To want to reiterate that 'yes' it's August and 'yes' Scottish schools are back

[MammyV]

Honestly on every post on here which mentions a child being in school at the moment, someone, at least one poster states 'are you abroad or something' or 'why are your kids in school it's only august?'
Please please understand that most Scottish schools commence back after summer from around the 15th August, we are not abroad, we are in the Uk (at the moment anyway) and I am fully aware of the English/Welsh holidays as its blasted a cross the BBC enough, just irritates me with some of the comments
(Will get off my Scottish high horse now)
Thanks xxx

MrsJayy she was probably similarly offended by Halloween.

Ah, makes sense, my secondary school was in a place called Kineton in rural Warwickshire, called Kineton High school had the 6th form. Before we moved from Scotland, the high school was called that, in fact I think most were, name of place/high school.

My daughter's secondary school was called a community college, which I believe is something different on America

My school (in England) was a high school and is now an academy! Round here they are all village colleges. We started the holidays a week earlier and are going back the week before BIL in North Yorkshire. I like regional differences and no, I'm not referring to Scotland as a region.

Until about 20 years ago in N Ireland we mostly had 'high schools' which were non grammar and went from 1st year to 5th year. And grammar schools which did all 7 years and went right up to A level. If you did well at high school and wanted to do A levels you either went to 'the tech' (Technical College, which are now F E collleges) or transferred to a grammar school.

Anything called an academy was, I think, always a grammar school. But confusingly, some schools that were called 'X High' were grammar schools as well. Eg in one town I can think of 'X High' is the grammar school, and 'X Secondary' is the high school.

But actually now I think all the 'high' schools go right up to A level so mostly people just go to either a high school or a grammar school after primary and stay there until they have finished A levels.

Thanks for the explanation of the NI system treaclesoda . I never find much about it on the TES but then I am looking for resources mostly!

Tbh I was just amused at how properly angry she got.

Where Dh lived the schools were Acadamies think the council just wanted to be seen as upmarket 😂

Scottish school names must be very confusing to non Scottish residents as none of them really mean anything. There are loads of academies and high schools. My son was at George Watson's College , to give it its full name, from junior nursery, but it's not a college in any sense used in England.

I love the Scottish school names. My dd's primary sounds ridiculously posh but it's just our bog standard local primary

Do other people in Scotland not have attendance targets? I read so much on here about having to beg for days off for holidays and such that I just assumed it was the way but dd's school don't give a toss as long as you let them know. You certainly don't need to get permission.

There are quite a lot of schools here called 'The XXXX Memorial Primary School' which I always think is quite nice.

Here college and university are they same thing, pretty much. There probably is a difference but most people wouldn't know what it was.

I work with Schools all over Scotland and naming is definitely an area thing. All the secondary schools in our LEA are either X Academy or X Grammar and are all normal S1-S6 secondary schools and the private schools are all X School very confusing I guess to folks not familiar with the Scottish system. Other LEA's have X High School as standard , Community Schools have both primary and secondary pupils. Junior High Schools are usually Island schools and take pupils up to S2 so that the kids don't have to travel to the mainland for school until they are a bit older. Some schools are called X College even though they are a school.
I just try it to think about it too hard or I would be even more confused than I already am🤔

I'm in Scotland and I went to X Public School - my local council-run primary. I went to 2 different secondaries: one was X High School one was X Academy. All council run. The Academy was selective though.

The date for leaving as a summer leaver is 30th September. So if you are 15 when you finish your exams but 16 before 30th sept then you can leave. If you are 16 after that you must stay in full time education until Christmas. That could be college though.

Historically Scottish high schools went up to s4 but academies went to s6.

We do have attendance monitoring but not targets. Holidays during term time are never marked authorised so will impact on child's attendance. Eventually if it was very significant a concern may be raised but we have no structure of fining

Euphemia are you on the virgin flight from Glasgow on the first Saturday or Sunday of the holidays with the rest of Scotland? My parents are taking my DC that fortnight too and know loads of other people going that weekend too!

No September holiday in Dundee but there is a few days in November

How can Reception be more like nursery?

Reception, has one teacher & assistant
Nursery, has ratios of 1:8
Reception, kids are expected to be independent, going to toilet, changed for PE
Nursery, as much help as required, no PE
Reception, compulsory (ok depending when birthday lands)
Nursery, not compulsory.
Reception, start learning to read & homework
Nursery, no homework.
Reception, full days 9.00-3.00
Nursery, half days 9-12 (unless you are paying private)

Reception may well be less formal than Scot P1, on average kids are 6mths younger. But really it has to be closer to P1 than Nursery.

R=P1
Y1=P2
Y2=P3
Y3=P4
Which ties to Purples DC going from P4 to Y3.

I was going to post earlier and I see the thread has moved on since then.
Re the differences in summer holidays. There used to be far more regional variations within England, especially in the north where towns still stuck to the traditional Wakes Weeks. Thirty years ago my DC had to wait two or three weeks for school holiday TV until schools had broken up in London and the south.
Our local holidays began the second week of July. In Bolton the schools used to have the first two weeks of July off, go back for two weeks and then have another four weeks!

And to complicate matters further, one of the largest private secondaries in this area is called The High School of Glasgow.

I don't get why people are still arguing over whether reception is more like P1 or nursery - the systems are completely different so just embrace the differences and don't try to compare.

Scottish Pre school Nursery classes/ schools have a teacher with keyworkers attached , children are expected to be independent know how to put on jackets go tothe toilet etc it kinda is similar

Scottish Pre school Nursery classes/ schools have a teacher with keyworkers attached

Yes - and when mine were in their pre-school year in Scotland they were starting to do things like writing their names, counting and basic adding or taking away, lots of word recognition etc etc.

No wonder there is stressed out reception parents on mumsnet if 4yrold are expected to formally read and write and do key stages they are 4yrs old

Yes they do do letters and numbers here but reception sounds by what i have read formal education

Really thetrouble my info was way out of date then are they doing the childcare and education now rather than infant teachers?

I grew up in England but it used to go and stay with my grandma in Scotland for two weeks of our summer holidays and depending on when we went the Scottish schools would have gone back and if they had we would get asked asked why we weren't at school.