Aussie mums-age to start school?

[solittletimeandsomuchtodo]

In a bit of a dilemma.
Two ds.
5 turns 6 end of Dec.
4 turns 5 beginning of March.

I have the choice for oldest to start kindergarten or year one in Jan 2012.
He has just finished reception here in the uk.
Initially I thought holding him back would be fine as he wasn't the smartest in the class, no real problems with learning--average results.
But
DS2 is the one I'm worried about. He will have completed half a year of reception by the time we get back to oz and has just finished a year of four and half full days in nursery.
I think he would be bored silly if I didn't keep him in the school environment.

Im worried though that they might be the youngest in there classes in oz if I put them into Yr1 and Reception.
Any thoughts or suggestions?

I was at school in Australia, and was one of the young ones in the class. I had no problems, and, in fact, most of the young ones were fine. But I think this is because they have been moved to "prep" from "kindly" at the advice of the kindergarten teachers.

If I was sending my DC to school in Australia, I would wait a year, unless I was sure they would be able to cope.

Where will you be as school start ages vary between states and territories?

In NSW your DS2 would be able to start kindy in January as he turns 5 before 31 July (some private schools like them to be 5 by the end of March, but even then you would be fine). That would make him one of the younger children in the year, and if you wanted you could hold him back until next year - lots of parents do - but tbh if he has already started reception I wouldn't. Pre-school places here can be hard to come by and they are expensive as there is no early years funding. It would also be normal for him to do just three days a week at pre-school in the year before school. Kindy is not the "play based" year that reception is in the UK, it is assumed that children will have done 1-2 years of pre-school so by the time they hit kindy they are ready for school, but with some reception behind him he'd be fine.

Your DS1 would have started kindy this year as he would already have been 5 by the time the school year started so he would go into Y1.

If you are going to Melbourne or Perth the above won't apply.

Sorry definitely NSW, thanks for the info.
The younger one thrives in school so I imagine dropping back would suit him.
Think I might start them out if it doesn't workout they can always repeat?

when i lived in sydney my dd started kindy in jan when she was 4 and then she turned 5 in the march. she loved it and most of the others where same age only a few being a year older.

moved back to uk last year where she joined yr 2 and is now one of the oldest, the difference in schooling is huge with australia being far far superior!

Yes, it's not uncommon to repeat Kindy solittle, one of the real advantages of the Australian system is it's flexibility. DS1 started school at just 4 in England, turned out to be dyslexic, was later assaulted by a teacher in Y7 and it took me months to get a change of school agreed so I really wanted him to repeat Y7 at his new school - not a hope in hell. Moved to Australia, no problem. DD was starting school - "would you like a place in the pre-school or kindy, your choice" - what a difference!

Funny, I had written a whole paragraph about the fact that I think Australian schools much better than English and how I get really annoyed at the English people who come here with early primary kids and turn up their noses because the system here has different priorities in the early years but deleted it as I didn't want to offend anyone then kelly beat me to it

Hope this isn't a thread hijack, but it's all relevant I think for deciding when to send in NSW.
What are the main differences between NSW Kindy and UK Reception? Is Reception optional, in theory? I'm sure I read that somewhere. So in theory Y1 is the first 'real' year of school in England?

Whereas in NSW, Kindy is the first official year of school. Sunny, you said reception is more 'play-based', and that you agree with Kelly that early schooling in Oz is better. So what are the main differences? What do they do and learn in each during the day?

I had assumed that k & r would be roughly similar, so, why wouldn't I send my late-May born ds to kindy at 4.8 when he would be starting at 4.3 in uk? But it appears that kindy may be a more 'advanced' year than recpn, with higher expectations; is that right?

Very interested to hear your opinions too on why you think the Aussie system is superior. I have no idea and am intrigued.

(My ds is only 3.2 now so don't need to worry yet, but I do find it all interesting and want to know more!)

I have just been googling and found these two links:
k6.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/go/parents/parents-guide-to-the-nsw-primary-syllabuses/early-stage-1
www.keystageplus.co.uk/Reception.pdf
After a lot of googling, there doesn't seem to be such a succinct official content guide for recpn as the one for kindy.