Where/When to send toddler to school??

We're in a big dilema about when and where we should send out little one to school.


We are an American-Chinese family that would like our son to go to a public school so he could learn Chinese and be able to live, feel and breathe his own roots more. The thing is we don't agree with sending our children to school so early (in the States the min age is 5 yrs). Also, we can't read or write Chinese.


We were thinking of hiring a private Chinese tutor and sending him to English playgroups for 1 year and send him to K2 after.


My questions are:


Will this effect him getting into good local public primary school?


Is it possible that he starts Kindergarten 1 year later then everyone else?

My understanding is that in HK, school is not compulsory before 6 years old, therefore before your child reaches that age, you do pretty much whatever you want, ie send him to kindergarten or not.

Because of that there is no public kindergarten in HK, ie all the kindergartens are private (even the Cantonese-speaking ones)and therefore charge school fees.

If you do not want your kid to go to school too early you can just wait until he is 5 for instance, and then apply to a Chinese-speaking KG, where he will probably join directly the class of his age, ie K3.

My 2 kids are in a cantonese-speaking school (we are a French family), my daughter now in K1 at 3.5 years old and my son just started nursery class at 2.5. Honestly from what I can see there is no point to put a 5 year-old child in a K1 environment.

As the saying goes . . . "when in Rome, do as the Romans". In HK, it seems everyone is sending their kids to school at an early age (ie: 2yrs old for Nursery), us included. This was also quite a shock to us since all our relatives in the States and Canada told us their kids only went to school at around 3-4 yrs old. It only makes sense to "follow" the local way of schooling in order to "fit in properly" since you mentioned you wanted your child to go to local school. You might want to ask more questions to specific schools you are looking into so you can make sure your child won't be "late". I also agree with SuzieW, a 5yr old will look pretty out of place in a K1 class.