Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to publish the consultation on flexible admission to schools for summer-born children.

We are concerned that the parents of summer born children sometimes feel forced to send them to school before they are ready or risk them missing the reception year where the essential teaching of early reading and arithmetic takes place. However, it is important that we take the time to consider how to implement any possible changes and what new arrangements we might put in place. We need to be careful not to create any unintended consequences elsewhere in the system. Any changes we do make will be subject to a full statutory process.