Late school start because of moving to UK

[Polat78]

Hi. We are moving to UK in September and our daughter who is 5 will have to start year 1 late. Her mother tongue is not English although she does speak very little of it. We do expect that it will be hard to find a place in some schools. Also the fact that she will miss at least a month might bring some difficulties for her and for us. I was just wondering if there's anyone out there who has had the same or similar experience and perhaps want to share it. Thank you.

Children do amazingly well at picking up the language, and she'll catch up in time. DD had a friend in year 1 who settled very quickly. She seemed to have watched a lot of Cbeebies which helped with the language.

Availability of school places varies between areas, and she may not be able to go to the nearest school if it is full. One advantage of undersubscribed schools can be that they are more used to integrating children for whom English is not their first language; they may also have smaller classes.

When is her birthday?
I wonder, if she was born betwen April and end of August, you could talk to the school about delayed summer born admission. Normally you would have applied and deferred, but if she will only just be 5, it might be worth discussing. This would start her in Reception rather than Y1.

DH, whilst born in the UK, started school with his only English exposure being from TV. Hes thrived.

Depending on where you are moving to will affect how much school choice you have.

Good luck with the move

I work in a school where each class typically gets at least 3 new arrivals without English throughout the year (I can't remember working in a class where it was less than this; usually more). I had a boy arrive in a Y1 class in October, so at a similar time to your daughter. He didn't speak any English when he arrived, but picked it up very quickly. I had him again in Y4 and if you asked someone to pick out the child in the class who started in Y1 with no English, you certainly wouldn't've picked him!

Thank you very much.

Lots of children have arrived at my children's Catholic primary from all over - Poland, Italy, Romania etc and they pick up English super quickly. I have no idea how but they seem to manage ok.

My school has around 50% INAs arriving throughout any given year. The younger the child is, the quicker they pick up English, and they very quickly assimilate into school life. Don’t over think it. As soon as you have an English address, contact the Local authority for that area to ask about vacancies in schools.

Thanks for your help. I'm glad to have found a teacher here. If I may, what do you suggest we do at home in terms of preparation for English for our 5 year-old daughter to support her learning through this challenging time.

Thanks for your help. I'm glad to have found a teacher here. If I may, what do you suggest we do at home in terms of preparation for English for our 5 year-old daughter to support her learning through this challenging time ?