotional expectations were better met with her normal age group.
• There was no guarantee other schools would agree to defer Y’s placement. So there was a danger she might miss a year of school at a later, more important, time.
18. Mrs C has sent me an email from the pre-school’s manager. The manager notes:
• The information it sent the Council was Y’s December 2018 developmental levels.
• Y had made “so much progress in the prime areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage” and was in line with her peer group.
• This was likely why the Council had refused Mrs C’s request to defer entry.
• She would still agree it would not be best for Y to start school in Year 1 without completing Year R first.
• So, if Mrs C could arrange a deferred entry, she urged her to consider starting Y in Year R in September 2019.
19. Mrs C and her husband asked the Council to reconsider its decision and submitted extra supporting evidence. The new Panel did not agree it was in Y’s best interests to defer entry. It noted Y’s developmental progress. And that it needed to take Y’s future needs into account – such as the risk a later school might refuse deferment, when the gap would be harder to close academically.
20. Mrs C was in contact with the Council’s Admissions Manager about the decision. She complained about the decisions and the Council’s letters. The complaint was partially upheld, as the Council apologised that Mrs C felt the decision letter was unclear in its reasoning. But its view was this did not mean the decision itself was wrong.
21. Mrs C and her husband escalated their complaint. They provided further evidence from a secondary school headteacher advising they supported decelerating Y’s entry to that school. The Council’s stage two response continued with its view it had made a correct best interests decision on the application. But it advised it had rewritten its template for Panel minutes and decision notices to make them clearer.
22. Mrs C complained to the Ombudsman. I made enquiries about the Council’s reasons for its decisions and the test it had used. Its response advised:
• It used a test of what was in the best interests of the child. It disputed that it sought to only agree requests in ‘very limited circumstances’.
• It said its acknowledged Y was not yet at her age-related expectations. But she was no more than six months behind. “To decelerate [Y] by a full academic year based on these small areas needing improvement would be to seriously disadvantage her in failing to provide her with high quality role models of her age group and the appropriate level of expectation. This was taken into consideration in considering whether or not to approve the request for deceleration”.
• It noted a secondary school had indicated it was willing to defer Y’s entry when she reached the age to go there. But the school could not give that as a binding agreement. It noted it was the admissions authority for that school. And, by the time Y reached the age to enter the school, there might have been a change in Y’s circumstances, the law or the admission arrangements of that and other schools. The letter Mrs C submitted did not guarantee it would allow Y to enter out of her normal age group.
• It noted some of the information it had given Mrs C and her husband was generic. But it said it was relevant.

Analysis

23. My view is the Panels’ records show they did consider Mrs C and her husband’s submission and the evidence they submitted. I agree with Mrs C that some of the Council’s responses provided general reasons why its view was deferment was not in Y’s best interests. But the records of the Panels do have analysis of the documents Mrs C submitted and Y’s own circumstances. So, looking at all this information, I cannot say the Panels did not have regard to Y as an individual.
24. The Council’s view was the benefits of Y starting in Year 1 outweighed the disadvantages. Clearly there is conflicting evidence and opinions about the best interests of summer born children such as Y. But it is not the Ombudsman’s role to adjudicate what Y’s best interests are. And we cannot question the merits of a decision when, as here, there is no evidence of fault.
25. Mrs C says the Council used the wrong tests. Having reviewed the Panel records, I do not agree. The records of the consideration of Mrs C's request do advise the Council’s view is it is in Y’s best interests to stay with her chronological year group – whether that be in 2019 or 2020. While it is only the latter date that is relevant to its decision, I cannot say that giving an opinion on its view about what its view was Y’s best interests in September 2019 is fault.
26. The Council has also set out reasons in relation to the options for September 2020. I do not agree it has asked the wrong question. The records cite best interests throughout. I can see nothing to support a view the Council misdirected itself about the test to use.
27. My review of the pre-school’s email to Mrs C show its view was Y had made a lot of progress and, in key areas, was in line with her peers. It, like the schools Mrs C had nominated, stopped short of saying that Y starting in Year R in September 2010 was in her best interests.

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Final decision

28. My view is I cannot uphold the complaint as there is no evidence of fault. So the Ombudsman cannot question the merits of the decision the Council reached.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman