Moving from English to Scottish school system

[sofiesworld]

We are considering a move when ds will be in English Y8 (s2), but ds is a May birthday so I gather would be in S1 were he in the Scottish system.

My question is do kids effectively get moved down a year in this scenario or would they move in at the equivalent year, although that will then make them a little young for their year?

Ds is a very bright boy (in top few dc in his year academically based on in school testing and SATS) so a drop of a year may not be the best thing for him. Although clearly the Scottish curriculum will be different to the English one.

Any thoughts/experiences gratefully received! My other dc wouldn't be affected as they would stay in the same year group.

[Sevendown]

A May birthday would be one of the oldest in the year in Scotland. If he’s coming up to 13 he should be in s1.

[sofiesworld]

Yes he is end of May. In England he's one of the youngest in his year so he would go down a year in Scotland.

My question is does this automatically happen or do schools consider children going in at the year above their age if they are moving from the English system?

[k2p2k2tog]

Don't get hung up on going down a year / going up a year. There are no direct equivalents as there is a 6 month overlap on intakes. A child who is currently in Year 8 might be in EITHER S1 or S2 depending on their birthday.

I know in my school there was a boy who trasnferred to us from Northern Ireland at a later stage when I was in S4. He was with an older age group mainly because he was already well into exam preparation and was doing well academically. This was 30 years ago though.


Mt personal take on it would be that any child moving to a new school and new schooling system is going to take a while to settle in and get to know the ropes. I'd want to make that as easty on them as possible by putting them with kids of their own age, even if they do find that they're repeating things they hae done already.

[sofiesworld]

Thanks yes I do agree with it being easier on him to have more time to settle and adjust to the change. That was my initial thought but then he twigged that he would basically get an extra year at school!! (Not a positive thing apparently)
And I started to worry he might find that extra year a bit easy/boring.
Lots to think about anyway.

[sofiesworld]

Another question- are English kids with southern English accents likely to have any problems being accepted at school?

[celtiethree]

But it's not one more year of school. If you count year R in England you get 14 years of formal education. In Scotland its 13 if you stay for 6th year. If your DC is academically able then he could get all of the qualifications that he needs to go to university at the end on 5th year and not stay for 6th year at all.

Admittedly he won't have the opportunity to attend a separate '6th form college' but that system doesn't exist in Scotland.

Where I am a lot of the pupils see 6th year as the year that they want to stay for - they have what they need for uni, or just need to close a few gaps (i.e not a full academic load), they can explore other subjects that they haven't been able to, there are also opportunities to take electives around sports leadership or other initiatives.

[sofiesworld]

Thank you that's really helpful- I am very ignorant of the Scottish system atm!!

[TrappedInSpace]

He won't have an extra year.

Get him to write it down on a piece of paper.

Secondary school :

S1 to S 5 plus S6 if he chooses (5 + 1 years) versus 5 + 2 years of Sixth Form in England.

Nowadays I don't know any one you n g in their year. The school ime won't be interested in prior schooling.

Accent might be tricky depending on area.

[celtiethree]

Very difficult to answer your question Sophies - I'd like to say that they would have no problem but no guarantees, I think a lot will depend on where you move to. Do you have an area in mind that you are considering?

[sofiesworld]

We are aiming for the Perth area, probably Perth itself.
Thank you

[prettybird]

If he went into S2, he would then set his Nat 5s (the equivalent of GCSEs) in 2 years time (in S4), a year ahead of his English friends. He'd sit his Highers in S5 and technically could then go to a Scottish Uni. Even if he does S6 (Advanced Highers/more Highers/Nat 5s if required ), then he'd still only have just turned 17 when he's finished school (in fact, depending given his birthday is end of May he'd still be 16 when he effectively finishes )

So emotionally and practically, given he'd be coming into slightly different subject courses, he'd be better going into the "correct" year of S1.

[sofiesworld]

Thanks prettybird it does sound like he'd be much better going in the correct year.

Do you have any thoughts on (southern) English kids faring in a Scottish School?

[prettybird]

Totally depends on the school - and the kid(s). At ds' school (in Glasgow), there are lots of kids from all over the world (55 languages spoken by pupils at the school ), so an English accent would be just one amongst many.

But his attitude (and those of his siblings) would also be important. Is he good at making friends, does he play a sport or a musical instrument?

We emigrated to NZ when I was a teenager (and then back again a couple of years later ). Yes, I got teased for my Scottish accent initially, but I quickly made friends and it was no longer an issue (although my mum did start making me repeat "Yes" until I said it without a Kiwi accent "correctly" )

[celtiethree]

I've no direct experience of Perth Schools but would think that your DC would be OK settling in.

S1 would also be a good time to start as all the other pupils will be starting high school and it would be easier for him to mix in as new friendship groups are being established.

[sofiesworld]

None of them generally have problems making friends, the eldest in particular is pretty sociable and confident and very happy go lucky. Not sporty or musical tho.

Yes good point about going into s1 would be better, although it's more likely s2 or part way through s1 given our timescales.

[sofiesworld]

I can see the new accent may be hard for me to get used to in the dc as your mum found prettybird! Kiwi vowels are particularly different too!

[wigglybeezer]

Hmm, it's not very PC of me to say this but a blunt tool for measuring how middle class a school intake is and therefore how accepting of an English accent the pupils would be is to look at the % of pupils on free school meals in the school stats. There does seem to be a tendency for parents moving from outside Scotland for work to cluster in certain school catchments (they often have a bigger housing budget to allow this).
Before I am flamed, I do not think this reflects on the quality of teaching or pastoral care in any particular school (particularly in some diverse city schools) nor how well individual children will do, but I must admit I chose to send my kids to an out of catchment school partly because to avoid them standing out for their posher than average accents, ( I did have other sensible reasons).
Fitting in socially is not essential for success at school but it does make life smoother. My three went to Kinross High, It has suited the younger two very well, particularly brainy but socially awkward DS2, however, in hindsight, DS1 would probably have been better suited to a school that catered better for the less academic child (although his personality would have made High School difficult anywhere I suspect).
I don't know much about Perth city schools apart from anecdotes that say some are better than others and DS1 used to complain that the rugby teams he played from Perth were bigger, rougher and more prone to cheating than his team but I think that may have been sour grapes!
I would also check how the curriculum is implemented in each school,
for instance, I believe that the director of Education in Perth council is keen on schools only offering 6 exam subjects in S4, this is generally unpopular with parents of academic kids as it can make studying three sciences at once difficult, for example. At the moment Kinross is still offering seven. I don't know what all the schools in PKC offer and my info might be out of date, but if it's important to you I would definitely check.
In general I don't think being from elsewhere is likely to be a big issue, Scotland is not as mono-cultural as it used to be.

[Dinosauratemydaffodils]

When my DF got posted here they made me a repeat a year of content because of my birthday (I started school six weeks after my 4th birthday at a British military school abroad). I was furious and bored stiff (teenager) as most of it was a literal word for word repeat however when I left school after sixth year I was still 17. I had unconditional acceptances after my 5th year results and could have technically left school to go to University at 16 and that would have been after being made to repeat a year. I ended up being roughly in the middle of the cohort rather than one of the youngest as I had been in the English system.

[prettybird]

The only reason I mentioned sport and music was that was possibly a short cut to making friends But most schools have plenty of other activities to choose from.

wigglybeezer - I was indeed about to take issue with you about FSMs as a proxy but then you mentioned the exception of some diverse city schools (of which ds' school is an example ), so overall I agree with you As a former pupil of Bearsden Academy, I am myself a product of schooling in a nice leafy, middle class neighbourhood (which is partly why I like ds' school as he has a much wider group of friends not that I didn't have a lovely group of friends and the school works hard for the whole cohort unlike my school back in the day which only cared for the "clever" kids like me )

[prettybird]

Dinosaurs - I presume you missed out the "1" and meant "14th" birthday - unless you were a very precocious teenager

I know what you mean by being a stroppy teenager being: I sulked for a year when we went to NZ as I had been ripped from had to leave my friends. I then made good friends and was happy - so when, a year later, my parents decided to come back (the haste was mostly because of me, as as it was, we got back 6 months before my "O" Grades), I sulked for another year - even though I went back to my old school and my old friends . Only 2nd time round I was even better at it

[sofiesworld]

Thanks wigglebeazer that's really helpful. Ds1 is very maths and sciency so that is something I really need to bear in mind by the sound of it.

I know what you mean about the FSM pointer, it is something to take into account along with everything else.

I will also try to find out more about the Perth schools although it's hard as there don't seem to be any detailed reports like you get in England. I'm not a fan of the whole ofsted thing but you do get very detailed snapshots of schools in their reports ( whether they reflect reality is another thing I guess!!)

Thanks for everyone's input - yes I think getting potentially more time at school and staying in his correct school year sounds like the best plan.

[k2p2k2tog]

Agree that the type of school will depend on how accepting the children are of "difference". My daughter is in S1 and there are two girls she's friendly with, one who has moved from South Africa and the other from the Home Counties. They both sound very "different" to the local accent but it just isn't an issue. My youngest is in a Primary class with kids from France, Brazil, Wales, Northern Ireland, England, New Zealand and goodness knows where else.

[wigglybeezer]

Sofiesworld , lack of Offsted does seem to flummox parents from the rest of the UK but you can get round it with a combo of googling the annual newspaper reports of exam results and actually, school websites often have a lot of information about exam results (and clubs, the presence of a Warhammer club was v important to DS2!).

If you want to think a few years ahead check S6 course choice information on school websites and you will see what Advanced Highers are offered by the school, some school can't offer them for the full range of subjects. Advanced Highers aren't usually needed for entry to Scottish Universities but you do need them for applying to English Unis. It's not generally a problem in larger schools though.

prettybird I put the caveat about diverse city schools in especially for you! It is true though, when you look at FSM to exam results as a ratio many schools in "nicer" areas actually seem to do less well than they should compared to some inner city schools, it makes you wonder if some school management teams are coasting?

[Clarissalarissa]

I will get bashed for this, but my experience is that Scottish schools are behind English schools. If your dc is near the top of his year in England, and will be going down a year in Scotland, he is likely to find the work very easy / repetitive of what he has already done. My dc did not have to go down a year, as old in their English year group, and still found the work easy compared with what had been doing in England. You will also find the school system in Scotland a lot more laid back - less homework, fewer tests, easy to take time out, etc.

[celtiethree]

Not going to bash you Clarissa on your view on the state of the education in Scotland (CfE has a lot to answer for) but as stated earlier the ops DC is not moving 'down' a year. The DC would be simply moving into the year that is the correct year his birthday. In this case the ops son will be one of the oldest in the year. Actually with a significant number of Jan/Feb deferrals and increasingly Dec deferrals then there could be quite a few in the school year that will be older. The OP could push for her DC to move into the year ahead but will then be more than a year younger than all and 16+ months younger than others. This age difference (in my experience) matters a lot as they move into the final years of High School.