To wonder if differences between Scotland and rUK are generally known?

[weescotlass]

I see lots of posts about UK and British issues, that seem to refer to England only.

Is it generally understood that Scotland was a separate country pre 1707 and already had its own legal and education system in place, which were retained on the creation of the United Kingdom?

Therefore house buying, school exams, wills, divorce, university degrees, criminal law, policing etc have real distinct differences.

Are people who use the term UK not aware of the differences when refering/advising on something that affects England only?

Genuinely interested and not meaning to cause an argument. I find the differences really interesting, things like inheritance law when people ask about wills, or issues when a buyer pulls out of buying a house. I don't want to comment on new/current controversial legislation!

It's 10pm cut off for supermarket booze too - so in some of the big supermarkets which are open 24/7 they have those retractable barriers across the end of the aisles which get closed off.

AFAIK the rules are even wilder in N Ireland, booze aisles there as I remember have metal gates, and you can't buy any booze until gone lunchtime on a Sunday, presumably because everyone should be at church and not in Tesco.

you can't buy alcohol before 10am in Scotland it's 10-10 in supermarkets/shops. .

I’m Scottish but used to work in estate agency in an area very popular with English buyers so I’m pretty familiar with the differences in laws as I regularly handled transactions with an English sale and Scottish purchase - the amount English professionals who have no idea there is any difference is worrying! I’m including agents, financial advisors and even mortgage companies here, people who are incredibly important in the transaction.

The education system is where I get confused. So many posts talk about their child on year 3 etc I have no idea if that means your kid is 6 or 12 and if it’s the first year of school why isn’t reception called year 1? The idea of kids being sent home for the wrong uniform, even down to the wrong socks, is also insane to me. While schools here have uniform policy it’s pretty relaxed, so at my kids own school you can wear a branded polo shirt, a supermarket polo shirt in the right colour, a white polo shirt or a shirt and tie. As a result most kids are in some form of uniform. As long as the child turns up they don’t really care what they are wearing (unless it’s a football shirt because I’m in the part of Scotland that still has orange marches and issues with sectarianism).

@Mrsjayy

Easter Monday Is a school holiday where I live I think it is a rare school that would be at school on Easter Monday

My kids are at school most years on Easter Monday.

Unless Easter is during the Easter holidays which it's often not.

That's Fife.

84% of the UK population live in England. So it’s an understandable shorthand to assume that’s the most likely place a poster on mumsnet lives. In the same way I assume posts on mumsnet are by a woman, unless the poster explicitly states otherwise.

Was it the same poster who.insisted that Halloween had never been celebrated in England until the last few years ?
Despite not being English herself and only living
in England during her University year,s ?
Tbf though half term varies even in the same LEA,s sometimes.

No, if I'm honest my brain goes UK = the way we do things in England, and I assume things in Scotland/Wales/Ireland work much the same. I don't think of them as separate countries, or think of them much at all tbh. It's absolutely ignorance.

I was very surprised to find out that in ROI they have to pay to visit the doctor.

The republic of Ireland is a completely separate country to the uk.

@Potaytocrisps

I love outwith and use it pretty much daily at work.

It was only through Mumsnet that I found out it wasn't used throughout the UK

That may be true of the south but its certainly not the case the further north you go.

Many of us in the north are a mix of Scots and English, aware of the legal differences and rub along perfectly fine.

No you can't buy a pint at 9am.

It's not common out with Scotland! 😁

It is indeed a great word.

I am in Scotland, I always assume anything school/legal wise is referring to England unless specifically mentioned or it is clear it is otherwise - for example mention of Scottish NAT5 exams.

Are you mixing up Northern Ireland and Ireland(aka ROI)?

Or the extra tax we pay in order to fund the “freebies”😡

Well that's a massive generalisation I assume you haven't spoken to every single English person🙄

Dundee’s the same, generally working on local public holidays” rather than the national “bank holidays”

I think its normal to assume your experience is universal unless something happens to cause you to believe it is not. We will all do it in ways we do not recognise. And you see it on here all the time, across all areas of life.

I lived in England till I was 18 and then lived in Scotland for 25 years. When I moved back to another part of the UK after 25 years, it was only then that I realised a lot of words and terms I had got used to using, were Scottish ones, not English.

Regarding the Scottish education system is high school only four years compared to five years in the rest of the UK ?
Yes i know there are ( or were I dont know if its changed ) Highers that are roughly equivalent to A levels but i assume that not all.kids sit them just like not all kids sit A levels ?

Just like there were things I assumed were Scottish, but later realised were particular to the part of Scotland I lived in.

It’s generally 6, although kids can leave (depending on their birthday) after 4 or 5.
Where A levels are over 2 years, Highers are a year, followed by another year for Advanced Highers.
We don’t have 6th form colleges, they generally stay at the same school for the 5 or 6 years

High school is 4, 5 or 6 years. There are no 6th form colleges.

Pupils sit Nat 5s in S4 (roughly equivalent to GCSEs) then usually 5 Highers in S5 and either more Highers or Advanced Highers in S6. There's no A Level equivalent.

Pupils can go straight to Uni at the end of S5 if they have good enough higher results, some are still only 16 - although I think this is not very common now.

Honours degrees are 4 years in Scotland.

What about the less academic kids ?
My son isn't academic and he goes to college that offers all kinds of courses .

We have those too…in fact it’s got a lot better in recent years with whoever decides these things realising that university isn’t the be all and end all,

@Marynotsocontrary in first reference I mean N Ireland.

But when I say about not realising you'd have to pay to see a doc in ROI, I just hadn't really thought of ROI as a distinctly different country with no NHS etc.

Appreciate that sounds awful, but to the point of the thread just being honest about not really thinking about it being different in the way I would think of France/Germany/etc being a different country.