Help! Moving from California... Where to live with three kids?

[SaturdaySunday]

We will be moving to London from California this July/August. Have a ds (15) will need secondary school, dd (5) need primary school and ds2 (2) home with me for now. Cannot afford independent schools so need to live somewhere with good state schools and reasonable chance of getting in.

Our criteria for schools: no uniforms, smaller size, ethnically diverse, great teachers and happy kids.

We can afford up to 2500 for 3 bedroom. DH will be working in Shoreditch (Garden Walk) and up to 40 minute commute okay, less is better. Want village-like feeling, safe, and access to great parks.

Our shortlist for now is: Greenwich, Islington, Canonbury. Any info on primary or secondary schools in these areas? Or other areas we should consider?

A lot to ask, I know! Thanks for any tips and thoughts you might have... This is an exciting move for us but very daunting digging through all the school and neighborhood info. Other similar threads I have seen are a few years old and assuming things might have changed. Thank you!

OP has said repeatedly that no way can she afford private. She has said on other thread her DS had a bad Freshman start (yr9) so no track record of being a genius that will get him nice scholarships, either. She does not want to HE.

It's sad she's going to be as appalled as I am at the crazy English system. I think it's doable long as her son isn't extremely ambitious, there is always a way.

Isn't it Harrow that has 100% outstanding at Secondary level? Does anyone have a link to the site that shows this in a map?

OP you may want to consider going to the secondary forum and asking there.

university funding in England is extremely generous for residents

Look into the California funding situation before you diss it, Kandy. By American standards the system here is A M A Z I N G.

OP has a thread going in secondary, I blew it by not seeing that before I posted my epic reply.

lljk I'm sure California is expensive and all. Here we're planning on spending £50k per child at university.

Didn't see the other thread, sorry. I think that finding a suitable secondary school is going to dictate where you live OP, it's easier to find nice primaries by comparison if your entry point is not Reception.

Having spent an hour last Sunday in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich talking about the woeful situation there with Primary school places I would avoid that area unless you are able to move right next door to a good primary and sit it out on the waiting list.

Northcote road area of Clapham is very expensive. Also not sure you would like it. My SIL is from Chicago and lived in Clapham and loathed it - found it grubby and dangerous and didn't like the hoards of drunk teenagers everywhere on Sunday afternoons. Nice shops though.

For Honeywell you would need to move right next-door as it's pretty much the most over-subscribed primary in S London.

When I was at school, we had a lot of exchanges with a college in USA and students were generally in Y10 age wise - the UK students were moved up a grade in the US and the US students were moved down to Y9. It was a grammar school which may have made a difference, but I think moving from the US into Y11 would be a HUGE shock.

To be honest, I would think very, very carefully about the long-term for your eldest son. A couple of years abroad is not going to be any kind of plus if he ends up messing up his chances of a decent university.

Socially, Y11 is a bad one as there are basically only 2 terms rather than 3 and many students will be going elsewhere at the end of the year. Teachers are going to be working like mad to get kids through the exams (league tables count) and will have much less time to help someone who is new to the whole thing.

Could you leave your son in the US and fly him over at holidays? Or could you delay your move here for a year or so?

Keep in mind that OP's notions of "decent" university may not be what MNers call "decent".

I went to SDSU. I think of it as a perfectly decent University. MNers would put it down as equivalent to dregs of ex-polys, though.

Ah, nuts, I keep posting in the primary thread, will try to keep all my comments on secondary one in future.

Hi OP. I am English, married to a southern Californian, and we live in Victoria Park. I have lived in Hackney/east London on and off for almost ten years and love it. DH works in Shoreditch / Hoxton and it's a fab commute from here- he walks or cycles along the canal (Regent's Canal). I would say quality of life in London is all about a a decent commute (cycling by far the best way to get around) so please don't underestimate the joy of being able to stay out of the traffic! And the area is really wonderful. Highlights for me are the park, which is huge and beautiful, with tennis courts, football pitches, two lovely new playgrounds, a skate pool, boating lake; London Fields Lido; Broadway Market; Brick Lane.

Be aware that if you're south of the park you'll be in the borough of Tower Hamlets, and north you'll be in Hackney - it will govern the availability of schools and other resources. We are in Tower Hamlets and though DD is too young for me to comment on schools, there is a really wonderful new Sure Start centre (Meath Gardens) that would be a great resource for you and your 2 year old.

££ wise, you'll get much more for your buck south of the park, try searching E3 (south, Tower Hamlets) vs E8 (north, Hackney) on Zoopla for a sense. Tower Hamlets is considered grottier, but that's not necessarily the case, there are some lovely streets and squares and I'd say it's where Hackney was a few years back, on the cusp of gentrification.

I know Stoke Newington really well too, it's also lovely, it has a busier high street (Church Street) and in some respects more going on, but feels a bit more crowded to me and I would say is less diverse. It's also been popular for longer so I'm not sure how far £2,500 a month would go. nuts, really.

Feel free to PM me if you think I could help more

eg this is round the corner from us and I would say is a good location. Quiet street, a stone's throw from the park and canal - west along the canal takes you to Broadway Market / London Fields, then Hoxton, Angel (Islington) and Camden and Regent's Park; east to the Olympic Park. I think something similar in Hackney / Stokey would be more like £3,500 a month.

thanks for all the good info. definitely looking into the neighborhoods and schools suggested.

i did also post on secondary schools which has been helpful for challenge of DS1 placement. thanks for all your two cents on that as well!

SaturdaySunday you cannot 'repeat a grade' in the UK state school system, you would have to go private for that. Which school year your child goes into is far more rigid in the UK than in the US, you have to stick to the correct school year to your age by law unless there are exceptional circumstances- by these I mean SEN/disabilities affecting education.

For example, my DFD is 16, born April 1997. In September 2001, when the school year starts, she would have been 5 by 31st August 2002, so she started reception that year, along with all other children who turned 5 between 1st September 2001 and 31st August 2002. Year 1 is for 5 turning 6, Year 2 for 6 turning 7, etc. In September 2013 when your DS will be entering the UK school system, Year 10 will be for 14 turning 15 between 1st September 2013 and 31st August 2014, and Year 11 will be for 15 turning 16 between those same dates. Therefore if turning 16 in mid September 2013, your DS will be put into Year 11 in any UK state school, regardless of the fact he has missed half of the GCSE course (year 10, or potentially 2 years of the course if the school starts GCSEs in year 9). This is non-negotiable.

My DFD started school in the UK, then did a few years in an American Middle School before coming back to the UK, but she moved back before secondary school so swapping curriculum wasn't really an issue. That said, she did find it very difficult to adjust at first; many aspects of the two systems are different. This is why I wonder as a secondary school teacher if you would be better going private/paying for an international school.

I teach GCSE pupils; the problem with a child going straight into year 11 without doing year 10, as your DS would be doing, is the fact that they have missed half of the course. It's not like in US High School where as I understand it from DFD all classes/grades are no longer than a year, with GCSEs, modules and controlled assessments completed in year 10 all make up part of the overall GCSE. So if your DS was to come straight into year 11 and just do the work that year, no matter how well he did in his year 11 exams and coursework he wouldn't be able to get good grades with 50% ish of the modules/controlled assessments uncompleted. There's also a lot of variation in terms of subject matter- even within UK schools, options from the exam boards in terms of what is studied in certain subjects, such as History and English, and how it is studied in sciences, mean that even swapping schools within the UK in year 11 would be a logistical nightmare.

It's a slightly different situation, but my DFD (year 11) came back into school a couple of months ago after missing the last month of year 10 and all of year 11 up until that point. The options she was given were to resit her GCSEs the following year in the school's 6th form alongside AS levels/btecs (only an option because it was so late in the year and because she had previously been a school dropout) or to work ridiculously hard between then and exams starting to catch up. She went for the work ridiculously hard and catch up to sit her exams this year option, which has meant rushing through controlled assessments after school, and sitting extra modules on top of the usual ones this summer, meaning she has extra to revise for including things she is learning for the first time during the revision process.

The point I'm trying to make is that although doable (perhaps, I'll reserve judgement until DFD gets her GCSE results!) catching up with missed GCSE work in order to meet the requirements to get the grades is an absolute nightmare for all involved. I've taught a fair few students who have moved to the UK in the past, but I've never had one arrive in year 11. Parents tend to avoid moving in that school year and go in Year 10/Year 12 instead just because otherwise their child arrives when everyone else has completed half of each of their GCSEs already and being held back a year in a state school (where I teach) is not allowed. As a secondary teacher, if I had your DS in my class next September I'd be very worried about him tbh.

There are various private tutorial colleges where children can do GCSE in a year. If you rented a propety in St Albans for a lot less than £2500 then you could afford to send your son to a private sixth form college. Your son could do some one year GCSE courses and then transfer to state school for sixth form.

www.stalbanstutors.com/

St Albans is a lovely place with some fanastic state schools. It has excellent links with London.

This looks like a nice 4 bed house.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-38064922.html?premiumA=true

i just posted the following question on the other secondary thread. in case you have something to add, please do...

Can someone please explain what would happen if my ds did wait a year to attend school there? If he skipped this whole craziness of entering at Y11 and waited to arrive until Y12, what would then be the process? Would he still be required to take the GSCE or another placement test?

No, he would just start AS levels. As I'm sure you know, age 14 - 16ish (years 10 & 11) = GCSEs. 16 - 18 (years 12 & 13) = A levels, or more accurately, AS levels - A level refers to the old two year course, which has gradually be replaced by a modular system of AS levels, that is a modular system that can be taken for the first year only - AS - or continued for the second year - A2, for the equivalent of the old A level).

There is no requirement to take A levels, as compulsory education ends at 16. There are therefore no subject requirements at A level, you can do what you like, though not all schools offer all subjects, some will have specialisations, and combinations will be governed by the school's ability to timetable them.

Generally you need to have studied the appropriate subject to age 16 to study it at A level (though this isn't always the case, as some subjects aren't usually available to A level, eg economics, philosophy). But, the strictness of defining school year by age trumps this and young people coming in from other systems go into the year appropriate to their age. It would be at the discretion of each school / 6th form college to assess whether his US transcripts and decide if they're happy for him to take the course.

All this to say, it would be much, much easier and would work well in the sense that year 12 is the start of a new syllabus for all students, is a time when many young people change schools / move to college, so easier to fit in, and academically can be a 'complete' year in a way that years 10 and 11 can't. The downside in terms of the UK vs US system would be the limited number of subjects he could study (4 or 5, usually) - this is the early specialisation that other posters have talked about. You say he wants to go to college in the US - he should talk to a good admissions office eg UCLA about meeting general ed requirements, if any, and you should look carefully at the maths departments, as I'd say he'd have to do maths AS to stay on course for his SATs, and the standard here is variable and can be lower than in the US. In fact, because A level is a bit more specialised, you'd need to be looking at schools in terms of how well their teaching strengths match his interests.

HTH!

He still will find it hard to be allowed to start A levels though, unless he brings an equivalent US qualification to GCSEs with him. I teach in a non selective state school, and we require 5 C grade or above passes at GCSE, and an extra interview if you don't have maths and English. A sixth form college might take him, but almost certainly only to do GCSEs rather than A levels. I actually reckon that is your best option for sept, find some colleges that will take from 14+, and pop him on the single year courses for retakers. Negotiate hard with them as to why he should be allowed on those courses, point out they have 14 yos on day release from school etc. It will be hard, but if you limit him to about 5 or 6 GCSEs then it should be doable. He must take English, maths and a science at least

OP, please distinguish between academic 6th form colleges and FE colleges.

I might get flamed, but I think the learning environments in FE colleges are really not what you want for your son. Sounds like he is on a roughly academic path (ie aiming for higher education) but has had a few wobbles. An FE college could be a disaster for him, academically and socially - with their intake it's unlikely he will be challenged academically, or find a cohesive group of friends. Everyone is placing a lot of emphasis on him getting his GCSEs - but is this a good idea if he ends up trying to churn through a two year course at top speed, or spinning his wheels retreading ground he's already covered at home?

As long as you're not talking about him missing or sitting out the next year of school - he has to be in one system or the other, so are you talking about him staying in the US while you come over here? or home schooling / distance learning? - I don't see why you can't negotiate hard with a non selective state school. You're coming from an English speaking country and the standard in the US for some things at 15/16 eg maths is on the whole higher. He will have maths and english.

I meant him staying in US for first year as many have recommended. This would not be my first choice obviously. I'm just trying to understand the system, if that's even possible.

Is there any way of delaying the move until September 2014 OP? That would solve the GCSE problem at least.

If your DH is working in Shoreditch he could commute into either Old Street (Northern Line/National Rail) or Shoreditch High Street (Overground). Both are a short walk from Garden Walk. That gives quite a few options on the First Capital Connect Line to some suburban areas outside London (I think it goes up to Welwyn Garden City) - a bit sleepier than the capital, but you'd get more value for money and possibly less pressure on school places. You could consider somewhere else along the line like New Barnet or Potters Bar.

The Overground station has connections towards Highbury & Islington (northbound) or towards New Cross/Clapham Junction/West Croydon (southbound). Probably wouldn't be able to go north towards Highbury as property would be too expensive, but there are some good options going south.

I'd be taking his workplace as a starting point and looking at the network route maps to find somewhere that is a straightforward commute - some places suggested here are pretty tough commutes to do on a daily basis, and it can take longer to get to some places than you'd think, and conversely some destinations further outside are a quicker (but expensive) commute due to fast trains. If you can avoid any station changes that will make life much simpler!

Personally I'd disagree with rootypig about cycling to get around but that's a matter of personal preference - I find London drivers too hostile and seen too many near misses to want to cycle every day here.

If your ds is effectively just going to be in the UK for 3 years then move back to the US is there no way he can go to an international school for these 3 years?
He would be my top priority in this move as it is far from ideal for him by the sounds of it.
If he has a clear idea of what job he wants to do later this would make things much much easier though - does he?

Nobody else but me has mentioned IGCSEs, which is weird.
The OP's child can attend yr11 purely for social and transcript reasons.
And take 2-5 IGCSEs (2 part exams over 2 dates) that will effectively give him the qualifications he needs to get into a 6th form college & do A2s.
Meanwhile do PSATs & SATs on the schedule he would back in CA.
It is doable if the lad is motivated to do a bit of self-study.
OP is lucky to be in London where SATs & PSATs are accessible.
It is workable.
It is good enough for nearly all UK universities, as well as American ones.
It will cost £££, but less than having a bored teenager with no friends at home will, I bet (and far less than a private school).
Flexi-schedule with GCSEs probably also be possible, to get some GCSEs via twilight options from the school timetable, too.
5 decent GCSEs is all the boy needs.

OP, I agree with lljkk that I think being in y11 and taking a full load of GCSEs is being conflated. If I were you, I would aim to get him into y11 and negotiate a manageable workload. he doesn't need 10 GCSEs, whether in the UK or US higher education system. he just needs 1. to keep up his learning in critical subjects (you don't say what he's interested in studying in college, if not lib arts, that might make a difference) and 2. to get into 6th form.

If that sounds like the best route, then you and DS need to consider whether he'd like to try to get a place for y11 at a school that has a good 6th form (that will agree to the plan) so that he doesn't have to 'move' after a year, or whether doing say IB or A levels at a 6th form college like City and Islington would suit him and he's willing to make the switch between y11 and 12. Though thinking about it, you can hedge your bets and settle on a school that he likes with a good 6th form, and once he's here and in y11, there's nothing to stop him applying to 6th form colleges if that's what he'd prefer.