Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether a summer-born child with an Education, Health and Care Plan has the right to apply to (a) start and (b) maintain education outside their chronological year group as a compulsory school age start set out in the Admissions Code.

A child does not have to start school until they have reached compulsory school age. For summer born children, this means that they do not need to start school until the September after their fifth birthday.

Where a child has an education, health and care (EHC) plan, the School Admissions Code does not apply to the admission decision. Instead, the Children and Families Act 2014 and Regulations made under the Act set out the process for a local authority drawing up such a plan. The local authority must set out, at section B of the plan, the needs of a child and, at section F, the special educational provision to meet those needs. The local authority must review the plan at least annually.

The local authority has various statutory duties that apply to its decisions over a plan. These include a duty to have regard to the views, wishes and feelings of the parents of the child. A parent of a summer born child, when an EHC plan is being reviewed or when a plan is first being drawn up, has a right to ask a local authority for them to be placed in a year group other than the usual for their chronological age.

If a child has special educational needs (SEN) that may be connected with their being summer born, such as a developmental delay, then the local authority will have to reflect these in Section B of the plan. The local authority must specify in Section F of the plan ‘special educational provision’ for each and every need specified in Section B. The local authority may decide that a child being placed in a year group other than the usual for their chronological age should be such special educational provision, and if so, the local authority must write this into Section F.

If the parents are dissatisfied with what an EHC plan does or does not say in relation to SEN or special educational provision, they have certain rights of appeal to the first-tier Tribunal.