Moving into the UK system from overseas

[vicarc123]

Hello,
We live overseas and although we are from the UK we decided to send our child to a German Kindergarden (a formal German School overseas) . He is now 5 and I know he would have started reception this year but by the German system he would not be starting primary school until well into his 6th year. They do not believe in formal teaching until then so he is happily messing around in kindergarden without learning to read or write. We read to him a lot and we do various activity magazines but nothing formal yet. What I wanted to know is this, am I heading for a whole heap of problems if we returned to the UK. Is the private system more accommodating and what kind of treatment can I expect if I show up with a child who's nearly 7 and has never been to primary school. The German system believes children should have their time to be children and that they are not ready for primary school until 6 or 7, I respect that but I do need to know the consequences of my decision.

We had a similar situation, returning to the UK from Norway. Our son went straight from nursery in Norway, to Year 2 in London, with children who were starting their third year in school (reception, and year 1 already behind them). Our son spoke some English, but was primarily speaking Norwegian.

He spent Y2 catching up, and learning to read. He had extensive help, both from the learning coordinator, and from the teaching assistants with reading, as reading and writing was the key to start learning. They gave him extra reading and writing homework. By the end of Y3 he had caught up, and by the end of Y4, he was above national average in all subjects.

Doing it like this has not been disadvantaged him at all. Just make sure that the school will make an Independent Plan for him, so that they put him on a fast reading program.

Keep doing what you are doing with the alphabet. It will also help for him to start learning to write the letters, small and capitals alike.

I would say the key thing is that he speaks the language.

Out of the children we know of who have moved here from overseas the ones who speak English are doing fine even if they couldn't read or write a huge amount of it but the ones who can't speak the language find it a lot harder, especially in making friends and confidence.

PERSONALLY I would do the alphabet and phonics with him, I don't see that as losing childhood, I see it as opening up the whole world of books and discovery.

So he is fully bilingual? You speak English at home and he has German at school?

If this is the case, then he is already cognitively more advanced than many of his peers and his brain with have a jump on learning and acquiring new skills.

Will good input from you and a rich, verbose, interesting home life with lets of talk, stories, days out etc, I know he will fly!

I am an educational consultant for a local authority and I work with English as additional language kids and ethnic minoroties.

You could start looking at phonics, hairy letters (app) is good as is the jolly phonics website, look at the parents sections. Also look at the book start website for ideas on reading for pleasure and reading skills for young kids.

My DC also attended an International Kindergarten in Germany.
Same curricumn as Germany bit delivered in English.

They loved it and really enjoyed those 2 years.

They started primary aged 6.5 years old.

I think moving them to the UK during year 2 UK would have meant they spent a while catching up.

However DC2 moved to a UK school in September last year.

He had completed 2 years of Kindergarten And 4 years of primary.

He was tested on arrival and his maths is over a year ahead and his reading much further (reading age 4 years above his chronological age).

Where we have seen the gap is his Written English.

Hope this helps.

My DD is in year 6 at a school where many children from abroad. She has had children join from Dubai, Mumbai and continental Europe.
In year 6 you can't tell who started in the UK and who didn't. As an observation the child who struggled the most came from Mumbai having been in a very strict school very similar to 1950s UK - playing was their biggest challenge.