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If your child will turn 12 in October...


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By age/ grade cut-off in TN, a child turning 12 in October would be in sixth grade. As a homeschoolers, if an elderly lady at the supermarket or a kid at the park asks my child what grade he is in, I have told him to respond with the grade appropriate to his age level cut-off. These people don't care about the different grade level products he is using for different subjects or even (since in the state of TN you must be registered somewhere) what grade he is registered for with his umbrella. They are basically just asking for a ballpark age. I would also use the state cut-off for things like rec league sports teams where grades are listed and stuff like that. Other situations might be determined to need more or deeper information, but, generally speaking, I just go by state cut-off age/ grade.

 

HTH-

Mandy

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I should also add that regarding my October baby: he missed the cutoff for starting kindergarten last year, at four, almost five. However, academically and socially speaking, if I had been intending to send him to school, I would have pushed to send him last year, which is contrary to the way a lot of people prefer to redshirt boys. But, he was more ready at not quite five than my first son was at six and a half, just because of personality. So if I'd sent him to school, he'd have been turning twelve shortly after starting seventh grade, and actually, I wonder if that might have hurt him in the long run, because he'd also have been not quite eighteen upon starting college, and not being a huge kid (smaller side of average), it's very possible that he could have ended up being at a physical disadvantage in middle and high school.

 

So all that to say: you just have to see about the kid and how he/she falls according to the local cutoff. An October baby is going to fall differently depending on whether he he local cutoff is in September or December.

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From a maturity standpoint, my oldest would be going into 7th, the next 6th, the third girl would be 7th. Ds#1 would be 5th. Too early to tell on ds#2. Some of my kids are more 'academic' than others - and thus if they had an October b-day, some would have started K at 4, some at 5, and one at 6 (almost 7).

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Thanks, all! I started my DD in pre-k early because she wanted to sit with us. She did 6th last year and really struggled so we're going to give her a "do over". She always knew that we would move her back at some point so, now is the time!

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Thanks, all! I started my DD in pre-k early because she wanted to sit with us. She did 6th last year and really struggled so we're going to give her a "do over". She always knew that we would move her back at some point so, now is the time!

I did this with my September b-day DD. She did two years as a third grader because we reached a point where I felt like we needed to pull back. We started out in a state with a late cut-off, but had moved to a state with an early cut-off so I just framed it as adjusting to the correct grade level in the new state.

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Well, bucking the trend a bit - my kid will be 12 in the beginning of November, and she'll be a 7th grader.  At the time she started ps Kindergarten, she made the cutoff here in CA.  SInce then the cutoff has changed, so she wouldn't have made it were she starting now.

 

When we decided to start her at 4, it was based on developmental readiness - she tested at 5.5-6 on the Gessell tests as a 4.5 yo.  She'd been in Montessori preschool and was ready for bigger and better things.  At that point, homeschooling wasn't on our radar, so we went ahead and started her "early" (though the cutoff was Dec 1 at the time) based on the test results.

 

She was always fine academically being the youngest in her grade, but there was a stretch - 2nd-3rd grade - where she seemed younger than her classmates socially/maturity wise.  When we first started homeschooling in 4th grade, I was strongly considering letting her do an extra year of jr. high so she'd be 18 when she graduated, based on my own feeling and based on the fact that she seemed like a "young" 4th grader.

 

Now, as an 11 year old, she is 5'6" and as mature - or more so - than other 11-13 year olds I know.  And definitely she's ready for 7th grade, academically.  So even for one kid, developmental rate isn't linear, and as soon as you start comparing them, you see they are all over the map.

 

I still don't like the idea of her going off to college at 17, but chances are she'll be doing DE for the last couple of years of high school anyway, and so she'll be easing into college.  I've learned not to make predictions about what she'll be ready for at 17 - she's changed & matured so much in this one year that all predictive bets are off, IMO.

 

ETA: edited for clarity

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What grade will he/she be in this year??

 

In California, he would be in 7th (before the cut-off date changed). I would not have made him wait a year back when he was 4 turning 5 to begin kindergarten.

 

In Virginia, South Carolina, or Texas, he would be in 6th.

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My oldest will be 12 in October and based on the cutoff when she started she will be in 7th. DS has a November birthday and while he was ready to start K at not-quite-5, he was not ready to move on to 1st the following year. So he will be in 6th the year he turns 12

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I have two children with birthdays in Oct. DS will be 12 this year and will be in 6th. When my dd turns 12 she will most likely be in 7th. Her birthday is early in Oct. and fell within the "early enrollment" period for our county/state. She was more than ready to start "officially."

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If you really want to know in your area, you can call the school and ask.

 

My son was born Sept 12th. The cut off date used to be Sept 15th, so he was scheduled to enter kindergarten and we were ready to go.

 

Then, they changed the cut off date to Sept 1st the year he was to enter kindergarten. He had already been to 3 (yes 3) years of preschool. I was NOT going to send him to a fourth year of preschool, so I homeschooled him kindergarten. He was ready.

 

Now, all these homeschool years later, I tell the school system if they ask that he's going into 6th grade, but I actually consider him in 7th grade since I went ahead with kindergarten "early". It won't make a difference until he hits high school and I have to worry about transcripts. I'm not going to hold him back a year, so he'll be in 9th grade on schedule, even though he misses the official cut off date by 12 days.

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My son will turn 12 at the end of November and he's going into 6th grade.

 

Mine too.  He likes to say he's 7th because he does a lot of 7th grade work and is even in Algebra for this coming year.  But age-wise, maturity-wise (and public school-wise), he's 6th grade.

 

Where we live, a LOT of families hold summer birthday boys back (our cutoff is Aug 31) so there are a TON of kids who turned 12 in June or even May who are going into 6th grade too--so he's not even the oldest in his grade.

 

I'm sure he'll be doing dual-enrollement in high school because he IS older than his "standard grade" and will get ahead, but keeping him in his "school grade" for church groups, art classes, sports, has been a good fit.

 

And also--like someone else said--if people ask him, "What grade are you in?", they really just mentally add "5" to it and figure out how old they are.  That's all they want to know, how old they are.  They don't give a flip about what grade level academic work they do :)

 

Betsy

 

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And also--like someone else said--if people ask him, "What grade are you in?", they really just mentally add "5" to it and figure out how old they are.  That's all they want to know, how old they are.  They don't give a flip about what grade level academic work they do :)

 

I wouldn't assume that. When I ask a kid (or their parent) what grade they're in, I really do want to know what grade they're in.

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My boys who will be 10 and 12 in October are heading into 4th and 6th. The cut-off for kindergarten around here is September 1st. 

 

My oldest has a November birthday and started kindergarten before he turned 5 because we were living in Canada at the time. He graduated and started college at 17 without any issues. If he'd struggled academically, we would have done exactly what you're doing.  

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