Learnest
Start 14-day free trial

Starting Kindergarten in NSW: what your child learns in the first year

Parent guides. Facts checked on 16 October 2026 against the official pages listed at the foot.

Kindergarten is the first year of school in NSW, and the syllabus calls it Early Stage 1. It is a year of counting, letter sounds, stories, questions and a great deal of talking. Here is what the NSW syllabus expects a child to learn in maths, English and science in that first year, in plain words, and what a parent can do at home without turning the kitchen into a classroom.

Try seven questions with your child on Learnest's own screens: the Kindergarten demo.

What is Early Stage 1?

The NSW syllabus is written in stages, not years. Early Stage 1 is Kindergarten. Stage 1 is Years 1 and 2, Stage 2 is Years 3 and 4, and so on. Each stage has outcomes, which are the things a child should be able to do by the end of it, and each school plans its own lessons to reach them.

Three syllabuses matter most in the first year: the Mathematics K-10 Syllabus (2022), the English K-10 Syllabus (2022) and the Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus. Each is public, and the pages at the foot of this guide are the ones the facts below come from.

What does my child learn in maths?

Early Stage 1 maths is about numbers as quantities: knowing that the word seven, the numeral 7 and a group of seven blocks are the same thing. The syllabus outcome says a child "reads numerals and represents whole numbers to at least 20".

Counting
Counting forwards to at least 30, counting backwards from a number of 20 or less, and saying the number before or after a given number. Reading the numerals to at least 20, including zero, and putting numbers to 20 in order.
Seeing small groups
Recognising how many are in a group of up to four without counting, which the syllabus calls subitising. Knowing the dot patterns on dominoes and the finger patterns for a number, and that the same number can be shown with different fingers.
Putting together and taking away
Combining two small groups and taking some away from a group, with objects first and then with numbers. Sharing a collection equally and making equal groups.
Shape, measure and data
Naming simple flat and solid shapes, comparing lengths and masses directly, the days of the week, and sorting objects and showing the sort as a simple graph.

What does my child learn in English?

The English syllabus splits Early Stage 1 into eleven focus areas, and the names tell the story: oral language and communication, vocabulary, phonological awareness, print conventions, phonic knowledge, reading fluency, reading comprehension, creating written texts, spelling, handwriting, and understanding and responding to literature.

  • Talking and listening: following a spoken instruction of up to three parts, taking turns, asking questions with who, what, when, where, why and how, and retelling a story.
  • Hearing sounds: clapping syllables, hearing rhymes, and picking out the first sound in a word. This comes before letters and makes the letters easier.
  • Letters and sounds: the sound each letter stands for, blending sounds to read short words such as cat and ship, and breaking a word into its sounds to spell it.
  • How print works: reading from left to right and top to bottom, spaces between words, capital letters and full stops.
  • Reading and writing: reading short decodable books, talking about what happened in a story, and writing a sentence of their own with the letters they know.

The learning to read guide covers phonics and reading at home in more detail, and the handwriting and spelling guide covers letter formation.

What does my child learn in science?

Science and technology is its own learning area from Kindergarten, with a K-6 syllabus. In the first year it is mostly looking closely, asking questions and trying things. The content strands run through primary school: the living world, the material world, the physical world, earth and space, and digital technologies.

In Kindergarten that means living and non-living things and what living things need, what everyday objects are made of, how things move when pushed or pulled, the changes a day and a year bring, and the first steps with a simple digital device. Alongside the content the syllabus teaches two sets of skills: working scientifically, which is observing, questioning and testing, and design and production, which is making something to solve a small problem.

Those are the strands of the 2017 syllabus, which schools teach now. A new Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2024) starts in schools from 2027, so a child who starts Kindergarten in 2027 learns science under it.

What can we do at home?

  1. Count real things: the stairs, the spoons, the cars at the lights. Count backwards too, and start from the middle sometimes.
  2. Read a story every day. Stop to talk about it: what happened, who was in it, what might happen next.
  3. Play with sounds. What starts with the same sound as your name? What rhymes with cat? Clap the beats in a long word.
  4. Let them write. A shopping list, a birthday card, their name on a drawing. Spelling by sounds is fine at this age.
  5. Notice numbers and shapes in the street: house numbers, bus numbers, round signs and square windows.
  6. Ask science questions out loud and look for the answer together: why the ice melts, where the ants are going, what the moon looks like tonight.
  7. Keep it short and stop while it is still fun. Ten minutes a day is plenty in Kindergarten.

Why is my child so tired?

Because a school day is long for a five-year-old, and most of what they learn in Term 1 is how school works: where to sit, when to listen, how to open a lunch box, who the adults are. The learning in the sections above happens across the whole year. If the early weeks are all tiredness and no news, that is normal. An early dinner and an early night do more for a Kindergarten child's learning than any extra work.

Questions parents ask

How far should my child count by the end of Kindergarten?

The NSW Mathematics K-10 Syllabus asks a Kindergarten child to count forwards to at least 30, count backwards from a number of 20 or less, and read numerals to at least 20, including zero. Counting a little further is common and fine.

Does Kindergarten have homework?

The syllabus sets none. Each school decides its own, and most of what helps at this age is not homework at all: a book read together, counting the stairs, and talking about the day. Ask the teacher what the school expects.

Is science a subject in Kindergarten?

Yes. Science and technology has its own K-6 syllabus in NSW, and Kindergarten children learn about living things, materials, movement, the sky and the seasons, and simple digital technology, mostly by looking, asking and trying. A new Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus (2024) starts in schools from 2027, so a child who starts Kindergarten in 2027 learns science under it.

My child seems behind the others. What should I do?

Tell the teacher what you have noticed. Children start school from very different places, teachers plan for that, and the first year is long. A short conversation early is worth more than a worry carried to the end of the year.

How Learnest helps

Learnest's Kindergarten days take about twelve minutes and cover maths, English and science. The questions are read aloud, the choices are pictures or big keys, and a number pad takes the typed answer, so a child who cannot read yet can still work on their own. The first day in each subject is a check that finds where your child is, the app teaches what is missing and brings it back in later reviews until it holds, and the nightly email names the one skill that slipped. Every question is Learnest's own.

Start 14-day free trial

14 days free, then A$10 a month for one child and A$5 for each extra child. You add a card today and pay A$0. Cancel online before day 14 and you pay nothing.

Forgot to cancel? Email us within 14 days of the first charge and we refund it in full.

Try the Kindergarten demo

Seven questions your child can try now, read aloud, with a hint on each. No sign-up, and nothing is saved.

Sources

Checked 16 October 2026. Every date, number and rule above comes from these pages. If one of them has changed since, it is right and this page is behind.

Learnest is not affiliated with ACARA, NESA, the NSW Department of Education or the Australian Maths Trust. This guide explains the published facts in Learnest's own words; the official pages above are the record.