Deciding on Year levels

1. First a bit of history

In 1934, the NZ government through the Director of Education Dr Beeby, abandoned the system of requiring children to pass a test in order to move from primers (where children were “primed” for education) to Standard One and then continue to pass tests to move to Standard Two and so on with proficiency test at the end of Year 8 for children to go on to secondary school. Instead he introduced School Certificate and introduced the concept of social promotion whereby children moved through school based on their age not on their learning ability. This was in part a decision based on social equity because of the number of older students, mainly boys, who, in the prior system, never left the primers.

2. Today

82 years later, NZ schools use the same social promotion system – even though ironically we now have National Standards but these are not tests and don’t stop children moving through the school. The only real difference is that we no longer call the classes Standard One but instead use Year 1, 2 and so on.

3. The complication is

Children in NZ

• are born though out the year and not all on the same day, and
• start school on the 5^th birthday rather than in on or two intakes per year as in many other countries

4. To guide schools on classification by age, the Ministry of Education sets guidelines

• Year 1, birthday         1 Jan and 30 June
• Year 0, birthday          July 1 to Dec 31

In practice this means children starting in say February would have a year as a Y1 and a Year as a Year 2- to build a good foundation for future learning.

1 Jan                                                          1 July

But if a birthday falls on the 29^th June, a child could only have 1 and ½ years at Y1 and 2

1 Jan                                          1 July                                           Dec 31

However, if a child is born after 1^st July, the child is classified as a New Entrant and will be a Year 1 the next year. This means a child born turning 5 say on the 2nd July would get nearly 2 and a half years in Year 0, 1 and 2.

1 July

5. So, can we extend the time for children who are only getting close to 18 months as a Y1/2 student?

While a month or two won’t make any difference long term, schools do have the discretion to give children born between 1 May and 30 June and are already in Year 1, an opportunity to have an extra year as a Year 1 the following year.

This will be decided at Parnell School through discussion with the parents and Y1 teacher. These discussions will be held in September and October each year. If this is your child, and we haven’t contacted you, please call us.

6. Will this mean my child will repeat learning from the previous year?

No

The extra time is NOT holding a child back to repeat a year. There has not been a year level syllabus since social promotion came in – instead teachers teach children what they need to learn next from a continuum of curriculum objectives and learning experiences that spreads across y1-13.  Children will not repeat work but continue their learning journey regardless of their Year level.

7. So won’t this mean child will all be at different levels of learning in one class?

Yes

This is in essence a key teacher task – to cater for the range of abilities in their class whether it is a one class country school Y1-8 or a city single year class. All teachers are professionals who are trained to cater for the different abilities in their class.

8. Please note

The only reason for considering this is for social maturity NOT academic reasons

9. Here is a Ministry guide for other age groups

In general, we stick to the classification children come to us from other schools and use the  guide below for new arrivals into NZ using the same discretionary period. If you believe your child is classified incorrectly, do let us know and we will check this. Again remember consideration is only based on age not learning ability. Also note, that children can find a re-classification very difficult when they are older and needs extra special consideration.

*Children May-June may be classified into the second set as indicated in 5 above