American/Canadian children starting school in the UK

[Subutteo]

Hi, my son was born and raised in Canada. We have just moved back to the UK. He will be starting school in Year 2 but I am worried he is going to be far behind the other children in nearly everything because in Canada, they don't start school until they're 5 1/2, and they hadn't even started reading or writing when we left at the end of the first school year. Does anyone else have experience of this? Did your child manage to catch up?

It will be a shock as British children are ahead in the early days. And school uniform is strange as well.

But they catch up quickly. Could you find a tutor for some of the Summer?

My daughter is going into Y2 and is already reading Y2 books and is good at maths (basic times tables etc). There are two classes in her year with the second class being younger/needing more support. Do you have similar in the school where he's starting? I agree with above that a tutor might help, also ask what books they are reading so you can buy some early stage ones?

I'm just curious where in Canada you are from?

I'm in Toronto and junior kindergarten starts at 4.

Just a thought, but perhaps see if the school can help as well, they might have some ready made cards (our school used "special friends" a lot and we were sent home with lots of things to support with this), perhaps they might lend them to you from reception or Y1?

When's his birthday? If born between April 1 and August 31 you can ask for him to be deferred and start school in the year below. So he would be starting in Year 1 instead of Year 2.

I was in the same position at your son’s age.

I caught up quickly.

I’m sure he’ll be fine. There are kids of all abilities in each year and he will get some extra support as needed. We have a boy from Ukraine who started just a bit older than that at the start of the war. He didn’t speak any English and teachers could only communicate with him through google translate! He seems to be doing fine enough now, even with all the obvious trauma he’s been through.

When we moved back to the UK, DD started Yr2 with some other new pupils that didn't even speak English. (She had actually been in a British school abroad). The school coped with teaching them spoken English as well as reading and writing.

You can get ahead of this by starting phonics... you can make a lot of progress 1-1. But he will likely soon catch up.