Mother knows best — a tale of two brothers
Changes to the age of starting school will let parents make the decision that’s best for their child, Michyla Corban says.
The Pokeno mother of two has one son who’s brilliant and one who is not as advanced.
Her older boy, Stevyn, is 43⁄ Corban says he can differentiate between volume and mass, talk about centrifugal force, and will happily explain different sources of renewable energy.
Intellectually he was ready for school aged 4, Corban says, and she would send him now if she could — but he turns 5 in July so he won’t start at Harrisville Primary School until the first day of term 3.
But his 21⁄ year-old brother Michael is not yet so academically inclined.
“At 18 months, Stevyn could count to 20 in two languages . . . At the same age Michael still called me dad,” Corban says.
“I just watched him eat a box of raisins — he ate the cardboard instead of the fruit.”
Michael’s birthday is in November but he will start school the following year, because “his intellectual and social skills are nowhere near where his brother’s were at the same time”.
Corban says that as long as parents retain a choice in the matter, it’s great that some kids will start school earlier.
“I know one of my kids will be ready earlier and I know one isn’t going to be. It would be nice to have the option to send the able one early, but at the same time you shouldn’t have to push the slower ones.”