Year 1 in WA question

[mrsmac]

I am hoping one of the WA girls can help with this. I teach kindergarten in NSW whici is the mandatory 1st year of formal schooling. Children must start by the year they turn 6.

I have a little boy in my class moving to WA and we are confused as to whether he should go to prep or Yr 1 over there.
In kindy we do phonics and learning to read and they are starting to write for themselves too.

Any help would eb greatly appreciated, BTW he will be 6 in July.

[~MummaBear~]

Hey Mrs Mac
My DS will be 6 in July and he is in Pre primary ( the year before yr 1 in WA)
in Pre primary he is doing the kind of things you mention ( writing his name, word awareness etc)
Also not sure about moving from a different state but over here to be in Yr 1 this year you have to turn 6 before the end of June so the little boy would not be old enough to start Yr1 yet!
I hope that helps!!

[mrsmac]

Thanks for that, we were worried that pre primary would be too easy but it sounds OK. The other thing was that his mum has called schools where they are going and they said that they are full in pre primary and because its not compulsorary he may not get in anywhere so would go from full time school to nothing which is really worrying us.

[Rouge]

Pre primary in Perth didn't used to be the same as Kindergarten in NSW/Prep in Kinder (purely because it's usually half days... But not sure if it's changed. I only know this because I changed through their systems.

[mrsmac]

This is what's worrying us Rouge, we don't want him to go backwards as he will be coming back to the NSW system in a few years. I know from using the WA maths syllabus in NT when i taught there that their Yr2 was like our Yr 1 etc so I thought maybe he could go into YR 1 there but if the age cut off is end of June he misses out

[Rouge]

Just spoke to my Husband who also did Schooling in WA and agrees that Grade 1 would be similar to Kindergarten/Prep. WA really needs to lift it's game.