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I haven't heard from it school although they did tell me that they don't send out anything until October so I'm expecting to hear in the next month. As far as I'm aware the foundation kids start straight in with normal full 5 days from the start of the year.
Hi all, it's time to join this thread officially, although I've been reading along since it started :lol:
Dd2 starts kindy next year. I've spent the first half of this year convincing her that school is a positive not a punishment, and finally she has started to get excited about kindy. We've enrolled, dd2 gave them her paperwork a couple of weeks ago. It's the local public primary school, dd1 is in yr1 there and so far it's been overall good.
Re the zoning thingy, our school is really strict on it, but we know of so many families that use work addresses, relatives addresses etc just to get in. Dd1's class was the biggest in the schools history, and next year is looking just as big (this years kindy was a little smaller though).
Dd2 gets one or two orientations, and they only last an hour or so each time.
We haven't had confirmation of enrollment yet, I assume transition will be Nov time, but some schools round here have started transition already.
MM I would double check on the 5 full days if is a public school in VIC as every school I have heard of do either Wed off first term, or finish an hour early every day first term (which is what DD will have) - is meant to be something to do with the teachers doing 'individual learning plans'. It isn't well communicated in my opinion though, I only know because of the after school care mentioning it, and speaking to people with kids already in school. For working parents particularly the Wed off is kind of important to know really.
Most schools in Vic have Wednesday off till March.
Our school does 2 half days, Wednesday off then 2 full days. Then every Wednesday off till Labour day.
DD2 starts orientation next month, she will have 4 sessions in Oct. 3 sessions in Nov & then the half day on Dec 9th where she meet her teacher & fellow classmate for the following year.
She is so excited, we have brought her school hat & will buy her bag next month. We have a lot of uniform from DD1 & DD1s best friend has given us her old uniforms as well.
I'm jumping in too :) My big boy - DS1 starts kindergarten/foundation in NSW next year. He was 5 in July and could have gone this year (NSW cutoff is 31/7) but he definitely wasn't ready. He is ready now though and is really excited. He goes to daycare with a preschool program 3 days per week and is loving learning his letters and sounds and so much more. He is going to our zoned local public school. They have a really long orientation program - he goes every second Thursday morning from 9-11.30am for 11 weeks. We are about halfway through I think. He loves it and it's been great for his anxiety about new people and places. My main concern at the moment is the fact I'll be starting back at work from Mat leave when he starts and I'll need to take a few days off - I'm a teacher and it's a PITA to have time off in the establishment phase of the new year - but it can't be helped!
We've officially enrolled but haven't started on uniforms etc yet - I'm in denial about having to iron his school shirts!
We start transition at the start on November, DD is very excited!!
For us school goes back on Friday the 30th, they do a half day, the following week it full days with Wednesday off for the first term.
How do you find out start date? Or will it be the same across the state - VIC? Have a form from daycare where they want to know last day, but know nothing from school yet (ours is useless IMO at informing anything).
We start feb 2nd I think.
We have interviews on the 29th/30th.
Pretty sure its those dates anyways.
For DD1 I was given an info sheet on her last day of transition.
It had her class details, term dates, uniform list etc...
Public schools tend to start back & finish on the same date :)
I'm in here too!
DD will start at the local school- 5 minutes walk down the road.
We have our acceptance letter- transition starts early November.
2 x 2 hour sessions with parents attending and then another 2 hour session without parents.
She is very excited and looking forward to it!
Just had a look at our information pack and it states all children start on Friday January 30th. Maybe call the school to confirm, they would know by now I would think. Oh edited to add this is a public school.:
Iron? i didn't know that was part of it!:
DD has been to some story time sessions at the school, with official orientation In Oct/Nov. There are 6 sessions plus a meet & greet BBQ on this weekend.
The boys school shirts are an awful fabric that really need ironing :( Every other local school just has polo tshirts! Just my luck lol!
I just asked our school office when school starts back!
Our school uses the Wednesdays off to test the kids.
I had thought the same thing re them doing one day off or short days but the teacher said they just start straight in with full weeks. I may not have been clear when I asked though so I am looking forward to the information coming.:
We received confirmation of enrollment and the transition dates last week :) DD1 is so excited and so am I! Whilst I know we made the right decision starting her next year instead of this year (she turned 5 at end of Jan) I'm glad she'll be starting soon, she is definitely *ready* now :D
She will initially start Mon-Fri till 1.30pm for 2 weeks then it will be full normal days after that :)
No info received here since I last sent in the info requested :-(. DD knows other kids who are going to their transitions or know more about them - everynight she wants to hear me talk about what school will be like, and keeps nagging me about when will I buy school shoes etc etc, she just can't wait. Her behavior is not great at the moment - and I think she needs more challenge because she is far better behaved when we can spend time doing new things - on work days it is just very hard to fit it in when not home till 18:00.
How frustrating! I hope they get themselves organised with the new term starting.
I cannot believe that these are the last months of having my guy home most days. He is ready, not sure if I am! He is very emotional atm and his additude sucks but all normal for the slide into big school so I've heard.
We got our info. Have a parent info evening in October and then transition days start at the end of October. It's all a bit exciting and sad at the same time. I can't believe my big boy will start school soon. They seem so much more grown up when they start school.
Still no info but I bumped into another mum in a baby change room, and we got chatting and she has an older kid already there - they have no specific info either but stuff is included in the weekly newsletter (not much use if you are not at the school already :-) - apparently transition days will be on Tuesdays in November - she took down my email and is going to email me the newsletter (the kindness of strangers :-)) - Tuesday is a pain in the but because DD and DS do swimming and DD does artclass - none of which are cheap activities and art class in particular is not easy to arrange catch up sessions - if I had already had the info I probably wouldn't have signed up for this term of art class or would have switched to a Friday. November is not many weeks away - if you are working should be given some notice. Anyway she was happy with the school but did think was rubbish the info given to new parents in particular but also for existing who have people starting next Foundation too.
Finally found a school we are doing a tour on Thursday and hopefully enrolling Jamie the sane day our transition is Thursdays starting at the end of October
Also found out my uncle wants to pay for Jamie's uniforms and books aswell
Great to hear you have some info wysiwyg. I hope the school gives you some more, you are right in that they are making it very hard to organise yourself for the transition days.
Triple J it's great you are getting some help with school stuff. Hope you are happy with the school when you have your tour Thursday.
Nothing to report here, just hanging out for all the action to start November! I'm a little annoyed with Moo's kinder though. He goes to a kinder that is pretty much used to just the local kids attending, who then all go onto the primary school in the same (very small) town. They have made the transition days part of the kinder program...great for them...not so great for poor old Moo who will be missing out on those kinder sessions. His teacher said today he can go along to the primary school but I don't see the benefit. He has his own transition days at his future school but they don't affect kinder hours. They also have the buddies for the preps coming to the kinder a few times this term for the kids to get a rapport with them. Again bit rough on the one child who has no buddy.
When is everyone's transitions starting? DD1 only had 3 sessions. 20 November, 26 November and 4 December.
Same here, 3 sessions on consecutive Fridays starting the 14th of November. The first two are an hour and a half or something, the last is half the day.
Thanks Hestia 😊yeah the first two for us are 2hrs and the last one from 9-1pm
Hestia the CANNOT do that!!!!!! They HAVE to offer the required hours per year as per the government, they can't just spend kinder sessions doing school transition, I'd be taking that up with someone, I can get you some contacts if you need.
As for transition we have 4, then find out teacher and class and have lunch on the 5th session.
Oh really? They call the sessions at the school excursions so that's probably how they get around it. They are also shutting for an entire session for next years kindergarten group to have an orientation. That one really bothers me because we only get 15 hours out of the entire week, surely they could fit orientation in outside session hours. Thanks for the offer of someone to speak to about it, think I'll leave it for now but if I change my mind I'll let you know. I have brought up so many issues with his teacher in the last few months that I just want to get us through to end of term and leave kinder behind!
That's good you get to know who the teacher is going to be. Not sure if we find that out as so far they don't know who will be teaching which class, hopefully that changes though.
We have 8 this year.
DD2 has 4 this month, 3 in Nov & the big one in Dec.
The first 4 are specialized class programs, sport, music, Japanese & library.
3 are classroom ones & the last one is with the class & teacher they have next year.
She is very excited
Wow Cheshire that's fantastic!! I thought we'd get more orientation days but it's only 3, though, having said that it is a smallish school with under 240 students. First orientation will be where DD1 finds out who her teacher and her buddy from grade 6 will be for next year. Not 100% sure what the last two will be, need to read through the paperwork again!
Ours is 6 or 8 weeks on Thursdays the daycare takes him and picks him up I think I need to ask 2moro and they do the OSHC for the school so if he needs to be there coz if anything it will be familiar
Gosh I'm envious of all the orientations you guys get!! We get one morning (I think it's about two hours) where dd2 will go and join a kindy class and the parents have a big session on the run down of school life, all very general and not very informative really. And I think that's it for the orientation part.
Then the week before school goes back we go in for her best start test, where she goes off with a teacher and comes back when she's done.
We don't find out who her teacher is or anything until her first day where they pool them together in one big room and call out the classes one by one. Which of course you can never hear anything.
That been said we haven't had any info on the orientation date yet, I know from the school newsletter that it's in week 3 or 4 of this term (so sometime in the next 2 to 3 weeks), apparently they are sending out a letter to inform us soon..
So interesting to read how differently every school does things!
So tomorrow we are going for morning tea at the house of the mum I met in the baby change room :-) looks like will be about 5 other mums with foundation kids - none that I know - hope my two are in a good mood :-). Have dates for transition days (looks like 2) but no times, so have emailed school to try and confirm enrollment and get some times at least.
Really should join in here. It's getting scary that my oldest one is starting school next year. We've been given 2 orientation dates (morning 8:30-11am I think) for our school. The second one we find out who's in the class and who the teacher is. I need to go and check what dates they are so I can organise myself to have the morning off school to go as they're having parent info sessions while children are having their sessions. DH will be going as well. A reasonable amount of info came out in their pack at the start of the holidays (although 1/2 a booklet was missing so DH had to ring to get a new full booklet sent out.)
Not sure I'm ready for the whole school thing, although I'm over DS1's attitude and behaviour lately (hitting/punching/lying type stuff.) I'm hoping it's the transition to school thing that everyone talks about and doesn't carry over to school next year.
Today we did the school tour and I loved it my son is now enrolled so far there's 2 classes for next year I kinda like the small school setting they also integrate for maths so if the kids are ahead then they will be doing maths at the level that's right for them
Transition is 6 Thursday mornings starting the end of October they are going to meet their buddies for next year and heaps of other stuff is getting real now my first baby is going to school >.< I want to cry already
I also found out they don't go to school for the first 5 Wednesdays and like someone else mentioned they use those days to test them and see where they are at with reading writing and maths
We have 6 orientation sessions too, starting next week. They also had 3 story time sessions that you could go to and a family BBQ. I have been very impressed with the school so far.
Response from school "Foundation enrollment information will be posted shortly" - that was the response to me asking for details so could organize work etc. Given the first date is 18th Nov I hope their definition of shortly meets mine.
We have our first session tomorrow, She is so excited.
Wow Wysiwyg that is really poor form for your school, you would think you would at least have the basic info by now.
Fx it tuns up this week or early next week
Woo hoo for the start of orientations!
We got a letter on Friday for dd2's orientation, she gets two visits, totalling 3hrs in total, and that's for the 21st and 39th of oct. First visit is an hour and a bit, the second has the rest.
I consider that pretty short notice though.
Yes that is short notice too.:
What annoys me the most is I only even know the dates from interrogating parents who already have kids at the school - otherwise I would be in the dark about everything - is fine for me I am pretty outgoing and speak English so am able to strike up conversations and find these things out - what about all the other parents who don't currently have children attending the school. Seeing as they have had the dates in the school newsletter since the middle of the year - it is pretty clear that their interest is with current parents rather than new ones. I have heard several times on the rumor mill that they have been trying to shrink their zone, because then they will be able to take more siblings if there are less 'new' starters - and this all fits.
The morning tea on Friday was quite nice, was a bit awkward because I was the only 'new' mum there and didn't know anyone else - but I am fairly used to that sort of thing - and the kids both enjoyed it, and I think DD will like recognizing a few faces at transition. Detective work at the morning tea means I found out last year was two sessions one morning and one afternoon, so that makes it easier for shuffling things for me. Also found out that if you want to be a parent helper you need to do a four week course run an evening a week at the beginning of term and then can put your name down for times - everyone wants directly after drop-off or before pick-up apparently - but as long as I can do non-work days anytime would suit me. I would like to do a couple just so can visualize what a classroom is like these days, not convinced that DD will appreciate me being there though. (As a child I never really liked my parents being around at school)
Yay for getting some info wysiwyg, they aren't making it easy are they?
Good luck to all those starting transitions! Moo has his first one in a few weeks.
How does everyone feel about their LO starting school? I am really excited for the most part, also feeling nervous for Moo and ourselves as it is our first one off to big school. I feel really happy and comfortable with the school which is making it easier.