primary school question
 

hi all

i wonder if anyone can shed any light on the school years in nz please? my son is 9, he will be 10 next august and he's currently the youngest in year 5. he just started year 5 in september.

i know the school year runs on a calendar year, but i'm confused as to whether that will put him in year 5 or year 6 if/when we get there in the new year?

can anyone help please? it's not a life/death question in the scheme of things, i'm just trying to work out where his current studies would fit in with the nz curriculum

thanks

Re: primary school question
 

I would suggest that you make sure he is in a yr 5/6 class rather than a year 4/5 class, that way if he finds year 5 to easy it might be easier just to move him onto yr 6 or 6/7. My daughter was 10 1/2 when we came over and was put into a 6/7 class but the year 6 section and it was all to easy for her. to be perfectly honest she found the whole system not to her liking, as she is fairly academic, luckily along with other reasons we were able to move her onto college a year early

Re: primary school question
 

Hi
I would think about your child's temperament and how you think they will manage. Contact the school and ask them about class sizes ,curriculum details etc. This will help your decision.
Our priority was to take as much stress out of the move as possible and for the children to make friends and settle ,although they were older, same principles applied.
They were both fine and the school had a buddy system in place for the younger one at intermediate that helped.
This might be something you could ask any potential school about

Re: primary school question
 

My son is 9 and will be 10 in July next year, he has gone from being the youngest in the class in the uk to oldest here. He is in year 4 and they also have year 3's in the same class. So your son will be probably be a yr 5/6 in January (but they could put him in a year 4/5), I don't think he will be a yr 6/7 (these are 11/12 yrs olds). They do seem to alter classes as they go. My oldest was due to go to yr 7/8 this year but they had to many kids so created a yr 6/7!!!
My son does sometimes find it a bit repetitive as they are catering to yr 3s who are 8yrs old. He says he misses geography and history as their curriculum is not so broad here and doesn't include it, they do more practical learning
There was no discussions when he was placed in the school or looking at their UK school reports to see their level of achievement.
It is all a bit confusing for me to be honest :confused:

Re: primary school question
 

no comparison here either for us and the only reason my daughter was put into the class she did was because she had befriended a girl in it. Looking back it was a ridiculous way to go, she was put in 6/7 class but they labelled her a yr 6 where it could of so easily been yr 7, which would of been more appropriate and would of meant she got to go into yr 8 for longer than the 3mths she did when we decided she was wasting her time there and moving her onto college early

Re: primary school question
 

All very confusing! Wishing I hadn't asked now lol. My son doesn't do geography and history ATM, but he does do French and Spanish. I guess those will stop?

Re: primary school question
 

depends on school if they do languages at the primary level I believe. College do and more akin to the English way of teaching, as far as I am aware.

Re: primary school question
 

Is a college in nz similar to in the uk so for a level type quals?

Re: primary school question
 

not really sure as my children haven't attended college there. college here starts at 13, 12 in my daughters case, and is more like secondary school. so fixed lesson times per week. choice of subjects and more reports and exams throughout the year. I believe they are meant to obtain a certain amount of points to by the end of the year to move into the next year - not sure how strict that is - maybe some teachers can confirm?

they go to college until they are 18 Yr 13 then it University if they so desire

Re: primary school question
 

Ah ok so it's senior/high school as I know it. Thanks for clarifying :)

Re: primary school question
 

They're generally called secondary schools here. And there is intermediate school which is between primary and secondary.

In some areas there may be no intermediate, in which case the primary might go up to Year 8.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_New_Zealand

Re: primary school question
 

Most schools use end of April as the cut-off date. Like Moonie's kids, my child born in July went from being the youngest to the oldest (but repeated a term of year 2), we had a choice for my daughter who was born in April. They are now 3 school years apart, not 2 like they were in the UK.

The system is flexible though so some kids repeat years and others skip years depending on individual circumstances. Class numbers and composite classes are based on numbers. Schools are obliged to take kids if they live in zone so the class ages will vary from year to year based on numbers, but are usually not more than 2 age groups in the same class.

I'm a teacher here and I don't find kids from the UK are more advanced than NZ kids, why would they be? They have just been in a different system on the other side of the world based on a different curriculum.

The NZ curriculum is based a lot on inquiry learning, and of course is more relevant to NZ not Europe. History and Geography is taught as part of social studies until secondary school (college) when it is taught separately (again depending on the school).

The best thing to do is to look around schools when you get here and see if they suit you, ask other parents in the park for example about local schools. Some are more academic than others, some may prioritise 'environmental' learning for example. Read between the lines of the ERO reports. The 'best' schools will not be reviewed for 5 years, the norm is 3 years and 1 year indicates a potential problem. DO NOT take decile ratings as a mark of school standards, it is purely for funding and based on the socio-economic details of the area.

Re: primary school question
 

Secondary schools often have 'college' or 'high' in their title and local families will refer to their local school as the college or high respectively but 'secondary' is the actual term to describe the level of schooling.

Here's some ministry info on NZ secondary school system. No, they do not have to earn a certain number of points to progress through to the next year, although there is more flexibility here for year groups than in the UK where to get a kid out of year involves a battle with the LEA. Streaming is commonplace here at secondary school and it's not uncommon for there to be special accelerant classes (called A stream or something similar) as well as classes that cater for the lowest ability before needing special ed.

Think very carefully about progressing a kid into an older year group. My daughter has a friend who is a year younger and she will go to university having only just turned 17, unable to drive and not legal to drink for a long time after her cohort are. You also get a year less with your kids, in effect :(

Your teen (Year 9 - 13) - Ministry of Education

Re: primary school question
 

BB - that's also happened to a daughter of a friend who was pushed up, she wanted to go to Europe for a year once she leaves school before uni and teach English but she can't find anywhere willing to take her as she's only 17, not 18. She essentially has to fill in time for a year.

Re: primary school question
 

thanks all, i've got a better understanding now :thumbup: