Foley Roader

Hi All,

Following up on another post i made about moving to New Jersey in the new year I have a specific question about my youngest.

My youngest boy is 4, 5 in Feb, and currently goes to school full time every day, he's in reception in the UK. Given his age it seems he will go into kindergarten in Sept 2010, but from what I can tell its only for half day, it appears that way looking at the Chatham schools website.

So I'm a bit concerned about his education, going from full day school to half day for a whole year until he's in 1st grade seems like a big step back.

Anyone got any experience with this, should I be seeing if I can get him straight into first grade ?

thanks

neil

He's only 5, I wouldn't worry about it; in fact, it may be better for him:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/8309153.stm

Plenty of European countries start later with no detrimental effects.

Duncan Roberts

That's the way it is here but a lot of schools offer all day, for a small fee. It may not always be advertised so worth calling and asking.

naomi

Yeah, definitely call and ask. A lot of cities offer "pay for K" where you basically pay for the afternoon. I live in Seattle and we pay 200 a month for the kiddo to attend full-time (we both work, so half-day isn't a choice for us).
Naomi.

MsElui

also you can buffer up the kindergarten with paid day care. ie working mums often drop their kids at their chosen daycare early in the morning(before Kindergarten starts). at the appropriate time the day care then school BUS the kids to Kindergarten - and then pick them up at the end and return with them to daycare until the parent can pick them up at the end of the working day. very common here.

or if you are more inclined you can chose private kindergarten and have them in just one location all day - and then transition them to first grade in the public school at the right time.

AmerLisa

May I suggest reading most of this thread, the end kind of goes another way. But I think most of it was pretty good as to what other people have experienced on this issue.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=643985