How old do you have to be for each school grade?

11 comments

1. So typically. Age 5 by Sept 1st for kindergarten. It’s either half day or full. Mostly play based but getting a bit more serious lately with more academics.

2. Most kids start kindergarten at 5 but it can vary a bit. It can also change because of skipping or repeating grades.

   But most of the time it’s 6 for 1st grade, 7 for 2nd, etc

3. Most kindergartens, or at least all the one’s I’ve heard of, require your child to be at least 5 years old to enroll them.

   Beyond that there’s really no hard or fast rule since different birthdays in different months, different school districts starting at different times, and kids getting moved up or held back a grade happens. In general you’re looking at a difference of 5 between the name of the grade and the age of the average student but there’s usually some wiggle room. So like, in 12th grade you’ll have some kids who are 17 and some who are 18 simply depending on where their birthdays fall on the calendar and when school starts.

4. I was 4 when I started kindergarten but my parents could have chosen to have me do another year of preschool because my birthday is in November. Most of the kids I was in kindergarten with were 5, one other was 4 like me, and a couple had just turned 6.

   So I was 5 when I started first grade but turned 6 a few months later. With birthdays in Oct-Dec of the year it used to be left up to parents. This was the early 90s though so it might have changed.

5. Places will vary, but around here (at least when I was in school) everyone turned the same age within that calendar year. So, Kindergarten the year you turn 5 (even if your birthday isn’t until December), 1st grade – 6, … 12th grade – 17.

6. Most kids are 4 or 5 starting kindergarten, elementary school is 1st to 5th grade, middle school for me was 6th to 8th grade but I know that can vary in different schools or areas, high school is four years: freshmen, sophomore, junior, and then senior.

7. Most kids are going to start the school year at grade +5, with most turning grade +6 during the school year and any stragglers the following summer.

   So most kids start 1st grade at 6, 2nd at 7 and so on until you get to 12th grade (senior year of high school) where most most kids graduate at 18 or about to turn 18.

   Exceptions exist, where someone starts the year at grade +6 because their birthday is in the summer just before school and their parents didn’t want to start them too early, some kids may skip a grade or be held back. They try really hard not to move kids out of their class, though, so the exceptions are usually late summer birthdays who wind up being either the youngest or oldest of their grade depending on if their parents let them start as soon as possible or kept them out an extra year to let them mature before sending them to school. For example I have an august birthday and was the youngest person in my class all the way through school and graduated at 17 where most of my friends were 18 by then.

8. Usually you’ll start school at age 5 and turn the next age during the year. Rinse and repeat for the following grades. The ages are as follows (assuming no retention)

   Kindergarten: 5/6

   1st grade: 6/7

   2nd grade: 7/8

   3rd grade: 8/9

   4th grade: 9/10

   5th grade: 10/11

   6th grade: 11/12

   7th grade: 12/13

   8th grade: 13/14

   9th grade: 14/15

   10th grade: 15/16

   11th grade: 16/17

   12th grade: 17/18

9. They let me start Kindergarten at age four though my fifth birthday was before the Sept 1st deadline by less than a week.

10. Some kids start out in preschool (like me) before kindergarten. Preschool is for ages 3-4.

11. Our actual school years start in July, Aug, or Sep; and end in May or June.

    Each state has its own cutoff date. In some states each system (county, district, etc) can have its own cutoff date.

    But a lot of states have been moving toward Sep 1 as their cutoff date. This means that someone born Sep 2 2000, will be in Kindergarten for the school year that goes Jul/Aug/Sep 2006 to May/June 2007, then 1st grade for 2007-2008, etc, until their 12th grade year of 2018-2019 (assuming they never skipped or repeated a grade). Someone born Sep 1 2000 may optionally be held back by their parents so they won’t be the youngest in their grade level, but otherwise they will be in Kindergarten for 2005-06, 1st grade 2006-07, and 12th grade 2017-18.

    In other words, your age on the cutoff date determines eligibility, and it’s age 5 for kindergarten and age 6 for 1st grade, but after that you can skip or repeat grades if necessary.

    And to clarify, when Americans say “class of 2023” or similar, that means the graduating class that graduates in May or June 2023, meaning that their 12th grade year was 2022-23 .