[B,G & J]

Hi there

There is a very good chance that my husband, myself and my 4 year old daughter will be moving to Auckland this year or early next year. My daughter turns 5 in January, and from what I can make out, she should start Grade 0 next year.

Does anybody know what the syllabus for Grade 0 is? In South Africa, she would only start Grade 0 in 2009, so I'm not sure if she is ready yet? Do NZ-ers use LetterLand characters to teach the alphabet? Or some other system?

Any comments / advice would be appreciated.

Bergita.

[Nienke]

Just a tip for the visa: make sure you apply for a student visa for your daughter, as she needs one to go to school.
Can't help on the grade 0, no idea what that is!

[kiwidebs]

Hi Bergita

My daughter started school a year ago - she is year 1 now. Not sure of the syllabus as such but she is reading, writing and doing basic maths really well. She loves going to school and enjoys all the activities including sports, dance and drama, computer skills etc.
My son's preschool uses letterland for the letters - he's four.

Hope this helps

[Familyofmonkeys]

It's amazing how our expectations of schooling are different, depending on where we have come from. We are from UK, and our daughter is similar age. She turns 5 in April. In UK she would have started school in September after doing last year as pre-school. She is bored stupid at the moment as she was expecting to be at school like her friends in UK, so hoping to get her into school while she is still 4 as waiting until she is 5 seems to be a long way off.

I have no idea how they teach the alphabet in schools here, but there are loads of ways you could teach her yourself so that it is easier when she starts school. We started with an alphabet jigsaw a couple of years ago, so that she would recognise the different letters. Our daughter decided for herself to learn to read recently, and we have given her some phonetic style
story books to read as they teach how to put the sounds together such as ch, sh, ph, th, and the different ways to say letter c and g in words etc. We also have flashcards, with longer words. She does sounds these out by herself, and asks us for help if she isn't sure how to sound out a word. We have been writing letters to father christmas and the grandmothers, and doing shopping lists to practice getting the letters right on paper.

I think teaching maths is alot harder that english. We count everything and add together stuff e.g. when out shopping. But trying to teach division and multiplication is much harder. We sometimes divide the fruit in our fruit bowl up into piles and count how many pieces of fruit are in each pile. Any advice from teachers reading this would be great btw.

[B,G & J]

Thanks for those responses. I'm sure you know how it feels to worry about how your child will cope... I'm just so scared she's going to miss her friends so very much, and then to have a totally unfamiliar and perhaps demanding new school curriculum on top of that! I must just try to remember how resilient children are.

Did your children cope ok with the move? Any tips?

Bergita.

[Familyofmonkeys]

Thanks for those responses. I'm sure you know how it feels to worry about how your child will cope... I'm just so scared she's going to miss her friends so very much, and then to have a totally unfamiliar and perhaps demanding new school curriculum on top of that! I must just try to remember how resilient children are.

Did your children cope ok with the move? Any tips?

Bergita.

Kids are very resillient....don't worry too much. Keeping to normal routines helps alot, as well as talking to your kids about your move. See this thread:

http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=14205

Also, chances are your daughter will adapt to her new environment much quicker if she gets to play with other kids at school. Children tend to follow the lead of others in unfamiliar environments, so they learn very quickly. I doubt the curriculum would be too demanding, it is just that some countries start early than others, with a slower build up. You will all be fine!

[Tia Maria]

Here's a useful thread about what a 6 year old would do at school:

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=12953

My son left the UK at 4, having done a term at a UK school before coming to NZ. We worried about him missing his friends but I must admit it was about 12 weeks before he would say 'Christopher who?' (Christopher was his best friend in the UK).

I think what really helped was attending kindy, he made great friends, many of whom are now in his school class.

A good basic skill to learn before school is anything that improves fine motor skills, so that they find it easy to write and can concentrate on other things like reading and spelling. Obviously, they can practice writing words or drawing pictures but if they are not fond of picking up a pencil anything that strengthens their fingers is good. My son use to play a game of picking up objects with kitchen tongs from one bowl and putting them in another bowl.

This is another thread on how children cope:

www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11810

Cheers

Tia