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Pre school/early kindergarten


trabonita

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Hi

My daughter will have just turned 4 when we move to the Central Coast in July. How do I go about getting her into nursery, do they have nurseries attached to primary school like they do here or is it all private? Any info would be great. Thank you!

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Kindergarten is usually a morning or an afternoon session. They are not free, you will have to pay fees for them. Getting a place will depend on demand so if you live in a newer area with lots of children of like age it will be more difficult than if you live in a suburb with more cross section of ages. Look up the Queensland Education Department you will find all the information on it.

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Kindergarten in NSW is the first full-time year of school. Kids can start school in the January, if they turn five before the cut-off date of 31st of July. In reality, most parents whose kids have birthdays between about April and July hold their children back until the next year. Children have to have started school by their sixth birthday.

 

Pre-school isn't compulsory in NSW, and as far as I know they aren't attached to schools. They aren't in my area, anyway. There are some government, church or charity run pre-schools, but I think that most are run within long day care centres. I know that the government, church and charity based ones are less expensive, but I would imagine that there would be long waiting lists in most areas, and likewise long day care can be difficult to get into, so you might have to go on a few wait lists. When my girls were at pre-school, it was within a long day care centre and used to cost me about $90 per child per day (so $180 per day), we were on a 457 at first so there was no help with fees, but once we became PR we got some childcare rebate. The local ones were full, so I had to take them to a centre about a half hour drive away.

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I know there is a preschool at the Entrance. I think it is a community one and it has just reopened after being very badly damaged in a storm last year. That may not be convenient for you, but there would be plenty of others on the Coast. The only difficulty may be that they will have no places left in July. Some primary schools do have preschools attached but the children do not go 5 days a week. They attend either 3 or 2 days eg. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, Friday. However these are even more difficult to secure a place in as they cost much less than the private ones.

 

http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/gotoschool/types/preschoollist.php

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Preschool is usually 15 hpw but NSW has very few public ones and usually in areas of low socio economic profiles with lots of needy kids. Generally you would have to pay if, indeed, you can find a place at all. A child with a birthday just before the cut off will generally be recommended not to enrol until the year after their 4/5 (Preschool /school) birthday but long day care centres usually have a Preschool room for the older kids if you need child care while you work.

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Thanks everyone, I don't need childcare, I was just wondering what I would do with her if we decided not to send her to kindergarten until she is 5. Do must Australian children attend a nursery before they start school like they do here?

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Thanks everyone, I don't need childcare, I was just wondering what I would do with her if we decided not to send her to kindergarten until she is 5. Do must Australian children attend a nursery before they start school like they do here?

 

No, there is no compulsory nursery like there is in the UK. They start kindy at 5-ish, but nothing before that. I didn't need to send the kids to daycare (I'm a stay at home mum/student), but I sent them anyway. Partly to give myself a break, and partly to get them used to a school-type routine. They don't really do anything in the way of learning letters etc, it is more about routine. You can keep them at home until school if you want.

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In practice, though, most kids would do some sort of pre-school before starting school proper - even though it's neither free nor compulsory.

 

My sons started school in Sydney in 1992 and 1994 and every single one of the other children in their kindergarten classes had been to pre-school or were in day care for at least part of the week.

 

I knew of only one child back then (son of a friend of a friend) who hadn't been anywhere at all and just stayed at home with his mother.

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Agree with NickyNook - most kids will have had some sort of preschool experience mainly because most families are two income to make ends meet! If you aren't looking for a Preschool place for her until 2017 you might stand a chance of getting one but you will need to get her name down as early as you can.

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