Age of Starting School

[Claire]

No: HPFGUIDX 71603

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Lady Macbeth" 
<LadyMacbeth at S...> wrote:
> Kathy N Said:
> >>> In California the cutoff date is Dec. 2. A child needs to be 5 
years old
> on Dec. 2nd in order to start kindergarten that year.  Depending 
on the
> child a parent may wait until the  child is 6 before registering 
them for
> kindergarten. Schools start either the week before or the week 
after Labor
> Day and end sometime between the 1st and 3rd week of June. 
California is 180
> days of schooling.
> 
> So I have thought that Hermione is 11 when she starts just like 
Harry and
> Ron.<<<
> 
> Lady Macbeth:
> This is very similar to a reply I was going to make, so I'll 
elaborate on
> this point.  I started school in Wisconsin, and I was 5 about to 
turn 6 when
> I started - pretty standard, my birthday is 25 Dec.  However, upon 
seeing my
> test scores when I went in for Kindergarten Roundup, the school 
district
> wanted to put me in second grade.  My mom refused, on the basis 
that she
> didn't want her five year old in class with a bunch of seven year 
olds.
> However, I remained advanced the rest of the way through school, 
and a lot
> of parents and teachers wondered along the way if my mom had made 
such a
> good decision.
> 
> Hermione seems very similar.  I'm not sure, however, if British 
schools make
> any kind of exceptions for "exceptional" students.  If they do, it 
is all
> together possible that she was indeed 10 and turned 11 in 
September.  She
> may have been an "advanced" student from the start, and would have 
been
> going into a standard secondary school when she was "too young" if 
she would
> have remained in the Muggle world.
> 
Me:
Additionally, in the US (at least it used to be this way), girls 
might start school at 5 while boys may need to wait until 6, the 
theory being that girls were more emotionally mature than boys.  
This might help explain Hermione starting before her 11th birthday 
in September.

Claire