A cheap one was$45 a day 4 years ago.
Here we have kinder the year before they start school. No questions asked if they stay a second year. $60 a term. You all might have to move to the NT :D
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A cheap one was$45 a day 4 years ago.
Here we have kinder the year before they start school. No questions asked if they stay a second year. $60 a term. You all might have to move to the NT :D
Ours are $350 a term
Fees are different if you go public or private in Vic. There's no problem in repeating 4yo kinder in ds2's private kinder. In fact, a few kids have done both 3 and 4yo kinder at a public kinder, and then done a year at the private kinder in order to repeat 4yo.
Yes one of the answers that was given at the talk was to go to a private kinder for a repeat of 4 year old (theoretically you can self-fund at a public kinder but only if there are spare places - which there aren't in general) - so fees for independent schools for kinder this is an example from one which seemed about the middle range of round here
$1660 a term (that is for two days a week 8:45 to 15:00 - there is before and after care can add on $25 a day if need that) - plus $100 for materials, plus $700 enrollment fee.
Great if you can afford it but hardly an equitable solution.
The other option they were suggesting was childcare based kinder - which would work out cheaper than the above (unless using 5 days a week), but again there is so much demand for childcare that could also be difficult as well as more expensive than sessional kinder (sessional kinder round here is more like 600 - if you have a health care card is around 80 )
Yeah I think ds's kinder is $7000 for the year, for 3 days a week 9.00-3.00.
I know some people will disagree with me here.... But.....
I actually think "school readiness" is a bit of a misnomer.... Teachers and schools are able to differentiate and adjust activities for different levels of ability and skill levels (I know its difficult, but it can be done) whether or not a child fits this idea of 'school ready'. And let's think about it....
Some kids are never ready.
So. Some parents hold kids back and year and some parents don't. We end up with an even more distributed population and skill set that teachers need to differentiate and adjust their teaching even more. Some kids learn quicker than others regardless of age... So adding in an extra layer of kids being held back a year just adds another layer to the issue.
How do you REALLY know if your child is ready.....?? I've had parents SURE that their kid was... And they struggled to settle in and learn. I've had parents not sure and the kid was fine.... I've had parents not sure and the kinder teacher WAS sure they'd be fine... And they weren't....
I really believe that typically developing children will be fine, wether you send them the year you are supposed to or not. That's most of our kids.
There will always be a normal distribution of skill and "readiness". Whether we hold some kids back or not. We just a just the distribution of skill by holding some kids back and others not.
In over ten years of working in schools I have yet to see any evidence that holding back or not helps. Either way. The research is quite clear that repeating is not good for children. The research also shows that children in countries with a later starting age do equally as well as countries where children start young. I have been unable to find research about the benefits of holding a child back from starting school whatever the school starting age is.
I think we worry too much about whether our child is ready. They are young. They will learn. And assuming they have had a typical upbringing with a stable family life..... they will be okay whichever way we do it. So we all need to make our decisions based on what works for our family.
Personally I don't think holding them back makes a difference to their academic outcomes or "success" or wellbeing at school.... The problem I see, is that so many parents are holding their children back if they are in the 'young' end of the age range, with no other reason than they are young.... so you disadvantage your child if you don't hold them back.... We may as well just increase the school starting age to compensate for it.... That's why the young kids stand out. There's such a big gap between a four year old and a nearly six year old.... Society is artificially making a bigger issue with it than we need to. There are pros and cons with finishing school at an older age as well... So you can't ever really 'get it perfectly right'.
But that's just my two bobs worth. I know it might be controversial to some. I just find it exceptionally frustrating in my field. :)
Wysiwyg at our kinder those repeating get priority over everyone else, regardless of who is funding it.
Maybe it is different in different council areas but certainly in ours going forwards (has not been the case in the past), unless there was a documented reason (e.g. developmental delays, medical reasons etc) then you can't get a second year of funded 4 year old kinder, and places have to go to funded before self-funded. So if you have 20 places and 20 wanting funded four year old and 1 wanting self-funding to repeat, the 1 won't get it. (the question was specifically asked at the session - and the representatives from the council answered):
They said the one take away message was going forward you really need to plan ahead and think carefully about when you take your 3 and 4 year old kinder years if you think might not want to start school at the earliest opportunity.
Ok, I know things work differently in different states, but IMO there is a huge difference between preschool programs run in kindies/preschool and those run in long daycare centres. Does he attend a real preschool or just the daycare version? If it's just daycare, it might be worth getting him into a real kindy/preschool if you can.
I think also like no child becomes universally 'ready' either. It's not this black and white line in the sand where one moment they are slightly lacking in every area then ding, school preperation complete. Any child entering school even when 'ready' will have strengths and weaknesses - maybe they are socially mature and navigate relationships with ease but struggle with areas of executive function and constantly misplace their hat. It is always a bit of a toss up right? Well they're keen to start being around lots of kids and get stuck into learning so we will just resign ourselves to buying lots of hats kind of decision. Childhood progression isn't linear across the board, it's complicated.
My opinion - I think the most important measure is if they are happy and comfortable to be there. Say with losing things, it isn't ideal but if it isn't affecting their desire to be at school than it is something that can fall into place alongside school. So basically I'd be asking are the 'problems' something the child could be comfortable to work at whilst in a school setting?
As a side note I don't think school starting age needs to be made higher, just the concept of what school is for lower primary (at least) be evaluated so that it is better suited to that age group for those that wish or need to access schooling.
[I should probably add a disclaimer that we decided not to send our children to school at all]
I believe the OP is in NSW - and would need to check what sort of program that their daycare runs.:
However for other readers:
At least in VIC - if the daycare center is an approved 4 year old kinder program provider then - the program offered is at least as good as a sessional kindy. I don't know about other states but here there is this attitude towards daycare versus 'real kindy' which is totally unfounded, the programs are subject to exactly the same guidelines and standards as any others and follow the Early Years Learning and Development framework.
And yet globally, many countries are showing that great success comes from starting children no earlier than 7, and certainly funding many many more hours of pre school care/education.:
AND I have never never ever once heard of a child who was refused a second funded year of 4 year old kinder. Never. Not in my area. In fact they are removing the option to repeat 3 year old kinder (which is fully self funded) and suggesting instead children not ready for four year old kinder would actually benefit from from the extra year or four year old. (Which is stupid, IMO, but backs up the fact that no parent who decides on a second year of kinder is forced to pay privately.)
It depends on the council and municipality. We live in one of the fastest growth corridors in Melb. My DD1 is doing another year of 4yr old this year through a government approved 4yr old prgram run through a childcare centre. We just pay a childcare rate and she still only attends for the 15hrs. She didn't meet the requirements for a 2nd funded year of 4yr old and all the straight 4yr old kinders in our area are council run and they don't allow self funding due to the Huge waiting lists for the government funded year.
We were told last year that although they are trying to restrict the second year of funding it's not too hard to apply for if the kinder teacher states they aren't meeting all 5 criteria. In our group there were two who returned to do another year because they weren't ready. Dd went this year she turned 5 in March. I hate saying she went early because she didn't she isn't the only one in the same she bracket either. She is thriving at school, another year at kinder just because she was 4 wouldn't have been very good for her, we did seek the opinion of a friend who was a kinder teacher and had also looked after dd at childcare. She confirmed dd would have become anxious at the thought of being held back from her friends and she got very bored at home and even kinder at the end of the year. I do agree though that they need to try and lessen the gap inbetween the kids in the class and say this is the year you go rather than having 4 and 6 year olds in the class.
What you are saying makes sense black rose.
The Victorian government was actually meant to slowly bring back the age bracket (cut off date) back to January over a few years, as you can see that never happened!!!