Can we have ages instead of school years?

[LadyoftheMercians]

I have no idea how old a year 11 child is? And therefore no clue on of they should be allowed a phone in their room overnight.

Inspired by a thread, not necessarily a TAAT

If only someone would invent a search engine

Yup. You've got it.

Post 16/compulsory school age, you'll have Y12/Lower 6th form (from the previous way school years were denoted) and Y13/Upper 6th.

There's also the Key Stage division 1-5, but that's less relevant outside actually having to deal with them as cohorts (so at work) and pretty much nobody who isn't up to their necks in DfE funding paperwork would refer to somebody repeating a year in 6th form as being in Year 14.

I assume you have no experience of parenting a child in 1st year but would quite likely have experience of parenting a 12/13/14 year old and could potentially offer useful information about them?

You do realise that there are 3 separate education systems in the UK and they all count years differently? And that's before you account for the fact that many Mumsnetters are outside the UK.

Unless they are in Northern Ireland, in which case Y1 is the same as Reception in England and Wales. Which is the same as P1 in Scotland.

If only there was a way of unambiguously stating the age of a child...

I saw that Yr 11 thread earlier and didn't have a clue how old the child would be. Turns out they are the same age as my dd in TY. I wouldn't assume that anyone would know what TY was though the way people assume everyone knows what yr11 or whatever is. I don't think it's difficult to say my 16yr old in yr11 if the school year is so important. People in countries other than England manage to contribute without having to specify what their kids school year is.

Google tells me that's a transition year that can be taken in between the end of secondary (in English terms) and starting what we'd refer to as 6th form.

Cool. So they're probably 16 and won't have started the rough equivalents of English A level study yet, but have completed what is roughly comparable to GCSEs the previous year.

Took all of about ten seconds to open up a tab and type TY class Ireland to get an explanation that's good enough for the purposes of one post, I'm not going to forget it, so I'll know in future. And if somebody says their kid is in Senior Cycle or has started studying for the leaving certificate, they're probably going to be 17 or 16 if they didn't do a TY.

It’s very English centric and I never have a clue what age people are on about.

Again very English centric and of no help to those with other education systems.

How do you work that out?

I've never seen P1 or S1 mentioned other than in Scotsnet.

Not everywhere in Northern Ireland year 7 is the last year of primary school. I also think Scotland is the same. So year 8 is the first year of secondary school.

A lot of countries may do that but a lot don’t and ages are not the same per class in some countries.
if I said a 6th class child (Ireland)- said child could be 11,12 or 13 depending on when they started.

It's funny how cross so many people replying are to the idea that not everyone knows how old a year 11 child is. It was a pretty simple ask to give an age I thought, but it's interesting how resistant people are.

If it was truly irrelevant, then sure I guess people should just say the age. But school year is often more relevant than just age. I’d have different expectations of an 11 year old in Y7 compared to one in Y6. Or a 4 year old in school vs one in nursery. If I have a question about my child, I’m comparing him to his direct peers who are his school classmates. I don’t care if another 10 year old can do X if they’re the school year above.

If you have kids in school, you’ll know what the school years mean. If you don’t, do you really have a valuable opinion to add to a discussion that is probably school/child development related?

If you have experience in a system that uses different names for the years, it’s not rocket science to work out. And again, do you have the cultural context to be offering a useful opinion? Your 10 year old in one country isn’t relevant to cultural expectations of a 10 year old in another.

A 16yo could be at school, working, at college, doing an apprenticeship, joining the Army... there's a massive range of 16yos in England.
In Scotland couldn't they technically be starting University?

How you would treat a school kid is completely different how you would treat one who was working.

But yes, most of the time age is mor important.

I’m Australian but I’ve been on MN a few years now plus DH is English so he translates things for me.

Although I know in my head that yr 11 is GCSE year and they are mostly 15 I still find myself thinking that they’re older because my kids were 16 turning 17 in yr 11. But on the other hand there are no high stakes exams in yr 11 here so it’s a more relaxed year than in the UK.

So for ‘social’ questions like drinking, parties, relationships then age is probably more useful. For school questions then the year they’re in is more relevant than their age.

But School is not the only thing that Shapes our children…and going by your last sentence then what’s the point of even asking the question? If a 10 year-old expectations in one country isn’t relevant to the expectations of a 10-year-old in another country then why ask as wouldn’t it vary from household to household?

@AgnesMcDoo

I started with the baseline of assuming the OP meant the English system as the thread they referred to in their first post was based on the English system.

I appreciate that all posters on this thread may not have seen the post about phones that inspired this question in the first place however .

As it’s September a year 11 child is more likely to be 15 than 16.

The year group is relevant because year 11 is an exam year (GCSEs) and year 12 isn’t (first year A-levels) so confiscating a phone from a year 11 could have very different consequences to a year 12 who is probably treated more like an adult at school in preparation for uni.

I know what S5 means - 5th year secondary so about age 15/16 and I know that P1 is the first year of school of primary. I can’t comment on Highers etc and never have.

Exactly what I was thinking! There are lots of things I find bewildering on MN (actually in life!)

If I'm interested enough I Google for the answer

If I'm not interested enough I ignore the subject and move on

I think aiming to change how everyone posts on MN is ambitious and pretty arrogant 😊

@whimsicallyprickly indeed. There was outrage this week (and a completely derailed thread) on Telly addicts this week as a regular poster puts the TV programme’s title in capitals 😂.

Meh, it's a public forum, people write how they write. I often skip threads because they have some form of abbreviation I don't know. Can't be bothered to look it up so I scroll on by. You're not obliged to comment, some threads won't be for you. And as pp have said, if you don't know what they mean, maybe they can manage without your input. And I suggest never venturing onto the private school threads. They're awash with abbreviations for schools that nobody else can figure out

Mumsnet is like spy code sometimes.
"My DS in Year 11"....why can't people just write "My son age 15" ?

It is very England centric.

i wouldn’t come on here and write about my youngest who’s in troisième and my oldest who’s in terminale and expect everyone to know what age they are … or my youngest who’s in third year and my oldest who’s in sixth year… out my youngest who’s in 9th grade / his sophomore year and my oldest who’s in 12th grade / his senior year.

most posts aren’t interesting enough to stop and Google part way through. But I’d probably read them if they had the child’s age.