starting prep early

[mumsies]

We live in Victoria and our son was born in August so he cannot start school until he is 5 turning 6 unless he he has an IQ 130 or more. This is still a bit of a while away, but wanted to know if there were any families out there who have had there children earlier than legislated, how you found the journey, how your child did and how your school supported (or didn't) your child?

[BigRedV]

Just wondering why you would want to start your child early?

[bellalika]

Just wondering why you would want to start your child early?

Same. As a early years teacher it is something, without knowing all the facts, I would strongly discourage.

[mumsies]

Thanks ladies for your opinion. I purposely didn't put all information on, as I am not actually looking for people's opinions but rather their experience. If we thought this was an option worth looking at we would work with the opinions of professionals and carers who could assess, with all the information and knowing him, what they thought best, and his father and I would decide from that. Looking forward to hearing from anyone who would be able to tell me about their personal experience, so that we can learn from them.

[BigRedV]

I didn't give an opinion, but asked a question. I haven't had experience with my own children, but being a teacher, I've seen many children who started school too early, that is why I asked.

[bellalika]

I didn't give an opinion, but asked a question. I haven't had experience with my own children, but being a teacher, I've seen many children who started school too early, that is why I asked.

I think she meant my unsolicited opinion based on seeing too many kids start early. Stepping out now.

[haveheart]

Subscribing! I would like to hear other parents experiences too, I'm tossing up what to do with my daughter!

[Mia78]

I'm also subscribing. I believe the cutoff date in Victoria is 30th April ??? My DD2 will turn 5 on the 6th May, and although it is still years away, providing she knows her basics, it would be a shame to hold her back a year for the sake of 6 days...especially when her sister will be 1 year ahead in school.

[mim1]

My ds is born in January and so started kinder (in Vic) at age 4 (and a couple of weeks), aiming to start school at age 5. He hasn't had formal giftedness testing yet, but he is very advanced in literacy & numeracy and this has been evident since he was a young toddler. He learns things very quickly and ponders things very deeply. He can read quite well and has been reading for well over a year now.

BUT, he won't be starting school at age 5. His kinder teacher suggested (STRONGLY) that he waits til he is 6 to start school and we have followed her advice. Although one-on-one he is clearly very advanced in literacy & numeracy he is completely different in a group of his peers. He still plays mostly on his own, or with one other child (rather than in groups like most of the other children in his kinder). He doesn't do things readily when asked like go to the toilet, put on his jacket before going outside, etc ... even if all the other children are doing it. He won't talk up the front of the group at all, and yet at home we can't shut him up, or even with his cousins he's very much out the front, just not with a group of his peers. It's hard to explain, but socially he is appropriate for his 'young' age and we are watching him change slowly and are confident he will improve his social skills. He's not just a gifted child without necessary social skills, if that makes sense. His teacher is worried that if he goes onto Prep he'll get lost and underperform academically. Sure, he can read, but what point is that if he's too intimidated by his peers to actually put his hand up in response to a question? And so what if he's good at numbers, but he doesn't manage to organise himself to eat all his lunch before playing and then forgets to go to the toilet, so spends the afternoon in agony, not able to tell the teacher he needs to go to the toilet?

So, he will start school at 6 and he'll be advanced academically, but he would be anyway. He'll progress through the year levels, learning things along the way at his pace, whatever that is.

Do not let the April 30th cut-off fool you. You will find that most parents are holding back their children born from Jan - April until closer to their 6th Birthday. My ds is a January baby and I think there are 2 children younger than him in his Kinder class and the 5th Birthday's started in March. This is especially the case for boys. I know giftedness has been associated with 'skipping grades' and 'being accelerated' through school, but I'm not sure this is a good idea, and even if it is, I suspect it's done better if they don't rush starting school. The logistics of everyday school life are hard enough, without forcing them on an immature child, gifted or otherwise.

[Hollywood]

I agree with Mim1. DS was 4 in Feb this year but we've held him back after recommendation from his 3yo kinder teacher last year. He's a bright kid but really needed the extra year for social development, so he will be doing 4yo kinder next year and start prep the year he turns 6.

[faroutbrusselsprout]

I know you asked for opinions on who had started their child early but in Victoria I think you will be very very hard pressed to find someone that has a child born after April who started 4 turning 5.
The 130iq thing is only basic guideline, but it's so much more than that. My parents are both teachers (my step dad a principal for over 20 years) and he has seen 2 children in that entire time start early (ie birthdays after april) in very extraordinary cases.
It just doesn't happen.
I suggest you look into starting your child in Prep and then letting the teachers dictact whether or not they are ready to skip a grade or just be involve in gifted programs.
There is so much more to prep than just letters and numbers.

[mysonroger]

well I guess I can respond to this because my DD1 is 2 days before the cut off and another girl is one day before the cut off. So for me, it was more a wonder whether to hold her back than keep her in the year she was meant for. But its the same in the sense of being the absolute youngest in the class. It's weird when my DD1 turned 6, many of her class mates turned 7 a few days later. I have found that the younger girls in the class mainly stick together, and have formed good relationships with each other, however DD1 is mingling far more now she is in Year 1, but her core group of friends are still the younger girls. She has kept up very easily with literacy, and is performing stronger than expected. Her maths is terrible, but i reckon this is the teacher and i'm having a meeting about it on monday afternoon. It seems DD1 has fallen through the net and no one seems to have noticed.

DD1 mingles well within her year, and equally looks at home when hanging out with the girls a year below...although had she stayed down a year, she definitely would have been one of the stronger characters in the group. This is not the case in Year 1.

If DD1 had been born two days later, I wouldn't have bumped her up.


A friend of mine put her DD2 straight from Kindy to Year 1 because she was so advanced, and they had issues with the next teacher, and wanted to avoid her. now she is in Year 4 my friend is wondering if it was the right thing to do, not because of her academic results, but because she's in a different place as fas as maturity goes (compared to her peers).

[mysonroger]

oh yeah, and i just remembered , out of all the discussions i had with teachers about holding DD1 down because of her age , the main thing they discussed was their maturity levels in kindy and PP ....and not academia. They wanted to see that children can hold themselves and handle themselves in different situations...and that was a major contributing factor in their advice.

[sweetseven]

I know of a child that started school early in Queensland. He wrote a Get Well card to a friend in hospital - the sort of thing you would expect from an 8yo - when he was only 4yo. His parents spent something like $3000 getting him assessed and he was one of only four children permitted to start the school year early that year in Queensland.

Fast forward to year three, and he was being assessed for an autistic spectrum disorder. He was needing assistance in some areas, whilst his reading and maths were still way ahead of the rest of his class.

I don't have a lot of detail as the family were friends of friends, so we pretty much only saw eachother at birthday parties. I have no proof, and what I have said was what had been told to me during a few different birthday parties of our mutual friends children.

[RourkesMumma]

My experience in SA:
My brother thrived after my parents had him assessed by the principal at their request. His birthday is may 24 and he was supposed to stay an extra 12 months in kindy. It did mean he was the youngest out of everyone but emotionally they were all at the same level.
Only downside to it all was that he was the last to get his drivers license in high school and was always a passenger, which stressed my parents out...
But- he did work experience 3 times for an electrical company while in year 10 and was offered an apprenticeship in year 11. He did it school-based so he could finish the year then moved out of home to be close to his job. He was just 16 and a half and was working full-time. At just over 17 he now has his own workvan and with another apprentice does some jobs on his own! He'll be fully qualified before 19 and LOVES how it's all turned out :)

[mumsies]

Thanks everyone for your sharing your experiences. It's good to hear from a variety of people in a variety of situations. Social skills are so important as well as the physical ability to stay at school all day. I've worked in after school care and seen little preps who weren't ready and have to have a nap because they're minds and bodies can't take it. Which is the biggest factors we are looking at. I'd love to hear more about the observation and testing side of this. Have people gone and got their own testing for their kids (and is that costly or stressful?) or has it been through early childhood providers? Thanks again ladies!

[CeeLH]

Hi there
We are in WA where you start Kindy around 4y then PrePrimary then Grade 1. My DD has been assessed and is over the 130 points. Some of our story was well planned and executed other parts were pure instinct and a bit of luck. But I think we are so far a good news story.

We knew our daughter was bright from an early age. We followed her lead and let her experience lots of different things, people, experiences and places. We found ourselves with a very confident and independant girl! We put her in a high quality daycare from 2.5yo for 2 days per week. The daycare progressed her through the age rooms about 6months ahead of normal schedule. The daycare has a 'kindy' room run by a kindy teacher. Our DD started in there at 3.5yo. We had DD assessed by an experience psych organised through our state Gifted Association when DD was 4 and 2mths, just before she was due to start 'real' kindy. Testing was far from traumatic our DD loved it and was on a high for several days after. It cost us $860, this included a travel fee as psych is Qld based. In our follow up appointment and in light of her IQ score, we asked the psych if she thought DD was socially and emotionally appropriate for grade accelerating DD. She said yes absolutely.

So DD did not start kindy early she just skipped over it and went to PrePrimary. She is 5mths younger than the next youngest student. There is also a student in the class who is a year older (late starter due to health problems at birth). Acaedemically she is top of the class and been extending into grade 1 work, socially and emotionally she is far far far from the most needy student. she is everyones friend and everyone is hers. The teachers love her and the other parents have accepted her (yes that matters!) since doing parent help and getting to know her.

DD is the teachers first grade accelerated student and I think had some intitial reservations. Most teachers are not supportive of grade acceleration and cite social and emotional blah blah blah but the research shows that for many gifted children acceleration is a very valid intervention. There is actually no scientific evidence against it. We were just a month into the school year when the teacher pulled me aside and said "She is absolutely in the right place. It is like she has always been here."

We still have a long way to go and all children have different personalities, strengths and needs (but you know that). But I feel 100% that we have done the right thing by our daughter and she is a very happy, well adjusted girl.

Good luck.

[mim1]

The cutoff for Victoria when I was going through school was the end of June and I recall a girl in my class who had a birthday in June, months after everyone else's birthday. She always seems so immature. She didn't struggle academically at all, but she was very socially immature (not that others weren't, but she really stood out).

My dh is a September baby and he has an IQ well over 130 and he did really well at school, starting at age 5. He was speaking like an adult at age 2 (I didn't realise what his mum meant when she said that til our ds did the same thing!) and was reading and writing sentences before starting school. Sure he was different at school, but socially he was appropriately placed within the system and I think it was the right time for him to start.

As for testing, we were going to do it in the 2nd half of this year. The Krongold centre at Monash Uni was recommended to us and I looked into it. They have a 6 - 8 week wait list and then it involves LOTS of sessions for a full assessment (I think 6 or so sessions). Naively I thought it was like an IQ test for an adult where you just sit down and tick the right box & get a score at the end. No, this assessment is a lot more thorough and gives a lot more detailed information at the end, which of course is what we want from the whole process.

We decided to not go ahead with the testing this year. It would have meant appointments too close to the birth of bub #2 and we would have liked the assessment before deciding if he needed a 2nd year of kinder, but we'd left it too late for that we realised. So, we'll plan to do the assessment next year, early in the year, so we can get information that will help his kinder teacher works on his strengths & weaknesses in his 2nd year of kinder and then help for forward planning for school. It also takes away the distraction of a new sibling which might cloud the testing process a little. Our goal has always been to wait til close to school entry for testing, so that the information is relevant for the early years of schooling.

Forgot to add: testing for giftedness is not something Early Childhood teachers offer. It's done by a psychologist and involves multiple sessions. It's not a simple test. You can get it done through private psychologists or through other options such as the Krongold Centre at Monash Uni (research based psychologists). I think it costs about $600 through the Krongold Centre - ring them, they are very helpful.

[kw123]

I started school when I was four and four months but it didn't do me any harm..! I was always the youngest in class of course but I liked it! Meant I finished school and went to uni at 17 which I loved, although prob not for everyone. I was not gifted, but I did pass some basic tests and saw a psychologist before I was allowed to go... This was in Scotland though. 6 seems very old to me. Could be 19 before you finish school!!

[Turk EnJayDee]

I started school at 4 and I turned out ok. I also loved school from day one. It's an individual thing for each child.

If 'I' personally feel MY child is ready early, I will try to get her in early too.

[Turk EnJayDee]

I should add that I didn't turn 5 until July. So starting year 7 (highschool in NSW) I was 11. The only thing that bugged me was everyone else being able to drink legally for schoolies...

[zenifa]

Our experience is that DD1 is an August baby and very bright from an early age (both her parents are psychologists and we've been involved in early cognitive development unit at the uni we studied and all the way along since early toddlerhood were told that even without formal testing her IQ was high), but due to her being born in the latter half of the year, she is meant to start her formal education a year later than her peers. We did the pre-prep in Qld (kindy) route and again it was pointed out that she was well ahead of children in many educational/delevopmental areas.
Emotional maturity/social development she is doing extremely well, she is a friendly, social, confident, gregarious girl, but her emotional/social development is still the same as any other 6yo. SO, for us getting her into school early or skipping grades, none of this seemed to be the best option for her, for us, our children and family, home education meant we could go at DD1's pace and we could avoid the whole 'formal educational institution' and focus on ensuring our daughter enjoys learning and continues to be free to grow and develop. BTW she is doing amazingly well on all fronts, so for us, this is working.

My question (ie one that the OP should consider for themselves ie not answer on here) is why would you want to send your child to school early? What do you think they need? What are you hoping they will get out of it?
For us, when we explored this we found that we were in a better place to provide what was needed than a school was - but this isn't about being pro-home education, its about knowing your child, and parents making choices about what is right for their child.

good luck

[River Song]

my son is gifted, like your lil one...high iq.

he is a may baby so misssed cut off by a month. i am against early entry as i feel is detrimental in the long run...spec in teen years.

gifted kids stand out anyway, having them12-18 months younger than peers it makes it even worse. a good teacher will keep them busy and challenged.

think about more than academic...think of the diff that makes in sport and they'll be at such a disadvantage. also emotional diff as they enter teen years...and development.

all the kids i know who have been accelerated to higher years are socially isolated, where the gifted kids kept with their age group are going pretty well.

school is more than just literacy and numeracy and iq...there a loads of programs to value add like g.a.t.e.ways in melbourne (my son loves these programs and goes every term).

[mumsies]

Thanks so much for sharing ladies, having people share their actual experiences is really giving a more clear understanding in all this. zenifa I would love to home school, that would be my dream situation, but financially I just don't think its going to happen sadly. It's still a long way away, but you've all given DH and I some food for thought. :hugs:

[Maureenia]

Before going to school, its important to start it right, here is a few tips on how:

Creating a Positive Learning Environment for ADHD Children
Source: Click Here (http://www.add-adhd-teen-help.com/add-adhd/parenting-adhd-kids-creating-a-positive-learning-environment-for-adhd-children.html)

It's important for parents to understand that no child is perfect. Learning becomes a negative experience when adults force children to aim for academic achievement while missing the entire point of the exercise. For example, when sitting down with your child to do homework, the experience has the potential to either be a negative or positive one for both of you. When you push your child to complete his homework just for the sake of completing it and becoming the best or getting a high grade, it focuses on the wrong thing. Helping your child master a problem, on the other hand, takes time but yields a more important by-product which is a healthy self-esteem.


For ADHD children, what's more important than being the best is achieving progress.


Here are a few tips parents can use to help their children adjust to school work better:

Make it easy to organize - One of the most common sources of parents' stress towards their children with ADHD is their inability to organize their room and their things. In order to foster a positive learning environment for ADHD children, one must work on setting up an environment that encourages organization. For example, buying a school bag with many compartments to help organize school materials helps. Buying a binder that has divisions for different subjects can be helpful too. Have colorful sticky notes around the house which your child can use to post reminders. There are stores that specialize in selling add-friendly products which parents might want to look into.
A large calendar - Some students find it easier to keep track of their upcoming deadlines by putting up a large calendar on their wall. Parents can help set it up and design it. A large, visually stimulating wall calendar can be a simple but effective way of helping ADHD kids keep track of what they need to turn in for school.
Routines - Being creative with your evening routine can be a good way to get your child ready for doing homework at night. Doing something fun before diving into the task can help your child focus on homework, and doing this consistently every night will be even better.
Have a proper place for everything - Organizing is a lot easier when there's a proper place for everything in the house. It helps to have shelves in the mud room or near the door that's neatly labeled so that children will have a place to put things they need to grab before running out of the house. Establish a routine where your child checks his/her bag every night before going to bed just to make sure everything needed for school is in there. You can help your child sort through his things on the weekend and clear out things that will not be needed next week. Have a place for school correspondences, for homework that are to be turned in, for papers that have been graded and given back.
Praise progress - This is perhaps the most important component to creating a positive learning environment for ADHD children. When parenting children with ADHD, it's sometimes really easy to get critical of all the things they forget to do. However, valuing your child's little victories does more to improve his/her self-esteem than criticisms ever will. Take the time to look for positive improvements and praise the things that your child is doing well.