Has anyone returned to the UK from US ,or anywhere else they start school later ?

[doley]

We are returning to the UK in 2011 ,having been in the US for what will have been 6 years !

My boys will be 13 & 8 -I am mainly concerned about my 8 year old as he will have to skip 2 year groups as he has an August birthday :(

Right now he reads at an 11 year old level ,but I imagine everything else he will struggle with ,he just started Kindergarten last year !

I hear it is virtually impossible to hold a child back in the UK :(

What help can he get in a UK classroom ,I don't want him branded slow KWIM ?
At the moment he is an A student in all subjects ,I know however the curriculum is very different ...?

Anyone ...?
Thank you

A boy in my son's Year 2 class is chronologically Year 3 but was held back a year when he returned from the US. However, this is a private school as his mum found that no state school would even consider it. I believe that the final aim is to get him into his correct year group but that will happen over time.

Ragged -- don't worry about your DC going backwards in California. Having seen the US system up close, I really think most of the effort put into early (too early) formal efforts to teach elsewhere are a complete waste of time and in fact misguided from an emotional growth pov.

Doley Come armed with standardised test scores and explanations of the curriculum and skills tested there are misperceptions about the US system that could work against you otherwise. Maybe the school could administer a few tests for you given the circumstances?

I think the youth culture difference that Giveitago mentioned might be more of a culture shock for your older DS.

French is easy to pick up after Spanish (obv with some effort required) if your older DS has been doing it for a while, or even if he's just taking it up for a little bit of junior high before starting French in the UK.

Our children didn't have any problems transferring to the UK.

The older two, going into Y7 and Y5 at the time, slotted in well to a prep school that was used to a diverse student body. They went onto a selective senior school, and DS1 is now at a top-ranked university.

My third child went from a non-teaching kindergarten into Year 2. She was a non-reader, but was on the top table by the October half-term, and is now a scholar in an independent school.

My advice is not to worry about it too much.

amerryscott ...Thanks so much, your story gives me faith in our goals when we return .

My boys are doing well here ,so( fingers crossed) with a positive attitude they will be fine :)

Something that cheered me up this week ,I found a mock -up of an A-level in IT .

In an earlier post I mentioned that my eldest son devours all things computer ...anyway he had no problem understanding it and he has just turned 12 .

I think if all else fails he can take GCSE & A levels in IT and then go to work lol !

Thank you all to everyone who has contributed to my post ,they have all been a big help .

I can relate to your stress. We moved from overseas and my DD has missed 6 months of year one and on top of this the difference in what she has been taught.

Now what is good about the system over here is that there are many ways to find out what your kids know, where the gaps are etc. I really worked on my DD's reading before moving and I think that has helped her no end. She's yr 2 and reading ort level 10 which I believe to be a fairly decent level but not genius. It's enough that she can access lots of thing independently now.

We've joined mathswhizz which I really like. She is getting access to some of the stuff, maths language that I know she has never come across. The most obvious difference I think is her writing and spelling having not had that intense learning. I do believe over the next year that will improve. She's certainly holding her own which is the main thing.

Good luck with the move. Merry Christmas

Thank you PoppetUK .

It sounds like your daughter is catching up very quickly and that must be a relief for you :)

I will have a look at that website you recommended !

My eldest left in the November of his year2 in the UK ,the spellings were quite challenging compared to here in the US I remember .

I think the countries that start the kids later are on to something though ,all DS12's friends are totally literate and maths savvy ,having done nothing really until 7.

Oh well ,at least we will be home lol !

Merry Christmas to you too :)

hi all, we are potentially moving to Seattle later this year from the UK.

DD1 is in y2 and the top of her year group (reading the complete harry potter box set for example)

DD2 is in reception and doing well with her reading, knows all the sounds and blending words competently.

My question is how ahead are they going to be entering the US system? DD1 is already well ahead but is in an excellent 90 children per year group state primary where the work is well differentiated and challenges her.

Will DD2 even be going to school? (she is 5.4)

thank you.

What are their birthdays (day and month)?
I think you'll find they're doing work about the same difficulty, what they need to do, anyway.

Some reqs here about WA state school entry. I have a strong feeling those changed recently, though, and you'll have to check with age guides for your Yr2 child if they have an autumn birthday. I know my friend's DD (they live in Seattle area) was right at the very youngest end of the age entry cutoff with a late October birthday, and that was for starting school in 2007.
I think you might find the immunization regs more onerous than anything to do with whether your DC are stretched well enough.

thanks - DD1 is february birthday, DD2 is october.
i'll take a look on the link.
they've had all the UK imms, plus have had chicken pox so hopefully won't need any more?! an interesting point though.

Some interesting comments on here.

We have children that join our school from other schools that didnt start til age 7 and whilst initially they might be behind on something, within a short period of time they catch up.

It all depends on the child and their own natural abilities.

We are in the same situation as you and I have spent a lot of time trying to check where my kids are based on the UK curriculum. (There have been some fantastic help from teachers on here!)

We now use Whizz Maths and this has been great for identifying weaknesses and for teaching the UK method of how kids are taught maths. Its based on the UK Primary Framework and covers every single aspect of it (although when you use the programme you are not actually aware of it). If you do use it, its best to say you are not good at maths, and start the levels low, so that you work through the whole breadth of the curriculum and dont miss out some of the basic steps. It means it will take longer to get over the stuff they do know, but it will teach or revise all the strategies they need to know.

Most of what they miss out on is the history/geography/other topics that are covered. The basics of maths and literacy are taught at different levels even within one class because of childrens skills and abilities but I expect the content is similar all over the world.

I dont think your children will have any problems

Good luck

"Will DD2 even be going to school? (she is 5.4)"

I think that makes her eligible for (optional) kindergarten, probably half-day.

In fact, school will be optional for both of your children. Compulsory education begins at age eight in Washington State.

what???! age 8?
DD1 has done nearly 3 years of formal school and 2 years of pre-school, she's not even 7 yet.

i guess if they don't settle in school then they won't have to go...

so when and where do children learn to read? in kindergarten? there must be an absolutely HUGE range of abilities at school age 8.

See comments in previous parts of this thread about how kids learn faster when they start later, anyway.

The expectations for kindergarten are much higher than in English reception ( look at these guidelines, they mention kindy-starters should already know to read and mostly write their letters and numbers), Kindergarten is more like Yr1 than like Reception.

There is probably some kind of local discussion board, in greater Seattle area, for parents (like Las Madres in the Silicon Valley in California), and you could check on local views and academic expectations by asking around there. You could ask around an American board, like parenting.com/ivillage boards/Mothering.com, in the local/state sections, about how to find out about where to live, best schools, etc.

thanks peanutbutterkid, i can imagine that they learn faster starting later, half the kids in DD2s reception class are knackered, including her and she is one of the oldest.

anyway, my concern is more about DD1, if she ends up in a class of kids who are years behind her she will go insane. guess i will just have to see how it goes and keep an eye.

Are autumn babies the eldest in the year like in the UK or is it based on calendar year?

Thanks

"Are autumn babies the eldest in the year like in the UK or is it based on calendar year?"

I don't know that one off the top of my head, but I'm sure you could google for it. Every state is different, and a few states even have regional differences within the state!

There is rather more flexibility in the US than in the UK to place children away from their age peers, but it depends on the area as to how much that is encouraged in practice.

"Science is NOT done at all in Primary school in Australia. The maths is at a different level to the UK and the delivery of English is dismal."

Actually, all this is crap. I'm assuming your kids went to a crap school, because I did science throughout primary school in Australia, so did all my sisters and brother and so do their kids. And Australian school pupils FAR outperform UK pupils in English and Maths in the OECD comparisons.

Hi Beanlet

How different do you find the education of the children in the UK in comparison to Australia?

Is it still less pressurised?

It's really very difficult to compare, because all the states have their own, quite different education systems. But some states are going the league table route now, so I suspect they'll be just as pressurised soon enough, if there ever was a difference before. Having said that, although my mother is a headmistress in Oz, I myself haven't lived there for a while.

I'm not sure who this question was aimed at but

my opinion:

West Australian system very laid back. They only started 6 months later though. DD was ready to learn more but not given it. School in the UK is way more driven both from parents and teachers. In the school that we were at there wasn't standard practises. They were just deciding how they were going to teach phonics for example.

Culturally the UK is different. Due to the indoor aspect children have to be more contained. Activities have to be organised. Having the outdoors / space / less population per mile etc certainly gave children a sense of freedom. It took DC's a few weeks to understand their new boundaries i.e supermarkets (needing to stay closer, expectations of needing to sit still for longer periods and indoors). I know that I am fairly strict with what my kids can and can not do but I've had to tighten up here compare to Australia. Even if a curriculum was identical you'd have different approaches.

I'm tired so I am waffling and going off track. One of the differences to the education is how is is valued and viewed by the parents. There is a comfort in WA that you know that your kids can fail in school but still go on to learn a trade, do a bit of fly in fly out work and get themselves on the housing ladder, be ok. Due to space families are often bigger. This will indirectly affect the pace at which school moves.

Night night from a waffler :)

A little bump ...as we are approaching our return ...

i've looked into this some more since posting and chatted to some people in RL who have returned from the US. Their kids had no problems slotting back in and in some cases were ahead (eg confidence in presenting etc..). These were children returning to y4 and y7 after 2 years in US

That is good to hear amidawish thanks for that .

I still have to get over putting my 2nd grader in to year 4 ~my thing I still have to work on lol !

Doley now nearly a school year down and our yr5,3,2 and nursery kids have now all settled fine and caught up on anything they had missed. The only thing that has come to light is that yr2 DS did a math SAT test this last week and was upset as he didn't get the money question. Apparently school and us all forgot that he didn't do uk money when the rest of his class did so used to dollars and cents and couldn't recognise the money in the pictures to add it up and say how much change he should have left. Ooopps to us so just remember to do money with them at home

Happy moving

wheresthepimms Thanks for your up-date ,and I am glad to hear things are going so well for you :)

Yes,I thought about the money too ,thanks for the reminder ...my eldest had that in reverse when we first came here .

I think they have a very good math grounding in the US ,I am hoping that will help my son with the things he has not come across yet :)

Doley - should have noted to you I am mumof2girls2boys in disguise (got fed up of the other name and changed for the summer).

Quick one my DS said when I asked him this morning about the whole thing was, warn your kids about the national anthem and pledge, they don't do it here and that confused him