What’s Right Age for Admission in Nursery and First Standard, Pune Schools, India?

I installed a new plugin which tells me what people are searching on my blog. Right age popped up too many times for me to advice on.

Indirectly, I am being shouldered more responsibility by young parents in answering this very confusing yet important question.

I am glad I never had this doubt mainly because I was part of the confusion for my parents. When it was my turn  to be admitted into school at the age of 4 years, my father was transferred from Khadakpur to Dhanbad.  There was some confusion about the academic year being in January in Dhanbad as compared to June in Khadakpur, or vice versa.

So my parents preferred to work hard to get my elder sis admitted to the school. After they went through all the hassle, they decided I could wait for another year. I was happy as I never wanted to goto school for a long time. So to cut the story short, I was always the oldest in my class which I used to proudly declare until we were in Calcutta. Then as I grew older, giving away age became more and more difficult. But thankfully that tale ended in engineering as there,  no one was interested in age. 😉

I was always very sensitive. So I shudder to even imagine had I been admitted a year earlier by my parents to a school, I would have turned into a totally different personality. The confidence and learning is directly related to age. Don’t you feel much confident today as compared to 10 years back? This same 10 years is equivalent in my opinion to 10 months when a child is as young as 4 years. What I mean is when kids are young, then every month is equivalent to a year in terms of learning and overall development.

Imagine the intake, the ability to grasp, to comprehend, to execute, to understand, to communicate, to talk, to listen and many other intelligence related terms. Now take a baby of three years age and compare with another who is six months older, so 3.5 years old. The second baby has 6 months of excess exposure in all areas as compared to the first baby who is only 3 years old.

Ok we may say that what if both babies know the same stuff as they have been going to a similar playschool together. Even if the knowledge level may be same, there is no way that the emotional and physical development of the younger baby can match to that of the older baby. We all know of the monthly mile charts handed over by the hospitals or pediatricians. Is it not very obvious that with each month there is a new skill that a baby learns, and it would be foolish on the parents’ part to expect that their baby reaches it earlier that expected by a normal child.

A baby starts crawling at the age of  4-6 months and starts walking after 9-12 months and starts blabbering between 10 months to 3 years.
So all children,  if normal,  have a time – range in which they WILL pick a skill. Just because your kid starts walking in the 8th month, do you force him/her to start running the next month?
No!
Like good parents we let the child run when he/she is ready.
Then why do we want to push our children into academics from where there is literally no turning back. Why are we parents so keen to see our kids going to higher class than his/her age permits and feel proud of that mistake?
As per Indian laws a girl is not ready to become a mother before she is 18 years old. Why? Simply because she is physically underdeveloped till 18 years to provide proper nutrition to a baby who will be actually using her body to grow for 9 full months!

Why some parents rush through and want their kids to be admitted early than the age allowed by our Supreme Court? Why Supreme Court has to even pass such a ruling? Do we parents lack that basic common sense to even allow our kids to grow normally like a baby deserves! ( I had this similar feeling when police has to force people to wear helmets to protect their heads! How ridiculous?)
I think I know the answer as again I went through it personally. My first son is Jun 2003 born and hence went through the classes as per the required age criteria. But my second son is Nov 2004 born. I was hassled to my wits bringing up two nearly same aged babies. So to take a breather I chose to admit the first one to  Head Start (6 months) and then to Kangaroo Kids, playschool when he was only 2 years old. He went about his playschool, nursery, LKg as per the schools.

So when the younger one turned 1.5 yrs, he too started his playschool. But since schools begin new sessions in June, he was 6 months younger for his playgroup. Playgroup age is 2-3yrs. I continued his Nursery in Kider Brook. But he remained 6 months younger, but obvious!  So when I had the option I chose to make him go though his LKg = Nursery in DPS again. I am extremely happy with this decision. He is learning at his own pace, no pressure on him from the class teacher, from me or any one else. Not that I give a damn to other people’s opinion when it comes to my kids development and future.

So the time when your child WILL absorb and respond is very much dependent on his/her age. By pushing them early into academics will not turn them into any Einstein/ Leonardo Da Vinci. They were geniuses born with the IQ which had initially labelled them failures and drop-outs! We do not want to see such drastic future for our kids as both were never recognized in their lifetime and had miserable life. So dear parents chill, and follow the right age as mentioned by the Supreme Court.

Here is the age of your child in June of new academic year that you can take a cue from and decide if your child is fit  or underage for a class.

6 year – 7 year = Should in Std 1

5 year to 6 year = Should be in Sr Kr = Prep

4 year – 5 year = Should be in Jr Kg = Nursery (a few schools call it by this name)

3 year – 4 year =  Should be in Nursery = Playschool

2 year – 3 year = Should be at home / Playschool Interaction / No ABCs please

And for your child’s sake,  do not think he/she will loose a year … that’s absurd… how can anyone loose a year.…when the next birthday cake will no doubt get one extra candle!  🙂

Age is not lost … Age is always gained!  Go watch the movie PAA …..