Moving from United States - Year 1 or Year 2?

[usmumhere]

I'm moving to the UK for work, and trying to navigate what level is appropriate for my 5 year old (Oct '19 birthday).

According to her age, she should be in Year 1. According to her abilities, she might be more aligned to the skills of Year 2.

She was moved up a grade (from Transitional Kindergarten to Kindergarten) this year because she was reading, writing, and doing maths far ahead of her peers. She completed this year at the top of her class despite being pushed ahead, and scored above national averages on the standardized tests administered just this past week. I feel awkward advocating for exceptions from the norm, but I do want to ensure she doesn't get too bored or find it frustrating to repeat what she's already mastered.

Is it possible to place a child above their age in primary school? Are there any other things I should consider? Thanks in advance especially for any tips if you've been through similar circumstances.

Very unlikely you’ll get a choice unless you’re paying to go private. Even then it’s extremely unlikely. It doesn’t work like the US system here, it’s purely based on age.

Put her into Y1. Even if she is academically above the rest of the class, it’ll give her a year to settle and adapt to the new system. The UK system has higher expectations at that age than the US system anyway, so she may not be as ahead as you’re expecting.

What state are you coming from?

Expectations are different. In the UK academic prowess is emphasized, but in the US, social and emotional skills are considered vital foundations.

Reception year translates to PK4 in the US, where children are expected to grow in leaps and bounds socially and emotionally to provide a solid foundation for kindergarten. Self care, self help, cooperative attitude in the classroom, ability to follow directions, ability to share classroom materials and treat them with respect, abikity to work well with others on group work and play peacefully/ solve interpersonal disputes without recourse to violence or hostile gestures, ability to listen closely to the teacher and contribute verbally and articulately to group discussions, ability to listen respectfully to classmates' verbal presentations, and ability and willingness to clean up after yourself are all emphasised.

I far prefer the American approach. The UK puts the cart before the horse imo.

How long will you stay in the UK?
Will you be returning to the US while your child is still in education?

Will your child be in the UK or US for high school?

Early days, for sure, but will your child be thinking about university in the US?

Trust the testing your child has done.

Trust the American system. If you can, send your child to an American / international school and give UK schools a wide berth.

There's very little understanding of the general.American approach to elementary education (or American education at any level, in fact) on Mumsnet, and a great deal of jingoistic rah rah about the superiority of a system where one third of school leavers end up functionally illiterate.

I tutor American and British (and Asian) third culture kids for a living. It's my bread and butter. My previous answer was based on that, and no less objective than when I pre-empt British expats that their children will likely not be able to keep up with Maths and Sciences in an Asian setting. You can "trust" whatever delusions you have but that doesn't change reality unfortunately.

The hothousing of children in Asian countries and academic forcefeeding in the UK both come at the expense of extremely important adjacent skills. The observations you've offered here based on your bread and butter have no bearing whatsoever on these vital elements of education.

The braying on this thread (and many others) about the 'more rigorous' and allegedly superior British early years approach is distasteful and the product of (ironically) inaccurate information and lack of any kind of rigorous examination of education in the US.

The systems are different. The fact that British children of eight may be able to identify a subjunctive clause, or whatever, doesn't make British education superior.

Whichever one you prefer is a matter of individual.preference, not objective truth. Preferring the American approach does not make me delusional. I've seen both ways, and I would choose the American way every time, hands down.

It's worth remembering that British youth are among the least happy in the world, according to a recent study, and a large part of the reason why is appalling school conditions (in terms of academic pressure and the sausage factory atmosphere), and complete lack of attention to the details that make schools positive places in which to learn - notoriously overcrowded classrooms, reliance on uniforms as an arm of discipline as opposed to proper, comprehensive pastoral care, and woefully inadequate SEN assessment and provision. So many elements that American schools do well, by contrast, and the reason they do so many of these details well is a willingness to spend money adopting evidence based practices in education.

@mathanxiety I personally prefer the Asian education system — a hell of a lot more critical thinking and divergent thinking, and it's telling that the #1 feeder to Oxbridge and the #1 feeder to Ivies in recent years (including in the humanities, law, etc) have been 2 state schools in Singapore, free to attend (nominally high fees but almost totally government subsidised for every single local student), outperforming the "best" UK private schools like Eton and Harrow.

But no system is without its flaws as you say. Pros and cons to every system, very obviously. That's not the point here however. OP is asking about academic difficulty and testing standards based on academic tests taken in America, not about other qualitative measures like socioemotional learning, or indeed about the comparative superiority of various systems.

The OP's child could have taken any of several standardised test formats. They don't all measure attainment - some measure ability and academic potential.

In particular, the CogAT is used as a predictor of academic success since it measures reasoning (as opposed to recall of specific knowledge) across verbal, quantitative, and non verbal batteries.

I'm not sure peope actually disagree with you. It's almost universally acknowledged, certainly within the education sector itself, that the current curriculum is too full, too desk based and developmentally inappropriate, especially in EY/KS1. That doesn't change the fact children entering the system would be working towards those academic objectives though.

It is rather a shame the OP hasn't returned to respond.

Yes, my first post specifically asked which test(s) OP's child took.

I don't think discussing different education systems is particularly helpful to the OP.

Noting that the systems are different and that a child is moving systems and what that could entail is what the OP needs information on.

Different systems have pros and cons, you can be ahead in one subject in system A or behind in the same subject in system B.

Finland is often cited as one of the best systems but school doesn't start until age 7.

If you were to compare the writing skills of a 6 or 7 year old child in Finland to one in the UK then the UK child will be 'ahead'. It does not indicate a better system just that the child has learned a skill at an earlier age.