School years

[nickydwuk]

In the UK the school year runs from September to July. Depneding on how old a child is on 31st August determines their year group in September i.e. a child who is 7 on 31st August will go into year 3. Is there a cut off date in NZ? I know the school year runs from February to December - is the cut off date 31st January?

[hatter5]

I think the cut off dates are the end of April and the start of May.

Just noticed your location. Luton - My home town.

Do I miss it?

[MotherBear]

Don't know if this is any help as I haven't read right through it.

And this one shows the school terms .

[nickydwuk]

Thanks for the links MB. Really helpful. You are a mine of information - what would we do without you

Hatter5 - How long have you beeen in NZ and where abouts are you? Have you noticed many changes from Luton

[hatter5]

Nicky,

Read through the link from MB and it sidesteps the question?

I think it's referring to the fact that the legal requirement for starting school is 6 but most start at 5 so depending on which part of the year they begin school determines whether they stay at the same level until they're 6 (in theory for an extra year).

My son's birthday is 27/08 and he is currently 6. He was at a 7th birthday party for the eldest in his year who turned 7 last Friday.

Too late to think now. I'll re-read the link.

Been in NZ for a year and am in Porirua north of Wellington.

We absolutely love it, surrounded by coastline and 15 minutes drive into CBD.

Hard for me to compare Luton to here. Porirua is a city but only has 55K residents - I'm not sure if they class cities here by the number of traffic lights and roundabouts. I haven't noticed a cathedral but I did have to give way at aroundabout last week, or was it the week before.

Luton has at least 180K of 'registered' residents which is probably similar to the whole of the Wellington Region.

I do miss the Corner House Take Away in Leagrave though. Beef Curry and fried Rice or maybe Chips in Gravy...mmmmmm

Have you been loo'un (dropped the 't') long?

Have you any idea where you would like to settle yet?

zzzzzzzz off to bed now

[nickydwuk]

What a coincidence - we live in the Leagrave area too.

OH and I have l lived in Luton all our lives but have been gradually getting disillusioned with Luton & the UK over the past few years. We like what we have seen & read about NZ (never visited though) and feel it could offer us what we are looking for. We want to get out of the 'big' towns and live in a house that is not overlooked by our neighbours too much - here they are cramming so many houses onto small pieces of land there is not room to 'swing a cat' (not that I really want to). We want a quieter and slower pace of life and one my two boys won't feel pressured to conform to.

We want to move to the South Island - less people and more sheep !!! We were looking at Timaru and the towns around it but recently have been considering the surrounding areas of Dunedin. I know Dunedin is quite large by NZ standards but we don't want to live in the middle of it but either one of the smaller suburbs or surrounding towns such as Milton, Brighton, Bradford or Henley

Originally Posted by hatter5

Nicky,

I haven't noticed a cathedral but I did have to give way at aroundabout last week, or was it the week before.

That busy huh !!

[hatter5]

What's that phrase again...

Small World!

Porirua does has a bit of traffic but not as we know it ;]

State Highway One traffic does begin to queue in rush hour the last 10-15KMs from CBD but takes less time to travel than J11 -> J10 on the M1.

I'll drop you a PM

[nickydwuk]

I contacted the Ministry for education and they gave me this reply-

"the Ministry of Education classifications count a student who starts school between January and June as being a year 1 in that year, whilst a student who starts school between July and December as being in year 0 that year, beginning year 1 the following year."

This means that my 2 boys will be a year ahead of where they were in the UK. Not sure if I'm happy about that. I hope the school I choose allows negotiation.

[Bermy Girl]

Originally Posted by nickydwuk

"the Ministry of Education classifications count a student who starts school between January and June as being a year 1 in that year, whilst a student who starts school between July and December as being in year 0 that year, beginning year 1 the following year."

Whoa, that's a bit confusing...does that mean that if your child is five in July that they don't actually start school until the following February? It's not something I have to worry about right away, but it would be nice to understand how it works down there. Here it's done by the calendar year, so your child begins school in the year they turn five, so if they are born in December, they will actually be four when they start school.

[Welshgirl]

Yes, it is confusing

In a nutshell, a child can start school as soon as they are 5 (actually on their birthday if they so desire!) but in any case, are legally required to have started school by their 6th birthday.

If your child turned 5 in March for example, they would be in Year 1 for the rest of that year, until the end of the school year in December. When they go back to school after the summer holidays, they would then be in Year 2, and so on.

If your child turned 5 in October on the other hand, they would be in Year 0 for the rest of that year, until the end of the school year in December. When they go back to school after the summer holidays, they would then be in Year 1, and so on.

This means that some classes will have mixed 'years' and mixed ages in some cases (our daughter was only 7 in March, but she has some children in her class who are nearly 9), but it all seems to work itself out in the end!

HTH