Second year of Kindergarten/Deferment

Hello all,

I am a mother of a special needs child who has just complete his first year at Kindergarten. Samual will be 6 on the 6th of Feburary and at the end of last year we had to apply for a second year of funded kinder thru the department of human services and also an exemption from attending school thru the department of Education. after a long battle and several appeals we finally one the battle for Samual to attend a second year of fully funded Kinder. I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced this or simular and would love to hear from any first time mums sending there Children to kinder for the first time. I would love to be able to encourage and enjoy the journey with you all.

Here's to happy days and healthy lives for all our special Children no matter what there needs.

Hi Nola.
We have made the decision to keep Mason in 3 y/o kinder for another year.
It came as quite a shock to me when the teacher suggested this about half way through last year.
Mason is having some issues with his speech, though not enough to need speech therapy, and he is also not coping with a group environment. They have noticed if there are a few kids missing that he does better. There are also some attention issues that they think will get better as he matures a bit. They feel that by keeping him back in 3y/o it will avoid having to go through the exemption assessment process if they feel he is not going to cope with school. There is no application or assessment to be made for 3y/o kinder like there is for 4 y/o kinder.
I will have to apply for an exemption for starting school as he will be 6 in the September before he starts school in 2008.

Sammi, Good luck this year and also for the end of the year. Knowing that your little one will be 6 at the end of the following year will make the process all so much easier for you. What school will you be sending him to? I noticed you are also from Pakenham. What a small world.

S is going to Chairo Christian

thanks for the update and if you need any help along the way dont hesitate to yell

We don't know where we will send him yet. It depends on if and when the new Pakenham primary school gets up and running as it will be almost accross the road from us. I'm not keen on sending him to one of the ones that are over flowing.

There are a few of us members from Pakky now \:D/ We'll have to meet up one day!

I think that would be loverly

Hi - Cait starts 4yo kinda this year - they call it pre school because not all of the kids there will be four years old. She did one session a week of 3yo (pre kinda) last year at the same place.

They start with a 45 minute session on 31 Jan. I don't know how long the short sessions go for, hopefully not past the first week or two. There are two morning sessions 8.30-12 and one afternoon one 1-4. The teacher is new and young and they are having two group a year there, this year. Last year there were only enough kids for one group.

There was a boy in Caits group last year, he turns five in March, and he did two years of three year old kinda, two sessions a week and he is going to Primary school this year. I don't know why he did a second year in 3yo. And there is one boy I know if in Caits year this year who pulled out of 4yo last year, I think he will be 6 in September. His family live across the road form us, I find him hard to understand, but his mum says he doesn't have a speech problem.

Barb.