Kindergarden / Pre School

[JBevan]

Hi,

My husband has been offered a Job in Sydney on a permanent visa.  We are a family of four with 2 younger children. So I am trying to understand the schooling System. I am concerned that our youngest will miss out on school for a year.  She is due to start reception in the Uk in Sept. She will be one of the youngest, she turns 4 on the 11th July. (Next week). I am correct in thinking that Kindergarten is the equivalent to reception in the Uk and that she will have to wait another year to start?  If so does this mean she is in pre school... can anyone confirm what pre -school is, is it like nursery and will we pay?   

thanks 

[Guest]

If you are migrating to Australian then she won't 'miss out' on a year at all as when she does start school in Aus she will be in the correct year group for her age and with others a similar age.

I'd imagine it would be the 15 hours of funded nursery (not sure what NSW calls it if they call reception kindergarten) the year prior to beginning school. Sort of like nursery/pre school in the U.K. 

https://kids-first.com.au/what-is-the-starting-age-for-kindergarten-children-in-nsw/

It seems reading the above link the cut off is July 31 for NSW. The link explains it all. 

[NickyNook]

A child turning 4 on 11/7/2017 can officially start school in NSW at the start of 2018. So only about 3-4 months later than when they would have started in the UK. Not a huge difference.

The first year of full-time school in NSW is called kindergarten and there is effectively no free or funded pre-school/nursery in NSW. A handful of pre-schools are government run but they tend to be in low-socio-economic regions and cater for under-privileged families and you definitely can't count on getting a spot in one of them. So if you want your child/ren to go to pre-school in NSW you'll be paying for it. I should add that most children do go to pre-school of some kind - my kids started school in Sydney over 20 years ago and every child in their class had been to pre-school of some kind, even though parents had to pay for it. 

You should be aware that - even though your July birthday child can officially start school next year in 2018 - most children with birthdays in July will be waiting the extra year and starting full-time school in 2019. Parents here tend to do anything to avoid their children being the youngest in the year. So if you do start your daughter in 2018 she could be up to 18 months younger than the rest of her class. 

 

[LKC]

I'd second what NickyNook says.  A July birthday child who isn't held back is going to be one of the very youngest in the year (probably the youngest), by up to 18 months as most will hold their Jan to July children back for a year.  So whilst from one perspective (coming from the UK where they do start earlier) it might seem right to start her at school in Jan 18, she is likely to be disadvantaged by doing so.  I have an April baby, and I do regret sending her rather than holding her back (we were talked into it by family members in the UK, despite our misgivings, because we were persuaded that 'holding her back' was a bad thing).  In our experience, she has been hugely disadvantaged by being the smallest and least socially mature in her year (she is pretty much the youngest).  Academically she is fine (in her school's G&T program), but she has developed a hatred of sport because she is smaller and less able than the older kids (and actually she has been bullied a bit about it).  The older she gets the more obvious the physical and social differences between her and her peers become too.

There are pre-schools (in some areas the are government run), but you have to pay for them, and they do tend to be only part time and hugely over-subscribed.  We sent our daughters a couple of days per week to a long-daycare centre which ran a pre-school class, but it is just like nursery in my experience.  They don't learn anything set as such, just play-based learning and learning school-like routines and so on.  At least that was the case when my two were at that age, which is a few years ago now (they are 9 and 11 now).  We had to pay for it.  At the time it was about $90 per child per day, but I would have thought that the cost would have gone up a bit since then.

[Quoll]

Agree with the others, wait the extra year, she will thank you for it later.