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School-Aged Children
Any teachers? Ques. about cut-off date & Pre-K/K
I'm a regular on the pre-school board but I thought I'd ask here for more thoughts/opinions. DD attends an International School where she's learning 3 languages. She's only in pre-school now and next year would be old enough for Pre-K. She turns 4 on October 5, 5 days after the Sept. 30 cut-off for Pre-K. My husband and I are thinking of speaking with her teacher at the first parent/teacher conference about getting her moved up to Pre-K; maybe at the start of the new year. This is her second year in the pre-school program--she's learning all of the same things she learned last year and we're noticing that she's regressing socially since many of the kids are alot younger and haven't outgrown certain behaviors; ones that DD never did. (We're thinking she's doing this so she can "fit in".) We're not 100% sure, but we don't think 5 days is that big of a time difference for her to wait a year before starting Pre-K/K.
Have any of you guys had your child bumped up after missing the cut-off date by a few days? If so, what was the process like? And if there are any teachers here, I'm wondering if you believe missing the cut-off date by 5 days warrants an extra year or a promotion? I'm open to all opinions and thoughts. Thanks!
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Re: Any teachers? Ques. about cut-off date & Pre-K/K
Teacher here.
This isn't something a classroom teacher is going to be able to approve or not approve. At the very least you'd need to talk to the admin. and of course the teacher can be a part of the conversation.
If she's really learning exactly the same thing as last year, that's a teacher issue more than a cut-off issue. If it it typical for students to spend multiple years in the same room there should be things in place to differentiate for students in your LO's situation.
Generally, cut-off dates are set by the state and there may not be much (if anything) you can do about it. As far as my opinion, it depends on the child.
This exactly. The only thing I can think of is, that since she is in a international school the cut-off date my be more flexible because it is a private school. But I have no idea. I know in my public school, even the pre-K program cut-off date is set by the state, not the individual school. Good luck.
DD is the oldest 3 year old in her class. So, many of the kids in her class just turned 3 this spring and summer. Usually, she doesn't copy behaviors of other children (older or not) but I'm just thinking that since she's spending so much of her day with them and because many of them are exhibiting the same things, she's just picking up on it because she thinks that's what she's supposed to be doing; we didn't have this issue with her last year. At that time, she was the youngest in a class of older kids.
This year, she has a new French teacher only; her Chinese, Spanish and music teachers are the same and from what I've seen since August, she isn't learning anything terribly different from last year. I've got all of her notebooks from May and it's an exact repeat so far. Lots of the same songs from music class, many of the same elements from Chinese, lots of the same shapes, colors, patterns, etc. in Spanish and a few new words in French since that is the teacher that's new. I feel like another year in preschool (or preschool 2 as they've labeled it) is not worth it and a part of my feeling that way is because her birthday is only 5 days after the cut off date. Lord knows, the last thing we want to do is push her before she's ready so I'm trusting the opinions of moms & dads who've been in our situation before as well as teachers who know more about this than we do for advice before we decide how to proceed.
No, there are no separate classes. There's preschool 1 and preschool 2 but the classes are a combination of kids from each separate group. So, in a class of 14, there may be 5 preschool 1 and 9 preschool 2; it varies.
We're planning to discuss things with her teacher at the first parent/teacher conference at the end of October. We think by this time, we'll have a better idea of what she's learning and if we see where the activities are different and she's learning new concepts, etc; there'll be no question about it: she'll stay in preschool 2. We'd never go over her teacher's head and discuss this with the Head Mistress without speaking with her head teacher first.
I agree that being among the oldest in the class gives a kid a HUGE advantage -- one that over an entire school career is probably more important than a year spent in preschool covering roughly the same curriculum. I would not make a decision to push my child ahead a year, making her the youngest in her class throughout elementary school, just because she seems to be "regressing" around younger classmates.
In fact, I think it's unlikely that the behaviors you're seeing are because she's copying the younger kids around her in an attempt to "fit in" with them. That's not the way preschoolers think. Teenagers and adults think this way. You're probably seeing "regressive" behaviors because she's adjusting to a new school year. Even at the same school, with the same teachers, this can be a BIG deal to an almost 4 year old, and it can cause them to temporarily engage in more "toddler-ish" behavior than you'd normally see.
Teachers know this, and it's why they spend the beginning of the year reviewing material and doing the same stuff they were doing back in May. I bet by conference time in October, the preschool 2 group will have moved on to new material!