6 year old starting school in London, straight from preschool

[QuintessentialShadows]

So,
it looks like we need to start planning our return to London and I am slightly concerned about our ds2.

He will be 6 in June, and we are hoping to move during the summer holidays, so he can start the new school year in London.

We currently live in Norway, where they dont start any formal schooling until they are 6. He is learning letters and numbers, to a very small degree, in preschool.

At 6, what year would he be placed in? He is a bright boy, with interest in letters and numbers, and learning to read, so I guess we should start preparing him. Would he get any extra tutoring? Should we maybe consider arrange this privately?

If he will be 6 on Sep 1 then he will start in Y2.

By start of Y2 most kids will be able to read a fair amount. A few will be reading easy chapter books, most will be reading the reading scheme books with limited vocab and lots of pictures etc.

They will also mostly be writing in sentances with full stops and capital letters etc.

So, yes your DS will be quite far behind. However if he is a bright boy I am sure he will catch up easily and quickly.

Does he speak English well?

School are used to dealing with kids entering from other countries who haven't been in school yet.

If you want to start to teach him to read in English yourself, there have been many many threads on this. A very good computer program for this is headsprout.

Good luck, and don't worry. He will catch up.

He speaks English. Possibly not as well as his contemporaries, but ok. He was born in London, and we moved to Norway when he was 3. We speak English at home, and he enjoys watching English films.

I will get dh on the case with Reading. Maybe I should order some Oxford Reading Tree books from Amazon?

You decided to move back? (not stalking, just curious - I remember some of your past threads on life in Norway).

Didn't know you were moving back QS! What has prompted that?

The school will more than likely give him extra support so you don't need to arrange this privately. Our primary school regularly has children joining who speak very little English or who have missed a lot of school (travelling community). I would guess that most London schools are similar.

If he doesn't know his phonics he may join in with the new Reception class for this bit but it might be a good idea to pre-empt this by teaching him yourself (obv you would to check that the school he will join uses this method but think most do now).

My youngest is 6 & in Yr2. He can read fluently but needs to improve his writing (handwriting and content)

Have found a sheet he got in Yr 1 with the Maths targets for the year, so to give you some idea of where other children will be at..

Count 20 objects.
Count forwards & backwards in ones, starting from a small number.
Count forwards & backwards in 10s
Read & write numbers to 20
Put numbers 0-20 in order
Use the words first, second, third
Know all pairs of numbers that make 10 (eg 3+7)
Add & subtract 2 numbers under 10
For a number between 10 & 20, say the number that is 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, 10 less

Good things to do at home are board games (using dice, counting along) & card games. The Numberjacks programme on CBeebies is also good (but he may find it a bit babyish?) - you can get DVDs...

HTH!

Don't don't don't order ORT books. You need to do a phonics reading scheme.

One of the easiest ones to do at home is Dancing Bears. 10 minutes a day at home...

Thank you, I shall look into ordering those phonics things.

Decorhate, thank you, that is a very good list.

We have started him on alphabet and writing skills, as we have a kit for tracing over letter and numbers. He has been enjoying this over the last 2 days.