Suspension in boarding schools

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

Geoff wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/40284>:

<< Indeed it is true of all English schools that keeping someone back a year is unheard of. Educational regulations specify the age at which a pupil must be to enter a given school year. >>

Brian replied in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/40285>:

<< However it doesn't stop pupils from being advanced a year.  It happened to me. >>

I don't understand. I understood Geoff to say that the regulation requires that a pupil must turn 5 on or before September 1 to enter Kindergarten, and so on for each grade (American terminology). Meaning that someone like Hermione, with birthday on September 19, entered First Year very shortly before her 12th birthday. If anyone ever deserved to skip a year, it's Hermione. But the regulation that I thought Geoff mentioned would prevent her from being skipped unless she was somehow able to change her birthday from Sept 19 to Sept 1.