Scotland - school has changed teen’s name

[NameProblem]

We are in Scotland where some things work a bit differently. My 16 year old has decided they are trans and have asked school to use a different name and pronouns. They have not changed either at home or anywhere else. Some friends use new name, others use old name.

However, school have informed us that because the school have changed teen’s name officially on their system, their exam certificates will be issued in August in the new name. Having looked up Qualification Scotland’s webpages, it looks like this is totally accepted. My problem is that this means their certificates do not match their legal name, Young Scot card etc.

Is there anything I can do?

I don't think there is if your child is 16.

The law in Scotland states that you can change your name over the age of 16 and use it as long as there is no 'intent to deceive'.

If they subsequently change their name by deed poll they will have the deed poll certificate along with their birth certificate, and can have their Young Scot card amended, then everything will match or relate to their new name and it shouldn't cause them any trouble.

You could contact Bayswater and see if this is a legal issue. It could cause issues further down the line if your child desists

Thank you both. I think what I’m concerned about is that teen doesn’t have any desire to change their name anywhere else eg by deed poll and that may cause some issues when applying to uni as their certificates will be in a different name to everything else.

However, I think the legal position is as @Coffeeandallthebooks states which I suppose means I just have to have the conversation at home when we get to that point. The school did state that they had sought advice on changing teen’s name and that they had to do it as they are over 16. But I would have preferred them to do a “known as” amendment not a full change.

You could try suggesting that they retain their old name until their qualifications are complete, as if they then choose to change their name by deed poll they have a clear audit trail to prove both names are them.

I know they don't want to now, but I'd suggest if they get married or get a degree it might be important to them to have their name of choice officially for that purpose. It would be easier if they just had one change at that point. Present it very much as an admin/paperwork issue they can avoid now to prevent problems later.

I had a change of surname due to a family situation yonks ago under SQA (between S5 and S6) and it was a bloody nightmare. I am very surprised to hear that the new authority would accept a name without documentation? Someone on Scotsnet may be able to help?

Have you expressed your concerns about the names not matching to the school or the QA?

As far as I can remember, when your child applies through UCAS in S6, they provide the names and codes of the exams they have sat, and their SQA code. I think Unis can log in and check to make sure kids have the grades they are claimimg. However, if the application is from John Smith and the SQA site says Jane Smith, I'm not sure what they would do about that.

Having invigilated in the last exams, the rules are that invigilators check that the names on the exam papers match the register of candidates supplied by the school. We are allowed to ignore small issues like James/Jimmy or Victoria/Vicky as it's clearly the same child but that's as far as name checking goes. If the school has written than name as Jane Smith and that's what is on the paper too, that's what'll be on the certificate. School should most definitely advised of the consequences of the name change. I'm not sure how you'd even go about getting exam certificates changed, you'd need to speak to Qualifications Scotland.

For me, that’s the confusing thing. For any other reason for changing name, you need the legal documentation first (like deed poll) then the school will change. However, for changing names due to being transgender, all the school need is the student to say that they wish a new name to be used. And that’s then actioned!

I’ve looked through Qualification Scotland’s website and it appears that is the case. And in one sense I understand why but it does then have all these other issues and I’m not sure the school really explained them to my child and we didn’t find out until it had all happened.

We talked to the school at the time but to be fair we hadn’t fully appreciated some of the other implications so didn’t specifically ask. The approach of the school was “isn’t this wonderful that we can do the name change so easily and their certificates will be in their new name. That will make student very happy”.

That’s really helpful information so I’ll double-check with child what they put on their script. It does look like we can get the name changed on the certificates to original name at a later date if needed but I’m unsure of quite how the process will work when we have no documentation in the new name. But that will be a task for later. Some more fact-finding needed first.

Thank you to everyone for your help, it is very much appreciated