School Starting Age in Australia: Cut-Off Dates by State and How to Decide

"Should we send them this year or next?" is one of the most common questions parents of four-year-olds ask, and the answer depends on where you live, because every state sets its own rules and even its own name for the first year of school.

The first year of school has a different name in every state

On this site we use ACARA's neutral term, Foundation, when we need one label for all states, and your state's own name on individual school pages.

Cut-off dates: when a child can start

Each state sets a date by which a child must turn five to begin the first full-time year in that calendar year. The cut-offs below are the commonly published ones; always confirm with your state's education department for the year your child starts, as they do change.

A child born after the cut-off starts the following year. Being eligible to start is not the same as being required to: in most states a child can be held back a year without any special permission, as long as they are enrolled by the compulsory age.

Should an eligible child start, or wait?

There is no universally right answer, and the research is less clear-cut than playground wisdom suggests. Starting later gives a child an extra year of maturity and often makes the first years feel easier; starting on time means they move through school with their age peers and finish a year earlier. Some questions to ask:

• Can they manage a full day? Following instructions, toileting independently, sitting for short periods, handling the lunchbox.
• How is their language? Speaking in sentences, understanding stories, holding a conversation with an adult.
• How are they socially? Playing cooperatively, coping with frustration, separating from you without distress.
• What does their preschool or childcare educator say? They see your child alongside dozens of others.
• Where would they sit in the year group? A child born just before the cut-off will be the youngest in the class by almost a year.

Academic skills (letters, counting) matter far less at this stage than readiness to learn. Schools expect to teach reading and number from scratch.

Getting ready for the first year

• Read together every day and talk about the story.
• Practise the practical things: opening packaging, putting on shoes, carrying a bag.
• Visit the school at orientation and name the teacher and classroom at home.
• Play games with numbers and sounds: counting steps, rhyming, spotting letters on signs.

When to think about tutoring

Formal tutoring is rarely needed before school. The exception is a child starting Year 1 or Year 2 who is clearly behind in reading or number, where early help prevents the gap compounding. A free assessment is a low-pressure way to check how a young child is tracking against year-level expectations.

Finding the right school

Use the suburb pages and schools near me to see every primary school around you, including each school's Foundation-year intake size, which gives a sense of how many classes they run and how large the cohort your child will join is.