why does my friends 3yr old starts school in september?

[cassandra20]

I found out my friends son starts school in September and he is only 3! My son turns 5 in Dec and is also starting school. I live in Warwickshire and she lives in Manchester. How can this be? She doesn't have to pay anything and he will be in 9-3 everyday and has to wear a uniform!

Is it a school attached nursery? Our school 's nursery class takes them from 3years, from 9 to 3.15 and they can wear the school uniform.

My 3 year old starts in September. He will be 4 in August. It's the same all over the country!

I presume the child won't be three when they start though. When is their birthday?

Either his 4th birthday is before September - so he'll already be 4 when he starts school.
Or your friend is calling his preschool class "school" and he won't actually start in Reception class until Sept 2014.

This time last year my DC1 was 3yo. She had her birthday before September, so was 4yo and started school.

Or as others have said, it's preschool.

My 3yo starts in sept - he will turn 4 on August 30th. Some of his classmates will be turning 5 very soon after - could be as early as September 1st, ie they could be as much as 363 days older than him!

That's just the way it has to be though, they don't do January intake in this town, don't know about anywhere else though.

My 3yo starts school in September. She is 4 next week, though.

My two year old starts at the preschool attached to the school in September, when he will be 3. He's never been to nursery/child care so it is a bit like he is starting school. He has a uniform too (it's tiny!)

It sounds entirely normal. But it also sounds as though you are about to grasp the 'summer born' issue.

My DD's birthday is September 7th 2011. So is she supposed to start in September 2015 or 2016? I don't know why I find this so confusing; I'm quite clever really

This time twenty years ago I was still 3 but starting school in September. I turned 4 at the very end of August and started reception about 1 week later.

Antoinette - your DD will start school in Sept 2016. She will have her 5th birthday within days of starting and will be one of the oldest in the year.

You may want her to go to nursery or pre-school earlier than that, but that's different from the whole school applications process.

Got it, thank you!

All the children start nursery attached to the schools here, the September after their 3rd birthday.

Usually only part time at first though.

They either mean preschool, or the child is going to be 4 sometime between now and 31st August.

When is your friends DSs birthday?

Where I am all the primary schools have pre-school classes for the 3-4 year olds, in the main building, in school uniform, with school lunches etc. As far as my DS was concerned, he started 'school' last year even though he's just gone into reception last week. For reasons that aren't clear to me, the local authority still fund a huge number of full time places - i.e. 9-3.15, so well beyond the free 15 hours. In DS's class 75% of the kids did full time from the outset and a few more increased their hours after Easter. I don't think there are many local authorities that still fund these full time places though beyond the 15 hours. Tends to be areas of social deprivation I think.