Ds starting school at 6 (not 5)? Silly idea?

[mim1]

My ds's kinder teacher has 'strongly recommended' that our ds has a 2nd year of kinder and therefore will start school at 6 instead of 5. He's a January baby and in Victoria he would be one of the younger students (especially boys) in his prep class if he went next year.

He is (in our opinion) quite gifted in literacy & numeracy, but hasn't been formally tested yet. The 'problem' is what he does in a group situation due to his social issues. He gets very self-conscious in groups and refuses to do anything out the front. If that was the only issue I'd ignore it, but he also doesn't follow instructions readily (eg. 'wash your hands as we're going to do cooking now', or 'put your jacket on as we're going outside') without a LOT of prompting from the teacher. He also does a lot of parallel play and when he doesn't do parallel play he's a follower rather than a leader in play.

The teacher doesn't think he has a 'problem', he's just a normal young 4yo. She thinks that with time all these current issues will disappear and with another year to mature he'll find prep a lot less overwhelming and do better. She rarely sees his advanced literacy or numeracy at kinder as he doesn't talk about those things in public and she really thought he didn't remember how the days are structured (eg. when he goes to music) as he appeared to be lost a lot (and yet he can tell me a very detailed run down of his day in the car if I ask). She is a great teacher and his class is pretty small, so I know this is just how our ds is in groups.

Our ds can lead games, he can be very social and he can follow instructions readily ... but that's in very small groups (eg. with his cousins) and in very familiar surrounds. He gets easily overwhelmed in public.

My question is about his giftedness (for want of a better word). He will always be advanced academically with regards to his peers, does an extra year of advancement actually matter? To me I don't see the point in sending him to prep if he is too scared to answer questions, or too overwhelmed to learn new things because he can't work out where to put his bag, or what book he should have open on his desk. Are we nuts for even considering delaying school entry? We've got a private school in mind for primary schooling and they are great at managing gifted students with school wide extension programs (catered for the interests of the students) and also acceleration in various subjects (eg. maths) where the student needs it (eg. a year 1 student might join the year 3's for maths class). When I asked the principal about the programs I almost needed to stop him talking, he told me heaps of information and it's clearly one of his areas of interest.

A month ago we didn't see this coming (thought he was borderline socially and yet advanced academically) so planned to send him to school next year. Now we're 90% sure we want him to have a 2nd year of kinder, but in the backs of our minds we worry that we'll condemn him to feeling even more different to other students if he's even more advanced academically when he starts school. But from experience (both dh & I are gifted) he'll probably always feel a little bit different anyway.

Thanks for reading my ramble. If anyone has dealt with a similar issue I'd love to hear your experience & wisdom :).

[Oblena]

Firstly I haven't had specific experience, but I do have a couple of comments, so hope they will suit.

There are heaps of studies that show boys benefit from starting school later, so in that respect it would be a firm yes. However, these studies don't often discuss children who are academically ready and not necessarily socially ready, and that's a concern as there isn't a lot of evidence as such. I totally hear your concerns with the fact that your DS is ahead academically and would be fine at school in that aspect.

However, my DD had serious issues socially last year and DH and I decided to take to to a child psychologist to assist her in this area. I believe that it was the work we put in in this area that has allowed her increased success this year. Without this, I doubt that she would have felt anywhere near as comformtable as she does, and would never have shown any skills. DD's issues were with serious social anxiety. Is it possible that your DS has similar issues? If so, I would suggest getting the mental health referral from your GP so you can get the child psych covered in part by medicare.

I would also post this thread in 'general' as there are bound to be other mums who have been told similar things, and these mums may have actually sent their son to school. My cousin is on here and she was told to get her son to repeat, but her son is at school this year. I think that the school actually assessed him sonehow (or someone else did) and this person gave my cousin a second opinion. Maybe if you post this thread in 'general' you might get some more comments from people who have gone either way and can comment on whether or not it is a good idea.

I would also check with the school to get their opinion. These people are also early education trained and may be able to comment on the social concerns and how they can impact the academic readiness as opposed to the child who is not as far along academically as your son.

Having said all of this, I also believe that the social issues will impact his academic achievement. So if they are there, they will impact his learning if you send him next year, but what if it isn't just immaturity? What if it is something that needs to be addressed sooner (as in the case of my DD), and once addressed will allow him to form bonds with other children, and share his talents with a teacher?

Hopefully someone else can come along and give you some other ideas too.

[Purplebird]

Apparently there was a news item a couple of weeks ago saying that 70% of children in Victoria are held back (so, of those born Jan- April). That was enough to confirm my decision to hold DD back too, even though she would probably be 'ok' to start next year. I wouldn't worry about him being advanced in some areas. A good prep teacher needs to accommodate a wide range of abilities :)

[Purplebird]

I'm sorry - I just realised I crashed the gifted section, but don't have a gifted child. I hope my comments are still relevant though :)

[jaq]

Hi Mim,

My thoughts on this is that his intelligence will generally take care of the academic side of things. The social side of things, however, has the power to impact on the academics, and if he is unhappy or struggling socially, it will be a much harder thing for him to settle into the rhythms of school etc.

I'd be inclined to listen to his kindy teacher and hold him back. Once he is doing well they can always consider accelerating him if they need to, especially if the school is supportive of gifted children.

I would have a talk to the school about it, though. They might well have their own assessment criteria for school readiness, and it would be a good second opinion.

[mrsd]

Hi Mim,

My thoughts on this is that his intelligence will generally take care of the academic side of things. The social side of things, however, has the power to impact on the academics, and if he is unhappy or struggling socially, it will be a much harder thing for him to settle into the rhythms of school etc.

I'd be inclined to listen to his kindy teacher and hold him back. Once he is doing well they can always consider accelerating him if they need to, especially if the school is supportive of gifted children.

I would have a talk to the school about it, though. They might well have their own assessment criteria for school readiness, and it would be a good second opinion.

I was going to say almost exactly the same as Jaq.

My son is gifted and instead of kinder, I actually had him part time in Prep at my small school for his pre-school year, then he began prep again at the Catholic school my other children attend. Academically,he was the brightest in his class but his writing and social skills still needed work. Half way through his next year at prep, he was accelerated to Year 1 as he had been working at a Year 3 level of literacy.

Social skills are very important for school success, regardless of giftedness.

Incidentally, my DS was #4, not #1. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that #1s struggle far more at school, especially if young for their year group.

[jacstar31]

hi mim - I don't have direct experience with gifted children, however I am a qualified kindergarten teacher and have a 4 yo who will be going to school next year. he was born on 12 dec. another thought to consider is what will be the impact for your DS spending another year in kindergarten (ie. socially, he will be with a group of children way younger again than him and whether this will be the best thing for him??)

I agree that it is a huge dilemmna, I am not convinced that spending another year in kinder is always the best thing. also like you say, he will know all his kinder friends this year will go to school (why not me?) he might think and it is harder towards the end of the year when there is lots of talking and preparation for school and to explain why he is not going. anyway, just a few of my thoughts...

[twotrunks]

Is the kinder teacher recommending it as in "you will be funded for an extra year of kinder", or more of a "take him out now and send him back next year" way? From what I have seen it is quite hard To get a second funded year of kinder, so if they are offering it then the kinder teacher must be quite concerned. I would be inclined to keep him back, and let the academics take care of themselves. The harm that could be caused by staying back is much less than that potentially caused by going too early.

[WorkingClassMum]

The best thing we ever did for DS in regards to schooling was give him an extra year to mature socially - and it's recommended that don't refer to it as 'holding' a child 'back' but rather that it is referred to as having an 'extra' year

Your DS is potentially going to be at in the education system for the next 14 or so years And them some if he goes to university - and it's easy to allow them to be very ready rather than nearly ready.

If your DS is bright or gifted academically then the school system might put him in a advanced stream and skipping a class is socially more accepted than repeating a year.

Good luck It's a difficult decision

[mim1]

Thanks everyone for your comments. All very helpful. Purplebird ... thanks for the 70% comment - I know lots of kids born from Feb onwards who didn't even start kinder this year and his birthday is mid-Jan, so he's pretty close to that. My dh will like to hear those stats.

He's at a private school early learning centre and he'll be continuing at the same school for primary school, so the kinder teacher has a good concept of what is needed for prep at that school. I suspect that they have higher expectations of their preps than some schools around. I was a little shocked at the work the preps were doing when I did a tour at the end of term 1.

The suggestion is that he keeps going & finishes this year out in the part-time (3 days a week) kinder group, but returns next year in the full time kinder group (that's 8:45am - 3pm 5 days a week). Hours wise it's only a little bit less than prep, but as he's a boy he'll enjoy the continued play based learning environment rather than the structure of prep. They can offer extension stuff like readers from the school library if needed (he's pretty much at that level now, but I'm in no rush). I suspect that the funding arrangements are a little different as it's a private school kinder than if he was in a council run kinder in terms of allowing him a 2nd year of funding.

As for if he'll be disappointed to stay in kinder while his friends go to school, I honestly don't think he'll care. That's part of the problem ! :) He plays with other children at kinder & talks about enjoying playing with his friends, but in reality he doesn't initiate conversations before/after kinder with his friends or seem to ask much about what they do outside kinder. His social skills really need work.

We're now 99% sure we'll go for the 2nd year of kinder. We'll be meeting with the teacher early in Term 3 to make the final decision though.

Thanks again!

[PinkIsTheNewBlack]

Hi,
I am a grade 1 teacher and often have parents asking me if their child is "ready" for the next grade.
Your situation is a hard one.
From experience, I can really see the maturity difference in girls and boys- my boys run wild, find it harder to sit still etc (generally), but hey thats just boys. In QLD prep year is for children born from June-June, so sometimes children can be 11 months apart. I often notice that the children born in the second year often take longer to develop academically, but your son sounds like he is fine in that area.
I have seen the difference an extra year of kindy/prep can do for a children (yes, most commonly boys) but I can also see how a whole year (new teacher, new classmates, new structure) can help improve social development too- often they catch up within that next year.

Prep and Grade 1 are very different (although becoming more alike). Prep- children will get to self-select activities and games and have more opportunity for social interaction. Grade 1 will involve more structure and "desk" time. I think Prep would be fine for him. Could he try a year of Prep and if you still think he has to develop socially some more, give him another year of Prep? You never know, he may be fine within the next year?

Good luck, whatever your decision.

[mim1]

Thanks Talez, but prep in Queensland is more like Kinder in Victoria and Grade 1 is basically the same as Prep here - my cousin is teaching Prep in Queensland and it is VERY different to in Victoria. The cutoff is April 30th in Victoria, but very few children born from March onwards will start Prep at age 4 (turning 5), most will wait til nearly 6 years of age.

If he has an extra year of kinder I don't think he'll notice his friends going onto to school as an issue, but if he has to do Prep twice it will be in the same small primary school (the kindergarten is located at the same school, but very separate) and he will always notice that he's behind the children he started school with. If I'm going to give him a 2nd year at any point my preference is definitely to go that at Kindergarten level when he is less socially aware of what is going on and where there is much less stigma attached for children.

I'm considering seeing a psychologist to see if we can work out how to help him gain confidence. He can be confident, but he's struggling at kinder and even at home in the last few months he's been saying he doesn't know things (eg. which is his right foot - he's known that since he turned 2, or before) and I need to know how to combat these issues. I got his mid-year report and one glaring issue (apart from all the ones we'd already discussed with the teacher) was that she said he was starting to use the scissors, but had only very basic skills. That's simply not the case at home - he's been an expert on the scissors for 12 months - he can cut around very complex shapes. I do think perhaps he gets distracted & isn't that interested in some activities at kinder and maybe that's all it is, but I'm not sure. But if he's going to have a 2nd year of Kinder it's not so urgent that we sort through these issues ... which is good cause I'm nearly 28 weeks pregnant and things will get a bit busy in the near future!

[CeeLH]

I understand your concerns. I have one gifted child and I suspect my younger child is also gifted, but differ markedly in their social confidence. Younger DD is

There is a lot of evidence that some gifted children can appear to lack confidence, willingness to interact etc but infact are just not interested in interacting with the children they have available to them. My daughter, in daycare would say "I need new friends" when i asked why she said "My friends are too slow. They talk slow and they think slow". She was only three at the time

What is your son like outside of school? Does he enjoy older children, cousins, friends, neighbours even adults?

I dont mean to confuse:confused: you but it could be that your son far from needing to wait another year could need to skip a year :eek:. Just putting it out there.

[PinkIsTheNewBlack]

Mim I would recommend getting a pedatricians opinion... :)

[mim1]

Thanks Cee. A year ago I would have agreed with you. At childcare he couldn't relate to the other children at all. They barely had speech that you could understand and he wanted to have adult conversations, it's no wonder he didn't socialise well. But now I watch him socialise with his cousins (two of them are also 4, one is 6 & one is nearly 3) and I see that he can be very social in the right circumstances. At playgroup, once he even told everyone that it was story time (he decided it was, he wasn't told to announce it) and then got everyone on the mat & sang them a song he wanted to teach them. So, in the right circumstances he can be social, but currently it's quite rare and definitely not in larger groups (playgroup is quite small and my mum runs it and he's been going for 2 years).

AND ... I suspect there are a number of gifted children in his kinder group and it would probably be similar next year. So, I think that he won't feel like the odd one out intellectually next year if he has a 2nd year of kinder and socially hopefully he'll just be more settled. The school can accelerate him for classes if needed - one reason we chose that school, once he starts school and so I think that will deal with his academic needs.

I was gifted (and so was dh) and we both had social issues. We both always felt different to the other children - me more than dh. We didn't want that for our son and that was one reason we wanted him to potentially be in a year with older children. BUT ... we now see that pushing him into prep before he can manage the day to day logistics may create the very problem we were trying to avoid. My ds is more like me than my dh ... I get intimidated if I feel socially overwhelmed and retreat into myself. Not very productive and if I can prevent that happening frequently then that would be great.

Talez ... he has a paed ... he gave useless advice "Take him to the museum, get a yearly zoo pass, do whatever interests him outside formal learning time". Ok, so the advice wasn't useless, but pretty self-explanatory and not particularly helpful in decision making about school, etc. Oh well.

In the parenting forum someone posted a similar question to this and one reply said that private schools in her area (I presume in Victoria, not 100% sure) would only take children that had turned 5 by the end of December before starting school - ds wouldn't meet that criteria. I really suspect he would be one of the youngest in his prep class if he went to school next year.

[mum2bubba]

My daugher started prep this year, she's 6 now adn will be 7 in October, she did two years of 4 year old kinder and it was the best thing for her. She has a speech impediment and wasn't socially ready last year.

[mim1]

Thanks again for all your comments. Just to update you, we decided to give him a 2nd year of kinder, so he'll be starting school at nearly 6 in 2013.

[BeccyXD]

my DD is socially great and can read a bit and write, she was born in April and so we are right on the cusp of deciding whether to send her next year or the year after. We spoke to her early learning co-ordinator and she strongly suggested that she do another year in the 3-4 room then move up to kinder for a year so she would be starting at 6 instead of 5. My hubby was pushing for her to go at 5 and I wasn't sure what to do but we made the decision to start her at 6 and i think she will be better off for it.

She is brimming with confidence and i think that by the time she starts school she will be much more prepared. Plus it gives me more time to choose a school for her, I think a lot of people are doing it this way because a year now doesn't make a whole lot of difference but it may make a difference when they are older.

[Olilou]

I know you've made your decision but....

Can I suggest you see an Educational Psychologist before you make the final final decision? :) (I saw you ask for recommendations in another thread).

I'm a mum of a gifted 4yo DS also and I know what it's like to be agonising over the school thing. Something I read a couple of months ago has become a motto I've been living by as we've been trying to finalise which school our DS will be going to next year - you just need to "make the least worst decision". And if you feel waiting another year is going to be that then go for it...

I just know that my little guy REALLY loves to learn and his fun is academic stuff so another year of kindy with younger kids again wouldn't go very well which is why I thought I would just recommend the psychologist opinion.

All the best ;)

[mim1]

Thanks. I looked into seeing an Educational Psychologist and decided on the Krongold Centre at Monash Uni, but it was an 8 week wait ... and that would still be another 3 or so weeks til the first visit. And then it involves many visits before they give an opinion. We had to make our final decision about school for next year 2 weeks ago, so you can see that the timing's just didn't add up. And I'm now 34 weeks pregnant and I didn't think that doing assessments and going to appointments around the time of a new baby arriving wouldn't really work on a number of levels. We'll go through the assessment process in the new year instead which will help plan his 2nd year of kinder.

I do think that another year of kinder is the less worst decision. He will be going 5 days a week and will have a different teacher and opportunities for extension with reading/etc at his kinder, so it's quite different to a lot of other kinders. If he was going to go a 12 hour a week normal community kinder I probably wouldn't be doing this.

We'll see how it goes.