Entry age

[Why]

Recently we enquired about admission to OFS in 2012. As my son will still be 5 years old when the term starts as his b'day is late in the year, he will be joining grade 1. This seems different to other international school where we were told, he will be admitting to K2. Can anyone clarity why we ahve this differences?

[Probably because]

OFS uses the Jan-December cut off dates, whereas UWC uses the school year August to July.  I don't know about the other schools so can't comment.  The result is that if your child is born between August and December, they will be one grade higher at OFS than they would be at UWC.

[different schools]

Schools here can be a bit confusing like that.  When our children were in Eton House they didn't have a K2, they had K1 and then Year 1 and although their school year ran from August to June, the cut off dates were Jan-Dec which sounds the same as OFS although their year groups are named differently.

At our current secondary, I think if a child moved from OFS to our school, they'd go from being in Grade 8 to year 7 - basically the same year group but a different name.  Some people moving to our school don't like it, because their children feel that they've gone backwards a year, but I think that some schools follow a US style of grading and some follow a UK style of year groups - in the UK now I believe you leave in Year 13 whereas in the US it's Grade 12 (could be the other way around - I still find it confusing myself and my kids are in Secondary    )

[why]

hang on, in OFS if my son goes in at grade 1 following an IB curriculum there and if he goes to UWC (as example) in later years, also on IB program you mean he has to repeat a year? that sounds ridiculous??

[Year 7]

hang on, in OFS if my son goes in at grade 1 following an IB curriculum there and if he goes to UWC (as example) in later years, also on IB program you mean he has to repeat a year? that sounds ridiculous??

maybe, you'd have to ask them.  I know someone who moved from a primary to UWC and in some schools they'd have been going into Year 7 and they went into Grade 5 in UWC because of the way they do their cut-off and where this child's birthday fell.  The parents seemed OK with it though and at least the child was with the right peer group for her age (that can pose problems if kids get put up or down by a year-group and I have heard that UWC don't put children in higher/lower years than they should be in - possibly for that reason).

[uwc'er]

hang on, in OFS if my son goes in at grade 1 following an IB curriculum there and if he goes to UWC (as example) in later years, also on IB program you mean he has to repeat a year? that sounds ridiculous??

Yes that's the way it is. UWC are very strict on placing children in the correct Grade for their age (according to their cut-off dates).  In exceptional circumstances, I believe they will place a child in a lower grade, but I don't think they will go the other way.

[kd]

To OP, yes, that's correct.  My youngest had to repeat a year of PYP due to UWC's cut off dates.  I found it to be a positive move though, as the standards are higher at UWC than they are in other schools such as OFS and ISS because UWC accept few SEN and ESL students.