Schools in Australia - a question

[crantock]

We've just started thinking seriously about moving sometime in the next year to 18 months and I'm trying to get my head around the school system and how it would work. Do children start, basically, 6 months earlier than in the UK? Or 6 months later?

We have 3 children, aged 11 (Dec birthday), 9 (June birthday) and 2 (May birthday) and I'm wondering what years they'd go into if we were to arrive in Jan '18.

In particular, the middle child, who was born on 30th June (which I understand is the cut-off for the school year?) - would she be going to senior school in Jan '18? And would it be possible to postpone this so she'd start senior school in Jan '19, or is such a postponement not possible? (she's not due to start senior school until Sept '18 in the UK and is dyslexic so is a little behind anyway - around 12-15 months at last assessment)

And when would the baby be due to start school? Google suggested that he'd be going to Kindergarden in '18, pre-school (is this equal to reception?) in '19 and year 1 (second year at primary?) in '20?

Do you know where you'll be moving to? Each state is slightly different.
In NSW (where we are) they can start as long as they are 4 years and 9 months at the start of the year (so end of July birthday) but they don't have to, and you can enrol the year after. DS2 is 5 in August and starts next Jan, but if he's been born in July he could have started last Jan.
DS1 is 8, he's in year 3 (Feb birthday so could have gone a year later but didn't). Primary goes up to year 6, like UK but you will have the choice what year to put them in so you can go back a year, I think.
Hope this makes sense! It's quite confusing.

hank you! We're looking at Melbourne at the moment. So they have to be 4 yrs 9 months in the January that they start? But you can defer for a year?

The middle child is my only real concern - if she has to go into Secondary in '18, we'd probably aim to be there by then, but we'd ideally like to aim for late '18, and have her go into secondary in '19, which - I think - would be easier for her. The boys are far easier as they'll both just cope regardless!

Hello. In Victoria the cut off is April with some private schools using Jan as the cut off. So the official rule is that children must start school the day before they turn 6. So in reality children tend to start school once they are 5. So your may baby will be one of the oldest in her year and will start in the Feb after she turns 5.

Here there is 4 year old kinder, then prep is when they start school then year 1.

Here they start high school at 12 so your oldest would start high school year 7 next Feb.

So your middle child would have a few years still at primary. Also they are very flexible on which year you put your child into so if you wanted to put her down a year you should be able to no problem.

Hope this helps.

It's very rare here to put your child into school at 4 and you would need to get special dispensation.

The reason they start high school year 7 when they are 12 is that basically they do prep then years 1 to 6 and start later than UK schools so do an extra year in primary. In fact some kids in year 6 will even be 13.

That's fab and so helpful, thank you so much! It actually really sounds like it'll work out great for all of them. Thank you!

There is quite a tendency with boys to hold them back and start school later.

In Victoria.

We are moving to Melbourne this July. Our summer born July birthday son struggled through the early years here in the UK. He will finish year three here, when we move he will go into his correct Australian year by birth (not held back by local standards) will be in the older half of the year and arrive to start the second half of year 2.

Our second son has a January birthday, he will have just finished reception, has a better concentration span than his older brother and has done really well. He will go into the second half of prep but very young for the year, especially considering so many boys are held back as previously mentioned, so I hope he does ok, but I think he will.