Should my kid be in K3 or P1?

[tomster]

OK, so in brief my son is 5 and will be 6 on April 1st (this is not an early April fools joke!).

 

He is currently in K3 but from what I can make out he is the youngest in the class.

 

We are moving to another city soon and I need to choose a new school for him. Current school will finish K3 end of April then has said that they will start P1 on July 18th, not sure why the long break.

 

As we are moving to a new city and he appears to be one of the youngest in the class I am seriously thinking about holding him back to do K3 again which will give him another year to get the Thai writing sorted out (he is slightly behind on this, everything else is OK). It would also mean no "formal" entry exam to stress about (for his parents more than him) as with kindergarden the entrance exams are not exams as such, more about if he will fit in OK.

 

So, trying to figure out which way to go and if he will be much older than the other kids in his class, obviously not nice to be "put back a year" but if he will just be one of the oldest in his class I am leaning towards giving him the extra year in K3 to keep the transition to new school as stress free as possible.

 

Any advice appreciated and thanks in advance.

[FritsSikkink]

Let him go to P1, hire a private teacher for a couple of months to catch up with the Thai writing.

Edited February 20, 2021 by FritsSikkink

[MikeyIdea]

It's never an advantage to be the yongest in the class but it depends on how mature the child is more than age. Most schools will assess the child and tell you which grade the child should be in. 

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

In my experience, there is great effort made to keep the students grouped by age. There are always 2-3 kids in each class who are quite clever and bored out of their minds with lessons that are too easy. Calls to bump them up a grade or even two where they belong are ignored. I reckon the rationale is that they’ll be a good influence and bring the rest of the kids up, which doesn’t really happen. 

[PFMills]

You have a wonderful opportunity, as you are moving, to get him as one of the older in the class and he will have more confidence. And he won’t wonder why he is repeating a year.

 

My youngest son went to primary school early, July birthday. Although he was one of the ‘cleverest’ in the class the Headmaster wanted him to repeat the year. He did not want to lose his friends and also thought he was been punished. His teacher and us thought he should go up and in the end he did.

 

Because he basically missed a year’s schooling he only got into a Grammar School after an appeal.

 

He was always a little reserved. Wasn’t predicted to get really good ‘A’ levels, so didn’t get the uni he wanted…but actually he did get all A’s. He hated every minute there. After six weeks he was in such a state that we said come home. He got a job with a bank, realized he needed to be more sociable and made a huge effort. Within months he was a completely different person, very confident.

 

The next year he went to UCL (London) and later got a job with an accountancy firm. Had a Spanish girlfriend whose mother wanted a big wedding in Spain, but they didn’t.

 

One Christmas day I got a phone call … he said we are in New Zealand and have just got married on the beach. I said wow great, he said what will mum say. I said it’s not your mother you want to worry about!

 

The day he got his ‘letters’ or whatever they are called, they both left the UK for New Zealand.   There he decided he wanted to be an environmentalist  and did some studying. They are now in Adelaide and he works for a firm advising the government on their Electricity Supply Industry, they have a few problems!

 

So do not push your child to be ahead of his years, far better to be the oldest than the youngest and that extra year of school is invaluable and he will more confidence. I notice that Thai children are very confident, but many somewhat very narrow in their outlook.

 

Well that would be my suggestion if you were in the UK      here?

[LittleBear57]

5 to 6 years was P1 when I was teaching. There was no K3 in the school K1 and K2. The difference is getting the kids from playing and learning to a more learning environment. All the kids are different but it would not be hard to catch up.

 

[scorecard]

Have you discussed it slowly with your son?

 

Is he struggling with Thai reading and writing? Perhaps, if it helps your decision making,  this could be a key point to convince him the benefits of repeating. 

 

I missed most of P1 because of illness but got pushed up to P2. 

 

My belief is that I totally missed a number of critical foundations which slowed me / pulled my grades down to some extent for the rest of primary and HS. 

 

 

[offset]

There is a big difference in age while they are young but as they get older it does not make that much difference. If he cleaver he will make up the difference as he gets older

 

I had the same thoughts with my son but now he 12 years old he is in the top group in his year