[snailandthewhale]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone can confirm what the school starting age is?

Everything I can find on the forum says the day after they turn 5, but I'm sure I read a post where someone said they could start anytime between their 5th and 6th birthdays.

The NZ govt. website seems to support this, saying:
Children can be enrolled in a New Zealand school from their fifth birthday. All children in New Zealand must attend school from their sixth birthday.
Am I reading this correctly?

I'm asking because we will be arriving in NZ mid Jan and my daughter will be 5 at the end of March. I don't want her to start school in an area that we aren't going to settle in and then have to have her move schools. ( She's a bit upset at leaving her present school.)

If she doesn't have to start immediately she's 5, would it be very unusual to delay her starting? It seems as though absolutely everyone goes as soon as they can and I don't want her to stand out ( any more than necessary! )

Karen

[Tia Maria]

Yes they can start at some time between 5 and 6, and many do start straight after their 5th Birthday, but plenty don't either. For instance if a child turned 5 at the start of December, some parents decide to not start them until after the Christmas holidays in February.

I think you are definitely right in waiting to find the right area and school and I'm sure this would be considered a valid reason, although I doubt they would ask you to offer an explanation, they only come knocking on your door once they turn 6.

She shouldn't stand out either. Its not like the UK where they all start on the same day and hence late starters are more noticable, they have new children starting every couple of weeks, and people don't know if that child has just turned 5 or is 5 and a half etc, and no one cares (well not at our school anyway).

One thing you might want to factor in is where she will be placed in the next year. My son turned 5 in July and started then, in the new year he will be placed in a class with all the others that attended in the earlier part of the year. Those that attended in the later part of the year will be in a composite class of those who attended last year and new entrants.

They do take other factors into consideration such as frienships and academic standard, but mainly its based on birth month and start date. As your daughter is 5 in March I would expect her to be in the same class as my son, however I don't know if she started, say in September, whether she would be place in the new entrant composite class.

Hope that makes sense, its taken a while for me to get the hang of it all!

Also different schools operate different policies, and I'm not sure whether our school is the 'norm'

Cheers

Tia

[StevieD]

Kcaren that is one of the issues that we are wrestling with - but our situation is slightly different of course. But it seems that our kids will be effectively repeating their current year - maybe a good or a bad thing, but we are like you, we don't want to get the kids into a school only to have them move again. Good luck, drop us a pm let us know your plans for the coming weeks.

Steve

[marcia]

Stevie don't think the kids will redo a year - they put Ayrton in with the year 6 children and come february he will be starting in the first year of intermediate - effectively year 7! So he really only ended up doing a few months in year 6 - the 8 weeks before we left the uk and then 3.5 weeks here!

Mika was put in a class with a few other year 4's but mainly years 5 and 6 - due to his size????????? (he is quite tall for his age!) He will go back as a year 5!

I am getting pretty stressed at the moment as I want to be settled into a house before the kids start school in February - we have looked at every lifestyle property available in the area at the moment and not found one that jumps out and says 'buy' me - we have changed our plan now over the weekend and started looking at smaller properties in the Ashhurst area (don't tell Diny!!!!!!!!!) - Kev is working at the domain there, and its a good school, through primary so Ayrton wouldn't have to go to a separate school from Mika, we will then have time to look around and found the 'right' lifestyle' block and will hopefully have the option of selling the smaller house or renting it out.

Sorry to hijack the thread - but yes schooling is a big concern for us too!

[StevieD]

Thanks for the info Marcia!! Guess it is decision time when you on the ground and you can't generalise about things.

Don't get stressed - not good for you ;)

Steve, Jan and kids xx

[Tia Maria]

At our school parents can have a say in the placement of their child. I know of one person who came over from the UK and was aware of child's standard in Maths & English (ie times tables, reading level etc) and checked out what the classes were studying and put her child into the class that most closely matched it. In this case an older class. She used the argument with the school, that they may be returning to the UK and therefore needed her child to be at the same level.

I also know of another parent who deliberately took the opposite route, she knew her child was repeating a lot of academic work, but thought with everything else she had to get use to (new country, house, school, friends etc), it was better for her to find school easy for a while, knowing she could always move up at a later date.

So it does depend on the school, situation and child, but I think there is some flexibility in there and if you do make the wrong decision you just need to talk to the teachers and hopefully they'll sort it out.

Cheers

Tia

[Andy-Dee]

Hi Snail & the Whale
Remember us from the NW meet, please let us know your experiences of the school system when you can and the area you end up in.
Thanks
D

[nippa&pippa]

Speaking school, in Uk we have table (sorry to anyone(teachers) hate them!) given informations about each school's exam results etc so you know how good school is. My sister said they have point system out of ten in NZ as well, ten for best school and 1 is poor. I couldn't find the point system table for every schools in christchurch unless i go into every single school's websites to find out how good they are. After few, i got fed up! Do anyone know where i can find it online?? We need to think about where we going to live in chch once our house in UK finally sold....

[Carol]

My sister said they have point system out of ten in NZ as well, ten for best school and 1 is poor. I couldn't find the point system table for every schools in christchurch unless i go into every single school's websites to find out how good they are. After few, i got fed up! Do anyone know where i can find it online?? We need to think about where we going to live in chch once our house in UK finally sold....



OMG - no - that's not true at all.

And long may ranking stay away....

The point system in NZ refers to the "decile rating" of the school.
The decile rating is given based on the income of a percentage of parents of students at the school.
In effect - it reflects the socio-economic status of the local area that the school is in.

So a decile 10 school is in one of the most affluent areas and a decile 1 school is in one of the least affluent.
You can have a fantastic school in a Decile 1 area and a not so good school in a Decile 10.

There is no way of finding this out other than finding the school individually (TKI) http://www.tki.org.nz/e/schools/ or just asking them directly....

To find out how a school is performing or to see if it going to be right for your child you will need to
a) Visit it and speak to the principal.
b) read the ERO report - although you can't always get the full picture even from them. The reports can be found through the TKI site too.
c) ask locally - Real Estate agents usually have their finger on the pulse when it comes to "hot" schools.

[nippa&pippa]

Thanks carol for your informations. That help!

We are trying to work out where we going to buy house, so researching the areas at the moment. My husband is keen to be out of christchurch into rural as possible, but i put my foot down that i want to be in community as got two young children and don't want to ferry all children to friends' house, clubs, afterschool sports etc in years time. So we reach comprise looking into small town in reasonable distance to chch if necessary for me and for his work.