md95065

Think long and hard about this.

I speak not as a parent but as someone to whom this happened.

My birth date was such that I just missed whatever the cutoff date was for starting primary school in a particular year. My parents sent me to a kindergarten for most of that year and, when I started primary school the following year, it only took a few weeks for the school themselves to suggest that I should go up a year. My parents, of course, agreed.

OK, so there were benefits - I undoubtedly would have been bored if I had, effectively, been made to repeat the first year and I also needed to be "challenged" (but that is something that the school never really managed to do). The indisputable thing was, however, that I was *always* the youngest in my class - not just in the first few years of primary school but *forever* - all the way through 6th form - and, with hindsight, that really wasn't such a great idea.

Somewhat ironically that meant that I would only have been 17 when I started university but, having decided that I wanted to go to Cambridge, I had to wait until I was 18 so I was forced to take a "gap" year at that point (something that wasn't particularly common back in the early 1970's).

So, it's your decision, and I don't think that there are any "right" answers here but please do consider it carefully and remember that the decision you make will have consequences that extend for long past the next year or two.

kins

I have an acamedically gifted daughter who was 6 when we moved to the US. We kept her with her age group and the school differentiated the learning for her perfectly well until she was around 12 at which point she started to get bored despite begin in the various talents programs.

As a result she chose not to go to the local (very good) high school but instead to a magnet STEM boarding school. She loves it there.

I do not at all regret keeping her with her age group at 6 but I have learnt that you should keep a close eye on whether your child is being adequately challenged at school, and find out what options there are for things like moving up a grade in math.

Brandy07

This concerned us when we moved (we’re in PA). My daughter is a September baby and is reading far ahead for her age. We decided to go for private school as we felt she would be challenged in her age group. They’re are a few children in her grade that are at the same level as my daughter as they’re done a year of Kindergarten and half days for a year at pre-K (my daughter is in grade 1). She is ahead in her writing though - her teacher frequently comments on how much she writes! Have you looked round any schools? We also looked at public schools and there was one we really liked and felt that our daughter would have been challenged there, but rental properties in that area didn’t come up so we went for private so we could enroll before finding somewhere to live.

Mine had their first Hep B in July before we left which was fine for the school, but they only had to wait 6 weeks for the second injection (which they had here the day before they started school) and they have their final one on Monday - so not an 18 month wait. I had to let their school know when the injections were booked for. They were happy to accept that both of mine had had chicken pox. However, in PA they have to have their final injections of polio and DPT on or after their 4th birthday and they had them before their 4th birthday so they had to have another dose of those here too.

We used Zillow and Realtor. Houses here went quickly. My husband started working over here a month before we moved so he was able to go see houses as they came on.

Good look for your new adventure!

LeavingLondon

Hi. Good luck. We moved to the Bay Area when my boys were 6.5 years. They were great readers and writers and good at math. I was also nervous about them going back a year and starting 1st grade but I also wanted to keep them with their peers. They’re now in 5th and I don’t regret it a bit. They are not the oldest in their grade (had we put them into 2nd grade on arrival they would have been younger than the oldest kids by 18 months) and while they were really bored in 1st, it gave them the chance to settle in and make friends without the academic pressure.

Luckily one of their teachers combatted the boredom by giving one of the boys extra challenging work so that kept his brain ticking and kept him occupied.

Re the shots, we got all the vaccinations done that we could do and got the rest done in the States as and when. It was not a problem at all.

Re houses. We found ours on Craig’s list (all those properties were also on Zillow and Trulia) - you’d be better off doing searches on all 3 just in case. We had a relocation expert helping us but she just used those sites and I found the property before she did. So you’ll be fine to do it on your own.

Hope that helps.

Andyoxon

Useful comments from everyone, thank you.