How do schools work in Scotland?

[CarpeJugulum]

We're in Scotland; DS is 18mo, so not planning on him going to school anytime soon! However, I was chatting with DH about schools in our area as a friend has a DC who is starting after the summer who can pick one of two schools and has been researching them.

DH is English, and can give me chapter and verse on English schools and how they work (or at least worked in his day!), but I'm a bit clueless about the Scottish system as it seems to have changed beyond recognition since my days at school about 20 years ago

Can some kind soul give me an overview of how they work now - or point me in the direction of a website that can? I've googled but am obviously not doing it right!

You will normally be in the catchment area for two schools - one Roman Catholic, the other not. But the other one isn't exactly secular, they tend to have an involvement with Church of Scotland for assemblies and Christmas services etc. But they don't assume any religious affiliation.

You will most likely be able to assume you'll get a place in those schools, but it's not absolutely guaranteed if they have problems about capacity.

You are also entitled to put in a "placing request" for any other school, and they will consider it, but you'll only get a place if they're not full from their catchment.

Apart from that, they start school in P1 at 4 and a half to 5 and a half. You can choose not to send him till the August after he turns 5 if you don't want ot, and he'd still start in P1, not like the system with Reception and Y1 in England.

I've just worked out if DS is 18mo then he's an October birthday? In which case he'd usually start at not-quite-5, but you'd have the option of him starting at not-quite-6 - but not many people take up that option, its much more common with January and February birthdays.

Yes, October .

I knew about the starting at almost 5 or almost 6, and based on his development so far, I don't think deferral is required.

We don't have any religious schools in the town - but there are two schools for which he could be in the catchment area; both seem to have a good reputation and there is a lot of intermingling which also appears to be a good thing.

It was more a rough idea of what the curriculum will be - although I appreciate that this may well have totally changed by the time DS gets there!

Ah, the curriculum has all changed recently, which may be why you're struggling to find details - the new version is called "Curriculum For Excellence" and there will probably be some info on the LTS (Learning and Teaching Scotland) website. They used to have the details about the old curriculum. But I think the tricky thing is it's much more down to schools and local areas to decide what they want to include in their syllabus now, so there isn't a set of real rules.

You could see if you can find any old links to the previous "5-14 curriculum" which is the old one. I'll bet most schools will be starting from what was on that when they try to make up the new ones

Cool. Will have a look at that and get an idea. DS seems to very into books and I'm doing the time honoured finger under the word reading, but want to have a look and see how reading is taught - I don't remember learning as I was reading before school due to the amount of reading parents did with me, so hoping DS will be the same.

Equally, I want to show him how to deal with long difficult words by sounding it out - but again this may be differently deal with now.

You don't automatically have the option to defer with an October birthday, they will usually be expected to start just before they turn 5..if you want to defer then you need a very good reason and most people are refused these days :)

Jolly Phonics is often the way for sounds and letters and many schools use the Oxford Reading Tree. But each school is different so they may use neither. My ds is an October birthday and is excelling at school. He's shy but capable of the work of the top group. He needs more confidence though. My dd is a January birthday who was deferred. She's sailing through school and more than ready to start high school in August.

Try looking at jolly phonics. My ds is in p1 now and this is what they use to start with.

Also, and I mean this nicely, just don't think about reading etc at the moment. I also have a dd who is 18 months, she loves books etc. I'm not even thinking about anything to do with reading. Her birthday is end of Sept so she'll be almost 5 when she starts. Ds wasn't 5 until end of Dec. We could have deferred him but didn't and tbh don't know anyone who did.

Legally, anyone can defer if their child has not had their 5th birthday by the start of the school year - but unless you have a good reason, you don't then get funding for an extra "preschool year" and that usually puts people off. Most areas will provide funding for children with January/February birthdays who defer, but apart from that you need to convince them of the reason.

But anyway, you're not planning to so it's not really an issue, I'm just keen to clarify the legal position for anyone else considering it.

Most Scottish schools use a mixture of phonics and reading schemes. But for the moment the important thing is to get him to think that reading is fun, and not to make a chore out of it. If he starts school with the idea that there are pages which turn, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that there are words and pictures which show what happens, then he'll be in a good position to learn to read from the teacher. If you and he are both keen to do more than that then you can, but do it because it's fun and not to get him "ahead" in terms of school.

Oh god, reading that I did sound a bit PFB about DS didn't I?!

I'm not planning to sit and force him to read with light in his eyes etc, it's more that (while I don't remember learning to read) I do remember reading with my mum and dad and watching the words go past as her finger moved IYSWIM and feeling quite proud of myself when I recognised a word.

DH and I are book worms so I guess we do want DS to enjoy reading too, but he won't be forced. I'm just much happier if I know what's going on and IF DS is learning to read, I'd rather not do something that will clash with the way the school is likely to teach him.

It depends which local authority you are in for whether or not you have lots of Roman Catholic schools. In Aberdeen there are only three Roman Catholic primaries and no specifically Roman Catholic secondaries. It is worth checking out your Local Authority website for info on how your LA works. I'm sure your local primary would meet with you too if you asked.

In my experience in aberdeen, your child will always get a space in the primary whose catchment area you live in. If you want your child to go to a different school you will have to convince the LA that there is a good reason for this - particularly if the school is close to capacity.

Also, I don't know any folk (outside those with particular SN) whose children have not got places in the same primary or secondary.

Reading Admissions threads on mn always makes me head ache. The English system seems to involve a ridiculous amount of stress. Here, if the most important thing to you is that your child goes to X Primary, you just move into that catchment and your child is guaranteed a place.

Aargh, started that post yesterday and didn't read the rest of the thread before I posted!

Oooh perfect thread! We are moving to Glasgow in Aug.

DS ws born Jan 2008, is he supposed to start school this Aug then?

Oh nad in Scotland you are entitled to a free nursery place from age 3 (have just applied for DD2 who will be 3 in October).

DD1 goes to an "out of area" school. She was entitled to a school place in out catchment area but out of area school easier for childcare etc. We just had to apply to it directly. Am hoping DD2 will get a place there too eventually. As said above each primary is associated with a secondary school - which DDs will automatically get a place in.

Seems so much more straightforward than the English system! (The only anomaly with our local primary school is that we live on a local authority border, so the school which is 2 minutes from our house is in a different LA area and we couldn't get DC in there)

Superscrimper- yes in august 2012 but you could apply for him to start aug 2013. Thing is you'll have missed the application deadline so not sure how that works...

Oh and our area is hellish for applications but I think that's fairly rare in Scotland. Too many children and not enough school places by a long way here :(

I'm hoping to get him into St Peter's in Paisley... have you heard anything about it?

HMI report isn't great, but it seems to be the closest to the area we will hopefully be in and is a Catholic school.

SuperScrimper yes he'd be entitled to a place in August this year. But it's not at all unusual for January birthdays to defer till the following year - I think we did a straw poll on here once and it was about 50/50 for starting at the earlier or later date. Just a case of what you think would be the better choice for him as an individual - some just seem more ready than others at that age!

I'm not in the West so haven't heard anything, sorry.

I think deferring is more common in some areas than others - when we were in Edinburgh it was common but I don't know anyone here who has done it and I know most of the younger ones because ds is/was one of them iyswim.

SuperScrimper - it might be worth having a look on the Glasgow MN Local page, to see if anyone knows about the school you're looking at, and it's probably worth getting in touch with the Council's education dept to see what your options are for applying/deferring.

Carpejugulum - on the reading thing, DS started showing an interest in 'learning letters' when he turned 3. We have some of the jolly phonics stuff at home which he can access whenever he likes and he's really enjoying learning some letters now (nearly 4). Jolly phonics seems to be what our local school uses.