::The background:
My sister's husband currently works in Saudi, it looks like they're about to qualify for family accommodation and my sister and their children will join him for a year initially.
My sister is in Scotland - one child has a December birthday and is relatively young in her year, currently S2 (second year of high school) the other has a June birthday and is relatively old in his year, currently P7 (final year of primary school). If this all comes together, they will attend a 'British' school in Saudi which seems to pretty much offer the English curriculum.
::The problem
She has spoken to someone who works in one of the 'British' schools and is now concerned that her older child wouldn't be able to join the third year of secondary school because she would be too young, and would therefore be 'put back a year' and that her younger child would be joining the second year of secondary (instead of the first year) because his age based cohort would be a year ahead - obviously neither of these options is desirable and in both cases would cause problems if they return to the UK after a year (which is likely).
::The question
Does anyone have any experience of transferring from the Scottish system to an English International school and of needing to ensure that the children enter the right year of their education - is it even a problem?
Our ignorance of English intake ages and 'years' isn't helping, so any light that the wisdom of MN can shed would be very gratefully received