Aibu to think that the Scottish education system is far superior to the English one?

[Margerykemp]

What I see on the news and here about GCSEs and it sounds crazy!
-different exam boards
-modular exams
-sitting exams in different years
-inflexible attitude to deferring entry
-no automatic entry to local school
-league tables
-some courses being 'worth' numerous GCSEs
-going to secondary at 10/11 rather than 11/12
-church schools
-academies
-different systems in different regions
-local authorities not having enough places for all their residents
-a high proportion of private schools, with eye watering fees
-schools making kids do 'Micky mouse subjects' to get them up the league tables
-a ' choice' system which favours pushy middle class parents

• lottery placements

-too big a jump from GCSEs to a level -too few a levels taken -not knowing a level results before applying to uni -Michael Gove being in charge!

I don't know how you all put up with it!

I think YANBU.

Are you in Scotland?

YANBU (yes I'm in Scotland!)

And can we add in not starting school till at least age 4.5

I don't know a massive amount about the Scottish system but am learning as my nephews have just started p1 this year.
From what I hear though YANBU. I'm almost thinking about applying for jobs in Scottish schools (I teach secondary and live in the borders so some Scottish schools are actually closer than the school I am currently at)

Yabu, cos the curriculum for excellence is actually a curriculum for mediocrity

YANBU.
I'm English, but had DD here in Scotland.
It's worth it for the later entry alone.
She'll be 11 on 28th August, and in England would be going to Secondary, which she's just not ready for, here she has just started P7.
I also moved her school with no question, because I'd moved into catchment, they had to take her (and I'm halfway between two, less than 10 minutes walk away).
She got two full years of pre 5 too.

As someone who works in early years in Scotland I'm not convinced about the new exams which are being written by staff, then marked by staff hence why secondaries have an extra 2 in service days. Only the higher national 5 are being written and marked by the SQA.

Later entry and catchment areas are the two things that bother me most about the English system.

And the 11 plus. I genuinely believe I would move house rather than put my DCs through that.

Scotland has the highest percentage of children going on to negative destinations of anywhere in the uk, and is actually worse in this regard than many eastern European countries and Mexico. Having experience both systems I would say Yabu.

I am English educating my DC in Scotlsnd and have to admit to a sigh of relief everytkme I read mumsnet threads about catchment areas, exam results and Michael Gove.

It isn't perfect though. In DDs schools there just aren't the facilities I had at my state primary and comp in SE England. At my comp we had massive playing fields, tennis court, screen printing studio, pottery and kiln, smallholdjbg with goats, huge science labs, huge drama studios with lighting rigs efc etc
You find the buildings and infrastructure are pretty poor. At DDs primary they just go swimming in Y7, music classes are non existent unless you have auditioned and been picked ( thus stopping children from disadvantaged backgrounds from participating)

But as far as the three R's go - it seems fine.

What are 'negative destinations'???

They become a 'NEET'. Ie a young person not in education, employment or training. There are currently about 6000 of them in Edinburgh at the moment aged 16 and 17.

Ah, well that's not really the education systems fault.

The schools can't provide further training and employment that isn't there, and not everyone is cut our for going on to study for highers.

Sorry, I mean not necessarily the education systems fault!

Scot Gov figures say there were 36,000 more choices, more chances (the new name for NEET) 16-19 year olds across Scotland in 2011. 6000 16 and 17s for Edinburgh alone seems high to me.

If Edinburgh has a disproportionately high level of mcmc young folk when simd positions are taken into account, perhaps something is amiss with the schooling system in Edinburgh? Maybe the proportion of children attending private school is having a less than positive effect? Although I can't imagine why this would be the case.

No, but a lot are leaving school virtually unemployable with appalling literacy and numeracy. The education system must play some part.

It is high in Edinburgh, but then it is a city and there are large pockets of social deprivation.

guess there must be some advantage to being scottish

Arf @ jollyhockeystick schools in Edinburgh are filled with excellent teachers who are fighting against decrepit schools, cuts, lack of facilities and a curriculum which appears to be made up as they go along

I think that something in the region of 20% of 16-19yo kids here are NEET. Many of them, as scarlett says, are practically unemployable because they are practically illiterate and innumerate. That is a failure of, if not the education system, most certainly the schools in this area, most of which perform at less than 50% of the national average.

It's also, tbh, a failure of the whole system because many youngsters here have extremely chaotic lives, families in 3rd or 4th generation long-term unemployment, chronic deprivation and all that brings. My area is at the very top of Scotland's multiple deprivation index with 1 in four people living in a deprived area. So it's not just the schools that are at fault.

That aside, I do think that our system is better than the one on England, although I know nothing about ACE because my kids have been HE for the last 8 years after we were repeatedly let down by the school and the LA with regard to my kids' ASN.

The problem of neets is a problem of child poverty not the education system.

The educations system is universal. Neets are almost always confined to deprived areas.