Every maths website on the internet speaks exactly one dialect of school year, and it is nearly always American. So a parent in Leeds stares at "6th grade" wondering if that is Year 6 (it is not), a parent in Auckland wonders if NZ Year 7 is Australian Year 7 (also not), and a parent in Lyon is asked to believe that 5e comes after 6e, which, to be fair, it does. This page is the conversion chart we wish existed the first hundred times we were asked, plus honest advice for families using an English-language maths game alongside a school system that runs in another language entirely.
The usual disclosure: this is the blog of Infinilearn, a free maths RPG organised by (of course) American grades. This page exists because "which grade do I pick?" is the single most common question international families ask us.
The one rule that beats every chart
Match by age, not by label. School-year names are administrative trivia; the maths a child is ready for tracks their age, and every country's Year-something-or-other for a ten-year-old covers broadly the same ground. Charts, including ours, blur over cutoff dates, held-back and skipped-ahead kids, and countries where a class spans eighteen months of birthdays. If the chart and your child's age disagree, trust the age. If practice then feels too easy or too hard, move one level and stop worrying about it; any decent adaptive system will meet the child where they are anyway.
The same-number club
First, the easy countries. In Canada, South Africa, Germany, and (near enough) Australia, the local number matches the American grade: a Grade 7 in Johannesburg, a Klasse 7 in Munich, a Year 7 in Sydney, and a 7th grader in Chicago are all the same twelve-to-thirteen-year-old. Pick the same number and move on. (Quebec parents: Secondaire I is Grade 7, and count up from there.)
Everyone else
| Age | US grade | England, Wales & NZ | Scotland | Ireland | France | Spain |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 to 10 | 4th grade | Year 5 | P6 | 4th class | CM1 | 4.º Primaria |
| 10 to 11 | 5th grade | Year 6 | P7 | 5th class | CM2 | 5.º Primaria |
| 11 to 12 | 6th grade | Year 7 | S1 | 6th class | 6e | 6.º Primaria |
| 12 to 13 | 7th grade | Year 8 | S2 | 1st year | 5e | 1.º ESO |
| 13 to 14 | 8th grade | Year 9 | S3 | 2nd year | 4e | 2.º ESO |
| 14 to 15 | 9th grade | Year 10 | S4 | 3rd year | 3e | 3.º ESO |
Footnotes for the pedants, whom we respect: Northern Ireland numbers its years one higher than England (secondary starts at Year 8 there), Scotland's fifth-birthday-ish start makes its rows the fuzziest on the chart, and France's countdown numbering means your child finishes collège in 3e and nobody outside France finds that intuitive. In IB schools, PYP is organised by age and MYP 1 corresponds to 6th grade, with MYP 2, 3, and 4 mapping to 7th, 8th, and 9th.
When school is not in English
A growing share of the families who write to us are expats or bilingual households: school runs in French, German, Spanish, or Dutch, and the parents want maths practice in English, either because English is the family language or because they want the child fluent in both. Having watched this work and occasionally not work, our honest take has three parts.
The mechanics transfer completely. A child who can solve two-step equations in German can solve them in English the moment they learn what "solve" means; number sense, procedures, and problem-solving strategies do not care about language. The vocabulary does not transfer, and that cuts both ways: an English maths game will not teach the French terms Thursday's test uses, and school will not teach your child what "denominator" means. For families raising bilingual kids that second gap is the quiet argument for practising in English anyway, since word problems turn out to be sneaky reading comprehension in whichever language they arrive in. And the label problem disappears entirely here: your child's school may call the year 5e or MYP 2, but you now know both of those are 7th grade, so that is the setting to pick.
Where Infinilearn fits
Infinilearn covers US grades 4 to 9, which per the chart above means roughly ages 9 to 15 wherever you live: Years 5 to 10 in England or New Zealand, CM1 through 3e in France, Grade 4 to 9 in the same-number club. It is a free browser-based fantasy RPG where every attack and boss fight fires by solving a real maths problem; the whole game is free with no ads and nothing paywalled, it adapts to weak topics automatically, chat is preset phrases only, and a free parent dashboard shows accuracy by topic. It is entirely in English and organised by American grade, which is exactly why this chart exists. We have written country-specific guides for Australia, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and South Africa, each with the local detail this overview skips.
More international guides
- Maths Games for South African Learners: Grades 4 to 9
- Math Games for the BC Curriculum: Grades 4 to 9
- Maths Games for Kiwi Kids: Years 5 to 10
- Math Games for the Alberta Curriculum: Grades 4 to 9
- Maths Games for Years 5 to 10: A UK Parent's Guide
- Math Games for Canadian Kids: Grades 4 to 9
- Maths Games for Australian Kids: Years 4 to 9