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

I know all this, thanks Sassh. I was head of KS4. Theory and practice are quite different things. As is funding. Good luck to them finding a state school that will move him back into yr10. Anyway, that's not even necessarily going to help at this point.

Another factor to consider.

He’s missed out more schooling due to Covid than his peers in the English schools have.
England did a much better job of prioritising education than Scotland did, and got schools open again earlier.

I feel so sorry for the child.
a) he goes back a year take the pressure off
b) he stays with family for school

I agree with everyone else why did you move him at this stage was it necessary?
Had you not looked into his education and how it effected him before hand?

All that’s doesn’t matter now what’s important is you act fast take the pressure of your son.
He feels he’s a failure and he has both parents laying on the pressure . This is out of his control
but not his parents (who created it)

Tell him to do the best he can. Not to worry and you’ll support him if he wants to go to college next year to start again. You don’t expect him to perform miracles - just to try and whatever he learns with help him for next year. Depending on what he wants to do - can concentrate on maths and English, other subjects he likes and is good at. Personally I’d forget the science - tell the school it’s too much to catch up on. If he wants to go to uni - go a year back or see if can go to Scotland for school. But he must want to do this- it’s a lot of extra pressure being away from mam and dad in yr 11. Main thing is you support him and tell him he can do it next year. It’s not his fault he is on this position and apologise to him

I am glad your DS has a solution that works for him as an individual but it doesn’t change my view at a systemic level. The purpose of a national statutory curriculum is to ensure a basic level of knowledge in certain areas across the populace. I’m of the view that this should include biology, chemistry and physics in addition to literacy and numeracy.

Why did you not do your research before moving you child?

3 days later, no posts from OP, and people are still giving advice 🙄

Having had experience of both systems, and a child with dyslexia, you have set him an absolutely impossible task. I echo the advice given by others.. either he returns to Scotland, moves to another English school and joins year 10, or you withdraw him and home educate (possibly with an online school).

My parents moved from England to Wales when I was in year 11. The curriculum was so different I was overwhelmed. English and maths were the only subjects I managed. The school recognised this and suggested that I drop a year and go into year 10. I gave up on school then and missed out on A levels and university which I was on track to do. I never forgave them really. I lost all my friends at the same time, was desperately unhappy too.

Bloody hell poor kid. Unless the move really was completely unavoidable you have done an awful thing to him.

Can you enter him for Nat 5s privately and get some online tutors?

https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/education-of-children-outside-of-their-chronological-age-group/

Poor kid - he won’t even have any coursework started! In a nutshell I would suggest your options are: 1. Pay private and start at yr10 again 2. Drop all gcses bar English Maths & Dble science - get school to help with coursework and buy all the relevant revision guides and work through these together 3. Look into further education colleges where they’ll assist with maths & English gcse whilst he starts a fe course 4. Get him back to school in Scotland somehow.

Honestly, if you can I'd either ask if he can repeat year 10 or I'd remove him and pay for a tutor for a handful of GCSEs of his choice (including Maths and English Language) and sit as an external candidate and a couple of social groups a week with a view he can go on to college later.

It must be so difficult for him so I can only imagine that you moved because you absolutely had to.

I’m really sorry to hear your son is struggling with the move, it must be a massive change in school system for him when it is already really challenging to relocate. I think it’s massively unhelpful to suggest moving back to Scotland as we know nothing about your personal circumstances so that might not be possible.

I’m a teacher in Scotland so I’m and recommending things we would do for a child in this situation. Here are some ideas:

• Ask all the teachers of his new subjects to provide all the work he has missed so far electronically via whatever platform they use e.g. Google classroom/teams etc.
• Ask what support your son is entitled to due to his dyslexia, this might be a devise to use in class or extra time in his exams.
• Create a realistic plan for him after school to do some catch up work at home. This needs to be manageable chunks of time, I’d say no longer than half an hour at a time.
• Ask the school if he can be removed from core subjects e.g. RMPS and PSE and use that time to catch up in a designated supervised classroom. This would usually happen in support for learning department.
• use retrieval practice strategies such as making flashcards for his existing subjects to give him a bit of confidence and he can then use this later on for his new subjects. Kate Jones and impact wales are excellent and you can have a look on twitter for ideas.
• give him some time to settle and make friends. Once he is feeling a little more settled, you could ask if there are any lunch time or after school supported study sessions.
• depending on your finances, tutors might be appropriate for some subjects.

The school also has a responsibility to ensure your son is settling in and in the right courses and level. I wouldn’t put too much pressure on him if he is finding this challenging, it will lead to other issues and you don’t want to impact his mental health.

DS has dropped all 3. No point in sitting an exam when you don’t understand the subjects and will fail. I’d much rather DS sat an exam in a subject he is doing very well at and likely, according to predictions get an A.

Did you not check how different the curriculum was before considering moving? Moving schools within the same system at that age is bad enough!
Can he lodge with friends back in Scotland until he's done his exams?
Or start year 10 here? Don't expect he'll like that idea though.

You're right. It's a tough situation him.

I wouldn’t be focussing on gaining lots of GCSEs. Let him settle into the new school and see what’s possible. As pp said it’s more about damage control.

I don’t think moving down a year is the right thing or possible. Students who arrive into the U.K. just join the age appropriate year. And it’s sink or swim. There’ll be options at college next year. If his aim was apprenticeship then only focus on maths and English, maybe one other. If it’s A levels - colleges usually require 5.

No, not half way through a 2 year course. He's been moved into a course where he's already missed about 75%-80% of the teachable content, the remaining lessons will be building on topics already covered so will go way over his head, and the rest of the time before exams is for revision and practice.

This is like starting someone off on a 5-lap circuit race when the rest of the racers have already completed 4 circuits.

Some FE colleges run a 14-19 provision and he could access some GCSEs through that. You might need to check the exact terms for your local colleges though as some count as full time education, but others are only classed as part time and are accessed by home educating students.

It's understandable that your child feels demotivated and isn't responding well to being nagged to work. He probably feels like the mountain ahead of him is so large that it's pointless trying. He's unlikely to be giving up because he doesn't care. It's probably incredibly overwhelming for him and he knows that GCSEs/Nat5 are important for post-16.

I have heard of one - in 40 years of teaching. You are right, it has to be exceptional circumstances. You know how short of finding schools are, and how little flexibility there is. The problem is people suggesting this as if it was just a simple solution which could be done tomorrow. This is a far more complex situation.

@Maireas I’m in England and I do know of two separate cases where students have been able to repeat a year. These have been due to exceptional circumstances (think mental health issues/eating disorders). This may fall into the exceptional category if the school systems are just too difficult to allow the student to adapt/succeed.

Thank you. This keeps being suggested. It's not going to happen.

It isn’t going to be possible to drop back to year 10 in a state school due to funding. Please stop suggesting it. The only way to do this would be in a private school that was willing to admit him to the year below.

I don't stop teaching after Christmas - there's still a lot of content to get through! I usually build in revision by March.
Anyway, he's moved to a completely different system, so an urgent meeting with the headteacher would be the best bet at this stage.