Year 11 Child moved from Scotland to England and content to learn overwhelming - son doesn't want to even try

What a nightmare for your son. Best option would be to finish in Scotland and failing that, see if he can start in y10 so he can get the full GCSE years in.

He needs to be moved to tear 10 but you should not have moved and should have at least left your son with family or a very close friend.

My son was quite decent at science, but after doing two in S3 he decided only to do one in S4/Nat 5 level. He would have done fairly well in any of the sciences I think, but there were other subjects he enjoyed more/was better at/was predicted a very good grade in (and he did end up enjoying and getting a good very good grade, and is now doing Higher). If DS has exams to come, good luck to him, April comes round far too soon imho! 🙂

'The equivalent of year 11' is quite meaningless to many Scottish people too though.

Unhelpful. I'm sure they had reasons and it wasn't on a whim 🤦🏼‍♀️

We haven't provided a solution that's workable for @Stressbucket1973 perhaps

Switching schools in year 11 is a terrible move, especially to one with a different curriculum. Honestly I'd see if he can move back to Scotland, and stay with family to finish it off. Otherwise he's wasted all his school years, only to fail everything. If it's not possible to return him to Scottish education, I'd get him a private tutor and make sure he focuses on maths, English and science and forget everything else. Then he can apply for an nvq/apprenticeship after school.

Scottish students don't have to do any sciences at Nat 5 level, they don't even have to do them in S3 if they don't want to/struggle with them! They also don't have to do a language past S3. Most schools will encourage able pupils to do at least one science at Nat 5 (and ideally as many as possible to S3). Language encouragement varies, as do the actual languages. They do have to do Maths and English - for Maths the more able pupils sit Nat 5 Mathematics in S4, the less able will do Nat 5 Applications of Maths or even Nat 4 Maths. If you don't attain Nat 5 Maths by the end of S4 (so have Applications or Nat 4 or nothing) you are encouraged to keep studying Maths with the idea of attaining a Maths qualification (ideally Nat 5 Mathematics) before finishing S5/6! They are not forced to do Higher Maths, but anyone who wants to go to Uni is encouraged to do Nat 5 English in S4 and Higher English in S5/6.

Not everyone knows the Scottish school years but obviously everyone means the equivalent of year 11 - or whatever year he would have been in Scotland had he not changed schools.

I would try and get the school to put him back to year 10. Give him more time and a chance to settle before the ‘end’ ie exams.
i think some pp’s are being harsh.. sometimes life requires us to adapt in situations that aren’t ideal and I think he could be ok if he has more time to settle and reset. I’d try and relieve some pressure aswell and just focus on rebuilding friends and routine and settling in for a few months. Best of luck xxx

Which system do you suggest they both adopt?

Why is everyone talking about 'finishing Year 11 in Scotland' - there IS no year 11 in Scotland, secondary school is S1 to S4, and if he was at Nat 5 stage then presumably was in S4.

But is it a funding issue? How does it cost more to have a child in one year rather than the other?

I do think though Scotland appears to have a more flexible approach to this in general - deferral is common practice and widely accepted, we don't have "sixth form" as a concept so kids stay on at school as long as they want to be there, I know of a couple of kids whose parents chose not to defer them and realised a year later they'd made a mistake so agreed that they would repeat a year when they were 7 or 8. DS is 15 and has a child in his year who arrived about 18 months ago from Ukraine, that child is 16 already and "should" be in the year above but it was decided that he'd be better off with a younger group. It just seems that parents, teachers, head teachers have much more flexibility.

None of that helps the OP though. There are not online schools teaching Nat5s in the same way as there are for GCSE. The only one I know of is https://scholar.hw.ac.uk/ and even then, the boy would have to find a school/college where he could sit the exams as a private or external candidate.

You're right, there's no flexibility. Funding is cut to the bone. I think often people don't realise just how tight it is.

OK, if you want to be pedantic it is very unlikely that a state school will allow him to repeat the academic year from age 14 to 15. I’m not saying it’s fair but I’m afraid it is the reality of the situation. It would be the same for an international student too.

How ridiculously inflexible then.

If going back a year is really not an option, then the only option is to concentrate solely on English and Maths and write this year off, making plans for next academic year.

It doesn't even happen for non English speaking refigees, @Stroopwaffels , never mind someone from another place in the UK. Sadly.

My thoughts exactly!

It is very unlikely that a state school will allow the student to repeat year 10.

But @YippieKayakOtherBuckets he's not repeating year 10, he is a student who has moved from an entirely different system with different intakes and cut offs, who hasn't done "year 10". He's done third year in Scotland which is different.

All the "just go back to Scotland" - yes obviously that would be the ideal, but there are many reasons why that wouldn't be practical. Many families wouldn't be able to stretch to the expense of running two houses for a start. Or family don't have space to accommodate extra people, even if they lived close to the area the family moved from.

I don't know much about the relative difficulties of GCSE and Nat5 but I do know that they are entirely different. I have a 15 year old who will be doing Nat 5s in April/May and in subjects like history, english, modern studies (which doesn't exist in the English system) the content is about a third Scottish related, a third UK related, a third international. Moving to a GCSE system would mean learning new set texts for English and studying whole new topics for things like history. And that's before he even tries to pick up loads of extra teaching in science.

I think the best solution would be to drop back a year which will give him two years to prepare for these exams. If that's not practical, concentrate on the very basics in English and Maths and start making plans for this time next year in terms of A-levels or college or whatever his long term goals are, do what he needs to do to secure that next step and no more. There is no point in putting him through "triple science" if all he wants to do is join the police or be a joiner.

I assume you have a very valid reason for such a drastic move. All you can do is reiterate to him why you had to move and possibly beg the school to move him into year 10.

There are a lot of myths on this thread.

It is very unlikely that a state school will allow the student to repeat year 10.

Schools should not be teaching significant amounts of GCSE content in year 9. This used to be common practice but it has changed in recent years. This doesn’t change the fact that he has an impossible amount of content to try and cover even without a learning difficulty like dyslexia.

If a temporary move back to Scotland to stay y with family and complete Nat 5 is impossible then I would look seriously into flexi or home schooling with a tutor who is familiar with the Scottish curriculum, and finding a centre in Scotland willing to enter him as a private candidate.

He has no chance of achieving his potential. But if you are very strategic and focus only on 5 subjects, he could potentially have some options post GCSE. Definitely focus on Eng and Maths. What other subjects does he have some aptitude for? Also, can you get him a tutor? And can he change to do triple science and essentially ignore Bio and Chem and focus just on physics? And before any of that is possible you're going to need to try to convince him this is worth a shot. I think I'd say to him that you totally understand how he feels. It was the worst time to move him. He is most definitely not stupid etc

This was madness. He is dyslexic too, there is no way on Gods Earth that he can do extra work to squeeze years of learning into one year with a learning disability that severely limits how much reading he can do in a day. He is correct that he will fail, you have set him up to fail. He is not correct that he is ‘thick’ perhaps that is a message he has internalised by you insisting all he needs to do is study and hey presto! He can self teach an entire year (or two) of coursework between now and November. No child could do it.

My advice is to drop him to Year 10. GCSEs are typically a two year course, although some schools run them as 3yr courses starting in year 9. But there is no way he can succeed if he stays in Year 11.

Y10 or a load of tutoring