Pre school opportunities

**Kingpin** · 06-02-2012, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by Rachiegarlo

Another thing which will change is that from 2014 Therewill be one ebntry date to SA state primary schools. If your child is 5 by the end of April, then admission to school will be at the start of term 1. All other children will have to wait til the following year. I'm sure the state kindies will still be funded for only the 4 terms preceding school admission, so you may find your child can not start until they are 4 1/2.

How would that work with older children arriving mid-year and need ing to start school? For instance would an eight year old arriving in June have to wait until the start of January the following year??

**Mrs Bon Jovi** · 06-02-2012, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by The Kings

How would that work with older children arriving mid-year and need ing to start school? For instance would an eight year old arriving in June have to wait until the start of January the following year??

Your 8 year old just would start school when you arrive, it just affects the 5 year olds starting for the first time. At the minute your child can start school the term after their 5th birthday - Ryan will start in July - whereas from 2014 they will only be able to start in January.

**Kingpin** · 06-02-2012, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Mrs Bon Jovi

Your 8 year old just would start school when you arrive, it just affects the 5 year olds starting for the first time. At the minute your child can start school the term after their 5th birthday - Ryan will start in July - whereas from 2014 they will only be able to start in January.

Glad we are already here then!

**Paula H** · 06-02-2012, 12:51 PM

bit confused but thanks for all the answers.

so my youngest will be 4 this Dec, she wont be able to start kindy until november??
my eldest was 12 in Jan, he started senior sch last sep, will he come over and do one term of primary school and then start jan at high school?
then my middle child will be 10 in April, same for her? just starting a year back?

can i get them into prospective schools from here if i contact the school/kindy?

**snifter** · 06-02-2012, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by Paula H

can i get them into prospective schools from here if i contact the school/kindy?

I looked into this and basically, unless you are really lucky with the school, then the answer seemed to be no. You need to be residing over there, have an address etc. And as many schools are zoned, if you are not in the zone area then your child can't really attend the school.

We already have a short list of schools we hope to send our son to and 2 of them are in a zoned area (different ones). Once we are there we shall visit them all, decide which we like best and then apply.

Personally I'd not risk enrolling a child into a school you've not seen or visited or met the staff of. And for an older child even more importantly that they have seen it or spent a day in at least. Its a huge thing and I do believe its better to be on the ground so to speak to check it all out. If you get it wrong you only end up having to start over and making the moving and settling in process harder for everyone.

FWIW, we are timing our move for over the summer hols here or early September. Then we can check out schools and settle on one and send our son for the last term of reception there and then see if he repeats it (to remain with his peers) or goes up to year 1 (and be the youngest in his year). That way we give ourselves time to check out all the schools and so on and hopefully secure a place.

**snifter** · 06-02-2012, 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by Paula H

so my youngest will be 4 this Dec, she wont be able to start kindy until november??
my eldest was 12 in Jan, he started senior sch last sep, will he come over and do one term of primary school and then start jan at high school?
then my middle child will be 10 in April, same for her? just starting a year back?

Try not to think of it as them starting a year back. Its a totally different education system and in the southern hemisphere so the seasons of course mean the school year starts at a different time and so on. Its not a backwards move. Yes maybe your children may have covered some stuff already but don't view that as a negative for them. At the end of the day it all evens out in terms of education and having a bit of breathing room if they are covering some familiar stuff, it gives them time to settle in and find their feet. Not a bad thing IMHO.

**Paula H** · 06-02-2012, 01:08 PM

Originally Posted by snifter

Try not to think of it as them starting a year back. Its a totally different education system and in the southern hemisphere so the seasons of course mean the school year starts at a different time and so on. Its not a backwards move. Yes maybe your children may have covered some stuff already but don't view that as a negative for them. At the end of the day it all evens out in terms of education and having a bit of breathing room if they are covering some familiar stuff, it gives them time to settle in and find their feet. Not a bad thing IMHO.

totally agree with you, perhaps i wrote it down wrong, we are fine with the children doing this.

My worry now is that because we are not coming until the end of sept, by the time we find the area we like, we will have trouble getting the kids in on the last term argh

**Mrs Bon Jovi** · 06-02-2012, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by snifter

I looked into this and basically, unless you are really lucky with the school, then the answer seemed to be no. You need to be residing over there, have an address etc. And as many schools are zoned, if you are not in the zone area then your child can't really attend the school.

We already have a short list of schools we hope to send our son to and 2 of them are in a zoned area (different ones). Once we are there we shall visit them all, decide which we like best and then apply.

Personally I'd not risk enrolling a child into a school you've not seen or visited or met the staff of. And for an older child even more importantly that they have seen it or spent a day in at least. Its a huge thing and I do believe its better to be on the ground so to speak to check it all out. If you get it wrong you only end up having to start over and making the moving and settling in process harder for everyone.

FWIW, we are timing our move for over the summer hols here or early September. Then we can check out schools and settle on one and send our son for the last term of reception there and then see if he repeats it (to remain with his peers) or goes up to year 1 (and be the youngest in his year). That way we give ourselves time to check out all the schools and so on and hopefully secure a place.

Couldn't agree more. We had 3 schools short listed, I'd been in touch with them all before we came out to find out about zones/ visits etc. We visited our first choice and by the time we left Anya couldn't wait to start, she'd met her teacher, seen her classroom and we got such a good feeling from the place and it all made it less scary for her. All 3 we'd looked into were zoned and in order to enroll Anya in the one we chose we had to provide proof of our address within the zone. I think there are some primary schools that aren't zoned but the principal at school said that all high schools were - unless you're going private - so really I'd wait until you get here.

**Mrs Bon Jovi** · 06-02-2012, 01:20 PM

Originally Posted by Paula H

totally agree with you, perhaps i wrote it down wrong, we are fine with the children doing this.

My worry now is that because we are not coming until the end of sept, by the time we find the area we like, we will have trouble getting the kids in on the last term argh

If the school is zoned and you are within that zone then we were told they have to take the children so that shouldn't be an issue