Grade Equivalents: US, Canada, Australia vs Philippine K-12

TL;DR: All four systems finish Grade 12 at around age 17-18, so mapping is mostly one-to-one by grade number: US Grade 4 ≈ Ontario Grade 4 ≈ NSW Year 4 ≈ Philippine Grade 4. The differences live at the edges: entry cutoffs (Philippines: turn 5 by October 31 under DepEd Order No. 15, s. 2025; US commonly September 1; Ontario December 31; NSW July 31) and calendars (Philippines June-April; US/Canada September-June; Australia January-December). DepEd's placement rule for kids from abroad is simple: enter the next grade after the one completed abroad, with the school holding discretion and the PEPT as the fallback when records are incomplete.

The Philippine ladder, with ages

Philippine basic education is Kindergarten plus twelve grades: elementary (Grades 1-6), junior high school (Grades 7-10), and senior high school (Grades 11-12). Kindergarten is compulsory and a prerequisite for Grade 1.

Entry ages, per current DepEd policy:

• Kindergarten: age 5. Under DepEd Order No. 47, s. 2016 as amended by DepEd Order No. 15, s. 2025, a child qualifies if they turn five on or before October 31 of the school year. Children turning five between November 1 and December 31 may still be admitted if they completed one year at a recognized child development center or pass the Philippine Early Childhood Development (ECD) checklist administered at enrollment.
• Grade 1: age 6, having completed kindergarten. Under the enrollment policy (DepEd Order No. 3, s. 2018), a child six or older who never attended kindergarten is assessed through the ECCD checklist or placement testing rather than being enrolled straight into Grade 1 without evaluation.

So the typical Philippine student is 5 in Kinder, 6 in Grade 1, 11 in Grade 6, 12 in Grade 7, 15 in Grade 10, 16 in Grade 11, and turns 18 during or shortly after Grade 12. The school year itself now runs June to early April — June 8, 2026 to April 8, 2027 for SY 2026-2027, in three terms totaling 201 class days (calendar details here).

Master table: grade equivalents by age

Ages shown are the typical age during most of the school year. Individual children shift a year either way depending on birthdays and cutoffs.

The comfortable takeaway: since the K to 12 reform, the grade numbers align. Your job is not conversion arithmetic; it is understanding the cutoffs, the calendars, and the placement rules below.

Entry-age cutoffs: why same-age kids sit in different grades

Each system draws its age line on a different date:

Consequences for a moving family:

• A September-October birthday child is often the youngest in class in the Philippines (October 31 cutoff) but would have waited a year in a September-1 US state. Expect such a child to map to a Philippine grade one ahead of their old US cohort — or to be placed by completed grade anyway, which usually resolves the question.
• A November-December birthday child could have started school earliest in Ontario (December 31 calendar-year rule) and latest in NSW or a September-cutoff US state — and in the Philippines sits right in the conditional zone, admitted to Kinder only with the ECD program or checklist. This is the birthday range where age-based mapping breaks down hardest.
• Philippine schools resolve all of this by placing on completed grades, not birthdays. Age only becomes decisive when there are no records — see the PEPT section below.

Calendars: the hidden variable in every mapping

Grade labels match; calendars do not.

• Philippines: June to early April (SY 2026-2027: June 8, 2026-April 8, 2027, three terms).
• US and Canada: roughly September to June.
• Australia: late January/early February to mid-December, four terms, aligned to the calendar year.

What this means in practice:

• Moving from the US or Canada in northern-hemisphere summer works beautifully: a child finishing Grade 5 in June enrolls in Philippine Grade 6 the same month, or shortly into the term. Little time is lost.
• Moving from Australia is inherently offset. A child finishing NSW Year 5 in December arrives with the Philippine Grade 6 year already half over (it started the previous June). The realistic options: join Grade 6 mid-year and accept a compressed year, wait and start Grade 6 fresh the following June (losing about six months but gaining a full year of curriculum), or negotiate placement with the school. Schools have discretion here, and there is no single DepEd-mandated answer — ask the specific school what it will do.
• Mid-year moves in either direction trigger the incomplete-records rules below.

DepEd's placement rules for kids arriving from abroad

Two policies do the work:

DECS Order No. 26, s. 1994 — still the operative placement order, reiterated by DepEd field offices as recently as 2024 — sets the default: a transferee from a foreign country enters "the next curriculum year following that completed abroad." Schools decide placement themselves without referring cases to DepEd central office, and may later accelerate a child to a higher grade or move them lower depending on performance. The order recognizes foreign systems with at least six years of elementary and four of secondary — the US, Canada, and Australia all qualify.

DepEd Order No. 3, s. 2018 (the enrollment policy) sets the documents: a learner from a school abroad enrolls with a birth certificate or equivalent legal document and the latest report card or equivalent academic record. If the child completed fewer than three grading periods in the school year abroad, the school can require the Philippine Educational Placement Test (PEPT) and place the child by its rating.

Practical notes from families who have done this:

1. Bring more paper than you think you need: final report cards for the last two or three years, a transcript if the school issues one, and anything showing the school year's start and end dates (foreign calendars confuse registrars too).
2. Foreign documents do not need DepEd pre-approval. Since 1994 the receiving school itself evaluates them. If a school insists a division office must approve first, ask them to check the order.
3. The PEPT is a fallback, not a hazing ritual. It exists for missing or partial records. A child with complete records for a finished grade should be placed on those records.
4. Placement is revisitable. The same order that lets a school place your child lets it adjust within the first months. If the initial grade is clearly wrong, say so early.

The paperwork side — especially for dual-citizen kids proving Filipino citizenship — is its own topic: see our dual-citizen enrollment documents guide. For non-Filipino children the immigration layer comes first: foreign children in Philippine basic education.

SHS vs US high school years: same ages, different animal

The upper years map cleanly by age — Philippine Grade 11-12 = US junior and senior year — but the structure underneath diverges:

• US high school is Grades 9-12 as one unit; students accumulate credits and electives toward a diploma, with a GPA as the running score.
• Philippine senior high is a distinct two-year stage after junior high (Grades 7-10). From SY 2026-2027, incoming Grade 11 students nationwide follow the Strengthened SHS curriculum: a compact set of core subjects plus electives chosen from clusters under two tracks (Academic and Technical-Professional). Grade 12 students who began under the old track-and-strand system finish under it.
• A US student transferring into Grade 11 lands in the new structure and picks a track — a bigger decision than picking electives. One transferring into Grade 12 is asking the school to map three years of US credits onto the tail of a Philippine program; expect case-by-case treatment and possibly subject catch-up, particularly in Filipino and Philippine studies (see our Filipino subject exemption guide for how much of that is negotiable).
• Note the labeling trap in conversation: Philippine "high school" starts at Grade 7. When a school says "high school admission," check whether they mean junior high (Grade 7) or senior high (Grade 11).

For how the day-to-day curriculum compares once your child is placed — subjects, grading, teaching style — see our full US vs Philippine curriculum comparison.

Quick answers for the three most common scenarios

• "My 7-year-old finished Grade 1 in California." Enters Grade 2, June intake. Bring the Grade 1 report card and PSA birth record. Age fits the Philippine cohort exactly.
• "My 11-year-old finished Grade 6 in Toronto." Enters Grade 7 — junior high school in the Philippines, a year earlier than "high school" would start in most of North America. Same building change, different label.
• "My 15-year-old finishes Year 10 in Sydney in December." The awkward one: Philippine Grade 11 started the previous June. Options are a mid-year Grade 11 entry (if the school allows), waiting for the June intake, or an international school on a Southern-hemisphere-friendly calendar. Decide based on the child, not the calendar math alone.

Sources

• DECS Order No. 26, s. 1994 — Placements of Transferees from Foreign Countries (DepEd)
• DepEd expands kindergarten cut-off age policy, DO 15 s. 2025 (DepEd press release)
• DepEd Order No. 47, s. 2016 / cut-off age for Kinder and Grade 1 (via TeacherPH)
• DepEd Order No. 3, s. 2018 — Basic Education Enrollment Policy (via TeacherPH)
• DepEd three-term school calendar for SY 2026-2027 (GMA News explainer)
• Strengthened SHS Program — Department of Education
• US grade levels by age (USAHello)
• Age to start kindergarten by state (World Population Review)
• Kindergarten — Government of Ontario
• Education attendance rights in Ontario (Justice for Children and Youth)
• Starting primary school in NSW — NSW Government