funkydelia

Yeah I had heard that, any luck with yours?

As far as I can see because Australian school years run Jan-Jan instead of Aug-Aug like here the youngest child in the class would be the one born on 31st Dec!

DadAgain

No Qld school years run Jan-Jan BUT the cut off is end of Jun (cut offs vary state to state), so being born ion 30th Jun your son will be the youngest in the class. He'll start prep beginning of 2011

funkydelia

Aha! I stand (sit on the couch) corrected!

loubiegreen

OMG I think you lot are trying successfully to batter my head lolol. Thought I wasn't confused now that you have told me the cut of date is June I am back in a state of confusion.

Oh well such is life.

Kind regards Lou xx

comet555

Well they do have some childcare centres. But I wasn't really refering to those because the person who asked has an older child. I was referring to the kindy (pre-prep) program.

http://www.candk.asn.au/Preschooling...enpreprep.aspx

Our particular centre offers kindy (school structured) and has programs for after school that are more like childcare but still try to be educational. There is no other form of childcare for younger kids at her centre. So all the kids there are at least 4 (or 4 by the cutoff date).

I'm sure there are other C&K's that only offer childcare but I'm new to the whole thing as well.

comet555

I think everyone coming to Queensland should try this chart/calculator. It will tell you what year your child is in.

http://education.qld.gov.au/etrf/prep.html

And to the other question about June 30th.... that child would be the youngest in his/her class. But the child would still be 4.5 years old when they started school in January so that shouldn't really be too young.

brissyboyds

We're heading for Brissy,our little girl is four in August,so if I understand this right she'll start prep(Is this primary/infants?)in Jan 2010 and can go to kindy(nursery?)from August.She's been going to nursery for a year here,only afternoons,and is due to start pre-school in Sept.It seems like a big gap to fill if we didn't stay,we're hoping not to go back,but we wouldn't want her to fall to far behind,what sort of things do they do in kindy and is it state or private?

comet555

I'm not sure I'd classify kindy as being state or private really. You're paying for it although some places like C&K do get a bit of funding.

There's daycares that offer kindy programs, these you are paying for all by yourself. You could send your child 5 days a week if you wanted but you'd have to pay about $50 a day (you pay for the day even if you only use a part of it). If you have PR visas then Centrelink does pay for a certain percentage depending on your family income. Also, if you're not working then Centrelink will only chip in for so many hours a week, if you go over you pay the full rate.

Then there's kindy that offered at a kindy centre like C&K. This is also paid for by you but does get some funding. Centrelink also chips a percentage. The cost for my daughters C&K is $20 a day. A lot cheaper than the daycare kindys but that's because your child is only there from 8:30-2pm. C&K is the option that is closest to actual school and I personally have found it to be a lot more educational and structured than the daycare kindys.

You asked what they do in kindy? Well the do your usual singing, playing, painting, drawing. They have goals every week on different topics. I'm not exactly sure how much reading, writing will be going on though. But I do know my daughter has come home and started adding and subtracting things so I think they were doing some sort of activity that prompted it. There's no strict curriculum though that I can point you towards though, so it's tough to answer your question.

DadAgain

Kindy is private - but C&K (largest kindy organisation in Brisbane) are a community non-profit organisation and fees are suitably cheap.

I'm sure theres variance but where my daughter goes (4 next week) this is the system:

Its a 5 day fortnight (Wed-Fri one week, Thu-Fri the next)
The day lasts from 9:30am-2:30pm.
Theres a class of 12 with a teacher and an assistant

Activities include,story time, painting, puzzles, modelling (lots of playschool-style egg-boxs+ceral packets glued together) and working on writing. Each afternoon they are given some time to lie down and have a rest.

At Easter they did a big "Easter Bilby" module where they learnt about Bilbys, where they live etc etc and then the first day after Easter they had an Egg hunt outside. ("Easter Bunny" might be more traditional - but non-native feral pest species arent celebrated!).

Since going to Kindy (i.e. since February this year) Nicola has mastered writing the alphabet in both upper and lower case and is confidently drawing pictures of family and friends labelling each person appropriately. She now frequently finds stuff (feathers, interesting stones, shells on beach etc etc) and wants to take it to kindy to show Mrs Kerr! (The classroom is full of all sorts of interesting junk presumably brought in by other kids).


oh yeah - and counting is big news... and Nicola will now say things like "Dad!!! - 5 and 2 make 7!!!" and "What do 3 and 4 make?" - So obviously theres some introduction to basic arithmetic going on

comet555

I second all that.

My daughters C&K has a different schedule. They have a group that is Monday-Wednesday and then there is a Thursday-Friday group. The other class may have a different schedule too. My daughters class has 22 kids though with 1 teacher and 1 assistant. There are usually a couple of parents helping out as well.

There is definitely some arithmetic being taught because my daughter came home doing the same thing. She absolutely loves kindy there and is so excited about going to school. She's only been there for about 2.5 months and she's already picked up so much.

brissyboyds

Thanks for the info,sounds a bit like Uk only a bit more like school and $20 seems reasonable,we pay child minder £22 a day,(cheap as it's a friend of the family)whether little one is at nursery or not,but we don't pay anything for nursery,so swings and roundabouts as usual.Brissy from Canada is that getting more common?

comet555

I have no idea? Do you know of any other Canadians who've done it? I know there's a few of us because my husband and I play ice hockey so we've met a fair amount of Canadians at the rink. But I rarely ever bump into another Canadian.

DadAgain

I've work with a Canadian (not you is it? You're not "Sarah" are you?) - and had a Canadian in my previous workplace too - so theres 1 or 2 of you around!

comet555

No, I'm not Sarah

I do see other Canadians, but only at the hockey rink since we seem to congregate there!

DadAgain

I didnt even know there was an ice-rink in Brisbane Been here 10 years and never seen one!