Secondary schools in Heathfield

[MummyAil]

Considering a move to Heathfield in time for the new school year with 13 and 15 years old kids. Would be grateful if anyone who lives in the area can share any information on the secondary schools in the area.

Don't know the area but will your 15yo be going into year 11? If so it's not a great time to move students and you may struggle to find a school happy to take them.

Tbh even if going into year 10 (if birthday is 1 Sept I suppose they could be starting year 10 and aged 15) it's not an ideal time as options will have been chosen and they may have to compromise on choices.

If the 15 year old will be going into year 11, your priority has to be looking for best fit with the GCSEs they will be halfway through. It's not necessarily enough that they offer the same subjects. Other problems are:

• how the subjects are blocked - you might find that two subjects you child is doing are in the same timetable block, so can't be done together
• different exam boards - which for some subjects will mean syllabus differences
• order of teaching - current school may do the Shakespeare play in year 11, and potential new school might do it in year 10, for instance.

It's unlikely you'd find a perfect fit, which may mean dropping a subject, doing a lot of catch-up on bits of the syllabus they've missed, and/or lower grades than they might get if staying put.