Policy on delaying school start of summer babies needs consistent approach

Parents who want to delay their child starting reception at school have varying success rates depending on where they live, a BBC investigation has found.

Many parents in England are applying for their summer-born babies to start a year later due to fears that younger children do not perform as well as older children.

Figures supplied under the Freedom of Information Act show 2,243 requests were made to 110 local authorities in England to defer starts to the 2018 school year - 18% higher than the previous 12 months.

But while some councils have approved 100% of requests, others have turned down more than half, the BBC reports.

Medway turned down 13 out of 17 applications and Wokingham rejected 12 out of 20. Nottingham and Manchester also both rejected more than half of the requests made.

A third of councils who responded did not refuse any requests. These included Northamptonshire, which received 142 applications since 2016 and did not turn down any of them.

Nottinghamshire, Liverpool, Wandsworth, York, Merton, Isle of Wight, Cheshire East, Cumbria and Shropshire were also among those with a 0% rejection rate.

Campaigners are now calling for a consistent approach across the country.

Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Some have a policy of automatically agreeing all requests, while others only agree requests where parents present very strong evidence.

"We think there should be a consistent approach across the country."