Head teachers and local authorities will decide when summer-born children start school instead of their parents, the government has confirmed.
Some parents of children with summer birthdays have requested that their child delays starting school by a year, rather than weeks after turning four.
However, new guidance from the Department for Education says that head teachers and local authorities should decide what is in a child’s best interest.
Local authorities must offer a school place to children in the September after their fourth birthday but parents do not have to send their children before they reach the statutory school age of five.
New guidance acknowledged that summer-born children tend to perform worse in school tests but said that did not mean all children born in